Estimate in the cloud refers to InEight's hosted estimating solution on the InEight Cloud Platform.
Estimate on-premise refers to InEight's estimating solution deployed in a customer's local environment.

Estimate on premise 19.2 Release Notes

This release of InEight Estimate greatly improves the layout and operation of the Quote Management system including the Quote Compare and Award form. In addition to quote management improvements, Sub-Assemblies were added to the Cost Item Assemblies form. Other enhancements to Estimate include navigation and filtering as well as many other improvements.

• Quote Management – Quote Management has a new look and feel designed for tracking the information you need. The Quote Management system improves visibility into how multiple quotes affect the estimate, while also increasing your efficiency in selecting the quote that provides your estimate with the best value. Read more

  Quote Record enhancements

  When multiple quotes are received on a job, more meaningful information is shown. New fields were added to the Quote Record such as the External Reference field, which can contain plain text or a hyperlink to the source document stored in your document management system. Other new fields include:

  • Source
  • Date
  • Optional Code
  • Ignore Quote and Reason

  The Quote Record now utilizes data blocks that allows you to reposition tabs, detach tabs into individual windows, and redock the tabs in new locations. Using the data blocks layout, you can easily input and maintain important quote data such as in the Vendor Qualifications or Special Terms & Conditions data blocks.

  

  Multiple package prices per quote

  In this release, Estimate now provides you with the ability to include multiple package prices for a single quote.

  When taking quotes for subcontracted work, it is common for sellers to provide prices as a single package price for several scopes of work. Multiple package prices may even be provided within a single quote.

  

  Quote Compare and Award enhancements

  The Quote Compare & Award form was revised to improve the process of selecting the quote that brings the greatest value to the estimate. These improvements include:

  • Improved layout making it easier to read and understand what quotes are being carried in the estimate.
  • Standard register style functionality including the ability to print, print preview, and export to Microsoft Excel.
  • Multi-select cost items within the selected quote groups to make awards, copy and paste to Microsoft Excel, or copy and paste to another application.
  • Tool tips provide better visibility into the source of quoted amounts or substitute values.
  • Select Configure Totals in the Actions tab to control which Summary rows are visible and sorted based on ascending (high) or descending (low) values.
  • Toggle to display ignored quotes.
  • Edit Package Prices directly from the Quote Compare & Award form.
  • Use data blocks to undock and move quote groups to provide more screen space for comparing and reviewing quotes.

    

  Other quote improvements

  • If a delta indicator shows on the quote, you can hover over it to view the reason for the quote delta. The reason can also be viewed in the Quote register.
  • Bond and tax amounts can be entered on a quote as a rate or as a total amount.
  • Sellers can be marked as Do Not Use in the Address Book, warning estimators that there may be a problem with the vendor they are receiving a quote from.
  • When creating a new job from a copy of another job, you can choose to not include the source jobs quotes in the new job.

• Cost Item Assemblies – The Cost Item Assemblies form is improved to provide you with more manageable features, such as the new Sub-Assembly feature which allows cost item assemblies to be used in other cost item assemblies. Read more

  Sub-Assemblies

  With the Sub-Assemblies feature now added to the Cost Item Assemblies form, you can easily create and maintain cost item assemblies that model construction systems and contain multiple complex calculations.

  A sub-assembly can be created within a cost item assembly by simply inserting it as a subordinate cost item.

  Sub-assemblies enable the Cost Item Assemblies feature to be more modular, allowing you to maintain smaller, simpler versions of cost item assemblies and reuse them in multiple places.

  The cost item assemblies input values can then be assigned to the sub-assembly input values for you to answer a question only one time. For example, when providing the total square footage of a wall system, the single input can be used by the cost item assembly and its sub-assemblies.

  Sub-assembly input values can be sorted and shown conditionally based upon your inputs. Then you can employ a cost item assembly which only views the questions that are relevant. For example, a question in the cost item assembly could be, "Is insulation required?". If the answer to the question is yes, then a sub-assembly that defines the cost of installing insulation gets included in the cost item assembly. If the answer is no, then the sub-assembly is not included.

  

  Formula Editor

  The Formula Editor now utilizes color coding to easily distinguish the different parts of a complex formula. To view specific variable field information, select the variable in the Formula Editor to navigate to the Variable Name and show the Field Information. You can also show the same variable field information by hovering over the same variable you want to view in the Formula Editor.

  

  Other Cost Item Assemblies enhancements

  Other enhancements made to the Cost Item Assemblies feature include:

  • Table-type inputs no longer require you to open the Table selection register. Instead, you can simply type values into the Cost Item Assembly Employment dialog.
  • When the Quantity (Less Waste) field is linked to a null calculation value, a Resource Employment is removed from the cost item assembly.

• User experience – The user experience in this release includes improved register filtering, new customizable features for the ribbon navigation, and the expand/collapse function for the Cost Category tree. Read more

  Improved register filtering

  You can use filters as an easy way of pairing down the number of records in a register to only the records you want to work with. Select the Filter icon in a column header to display a checklist of items that can be filtered in the register. The list now stays populated with all the currently applied filter criteria. If you want to modify the filter, you do not have to clear the current filter and reapply a new filter. Now you can simply reopen the filter checklist and re-select the items you want to filter. Other improvements made to the register filtering include:

  • A search box to easily find the values you need while also providing more options to define filter criteria for date and value type columns.
  • Values Filters displays a data range bar that can measure the specific amount you want to filter. For example, your Unit Cost column can have the cost amounts from 0.00 to 256.00. With the data range bar or the From and To data boxes, you can input the values that you want to filter between.
  • Numeric Filters provide an operation you can use to measure the amount you want to filter. For example, if you want to search between 0.00 and 50.00, select the between operation, and then enter in the numeric values in the preferred fields.
  • Custom Filters allows you to create a filter statement based on the and/or statement, operator, and value of your preference. You can also save, load, or manage these custom filters.
  • In Date Filters, you can filter any date column to sort by day, month, and year on the Values tab of the filter. If you select the Date Filters tab, you will also be able to filter by the previous, current, next day, week, month, or year.

