Component Creation from Scratch

In this topic, you will create a new component from scratch in InEight Plan.

Why Create Components?

In InEight Control, a direct cost item (WBS phase codes) has a quantity that is the sum of many components with smaller quantities which are created in InEight Plan. For example, a structural steel cost item measured in tons is made up of many pieces of steel, each with a specific weight (in tons). When claiming work complete, you could calculate the weight of each piece of steel installed and claim that much at the WBS level.

• If you did this, how would you know what work is complete and what specific work is remaining?

• What have you already claimed and what have you not?

• What if a Foreman doesn’t have the time to weigh each piece of steel before installing, or what if he weighs incorrectly?

This is why you create components. Components allow you to break down the WBS quantity into smaller, more manageable sub items for claiming. When you claim components, you can easily see what specific items have been completed and what is remaining. You do not have to guess at what has already been claimed to date. Foremen do not need to do any calculating in the field; they simply report the components they completed. Components already have an assigned quantity based on takeoff calculations.

• Can you think of how components would help claiming of other disciplines like Pipe, Electrical, or Concrete?

• How are these disciplines measured vs how is the work performed?

Components aim to bridge that gap.

Types of Components

There are several types of components in the Quantity Tracking module:

• Activity

• Material

• Assembly
• Contract

You can create activity, material, and assembly components directly in Plan. Contract components can only be created indirectly from InEight Contract.

These different types let you claim procurement activities and construction activities separately. To do this, material cost and labor cost must be broken out in separate WBS codes. If that is the case, you can add the same steel components as activity components and material components as pictured below:

When you create components for both the material and activity, you can then earn hours based on a unit rate for the activity, and earn dollars based on material unit cost for the material and assign them to two separate WBS codes.

Component types are shown with different color schemes:

• Activity: Blue

• Material: Gray

• Contract: Metallic purple

• Assembly: Forest green

Assembly Components

You can combine activity and material components into assembly components. An assembly allows claiming to roll up into one parent record.

For example, if you are building a wall using 2x4s, you might have the following components:

• Material of 2x4s
• Activity of cutting 2x4s to lengths from rough cut
• Activity of labor to assemble 2x4s into wall

If you create a new assembly component to build a 2x4 wall, you can set the parent record of the material and labor activities to be the assembly. If you set the parent record of the cutting activity to be the material, the cutting activity also becomes part of the assembly. Using assembly components and parent records lets you create hierarchies of components so that claiming rolls up into one record. The new Assembly column shows which assembly each component belongs to.

When you edit an assembly or material component, you can use the Related Components tab in the slide-out panel to associate existing components. Only associated components lower in the hierarchy are shown.

You can only add associations from the Related Components tab. To remove an association, you must edit the Parent record field of the associated component.

Contract Components

Contract components cannot be created directly in Plan. A Schedule of Values (SOV) item from Contract automatically becomes a contract component in Plan if the SOV is not set to hide in Plan and