  

  Ribbon navigation

  New customizable features were added to this new release of Estimate in addition to the ribbon navigation. New customizable ribbon navigation features include:

  • Within the Cost Item Record, the Actions tab now contains the Workbook actions of Link Field when selecting one item and Link Fields, which only becomes active when multiple items are selected. Unlink Field is also included.
  • The column Ribbon Name was added to the Access Control register indicating the location of commands based on the new navigation.
  • Options previously available exclusively through the right-click context menu was added to the Actions tab where applicable.

  Expand/Collapse function

  You can quickly access the Expand and Collapse function simply by right-clicking the Cost Category tree. The Expand and Collapse function has also been added to the CBS tree. This update allows you to avoid navigating to the Actions tab and performing multiple clicks along the way.

• Split by Cost Type – It is common for an estimate to progress through multiple levels of detail. Often a high-level estimate for a particular scope of work consists of a single cost item inclusive of the entire cost of that work in a single line item. Read more

  As the estimate is further refined, more detail is added and at times it can become necessary to split a cost item by the four main types of costs that make it up, such as separating the material cost from the installation cost.

  The Split by Cost Type feature gives you the ability to select a cost item or a collection of cost items, and then separate any of the labor, equipment, material, or subcontract costs into separate cost items.

  

• Work Breakdown Structure – The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) allows you to easily reorganize the estimate using different formats such as Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) MasterFormat or UniFormat. Read more

  WBS formats are used when you need multiple variations and summary reports of an estimate. The WBS retains the same relationships between items as in the original estimate while only changing the view and items arrangement in the WBS hierarchy. Some improvements to the WBS include the following:

  • A subordinate cost item can now inherit the parent cost items’ WBS assignment. This feature saves you time by automatically inputting the WBS parent value rather than you having to manually add the parent WBS.
  • When creating a new WBS within a Work Breakdown Structure record, the Hierarchy Separator now uses a period as the default separator.
  • Similar to the Cost Breakdown Structure register, the Work Breakdown Structure View register can filter to a specified WBS level.

  

• Estimate job templates – Job Templates provides you the ability to maintain a list of template jobs that can be used to create new jobs. Read more

  As your company grows and increases the number of jobs to bid on, the need to standardize the estimating process increases to ensure consistency and reduce the chance of information being overlooked. Other job template enhancements include:

  • You can add the description in addition to the code for any new job you are creating from a template. This description is later added to the Overview tab of the new job on the Job Properties form.
  • In the Bid Wizard, you can now select a template within the Job Selection register.

  

• Other improvements – This release provides many improvements to current features including Archive/Restore, Snapshots, and many more. Read more

  Archive/Restore

  A new default archive type was added. The BACPAC archive was added as the default archive option to replace SQL Script archives. BACPAC archives provide similar functionality as the SQL Script with improved performance.

  

  Snapshots

  A job snapshot is a copy of an estimate job that provides read-only access to the job as it existed at a specific point in time. New filter functions allow you to filter the Snapshot register to jobs containing snapshots.

  The Snapshot register has some additional columns as well. In addition to the Code, Description, Last Saved, and Version column, the Snapshot register now contains all fields that are present on the Jobs register that provides you with an easier way to group, sort, filter, and find the jobs you need. The new columns include:

  • Last Saved
  • Location
  • City
  • Owner
  • Bid Time

  

  PBS Changes register

  For visibility to additional information shared between the PBS Changes and CBS register, the following columns were added to the PBS Changes column chooser:

  • CBS Tags 1-25
  • CBS User Defined Fields 1-15

  These new columns can be added to any register view using the column chooser. Tags that are copied from the CBS have the prefix label CBS to distinguish between CBS tags and PBS tags. All CBS Tag/UDF fields are read-only and include standard register functionality to permit sorting, grouping, filtering, and searching.

  Job Tracking

  To add more information to the Job Tracking register, new columns were added to both the Cost Items tab and Accounts tab. These columns can be added to any register view using the column chooser. The following new columns were added:

  • CB-Labor Cost/Man-Hour
  • As-Built Labor Cost/Man-Hour
  • OB-Total Forecast Cast Variance
  • OB-Total Forecast Cost Variance %

  Reports

  Improvements made to the Reports feature include the following:

  • When generating a Job Properties report, the column captions are now pulled from the custom caption values to match the view of the fields in the Job Properties form.
  • The check box Hide Zero quantity/cost Resource Employments was added to the Resource Utilization report. The default of this check box is unchecked. If the check box is selected, the printed report does not show any resources that have a dollar value of zero.
  • The Pay Item Price Breakdown report now has a Settings option. This drop-down list allows you to save your individual settings. The Pay Item Price Breakdown report also includes a Cost Category tree providing the ability to select multiple cost categories for the report.

  Data Warehouse

  Field caption names were added into the Data Warehouse to easily identify the fields whose captions may have been customized.

  DOT pay item import/export

  The Pennsylvania DOT was added to the import and export routine. The DOT file format was updated. Estimate now supports working with the Project Bids software application to import and export DOT pay item files electronically.

  Trench Calculator

  When copying cost items in a job or from job to job, the Trench Calculator variable data is included with the data being copied. When a cost item is copied to the clipboard, Trench Calculator variable data is also included.

  P6 integration

  During a Primavera integration synchronization, activity tags are updated at the end of the Primavera sync with a visual indication that the rest of the sync is complete.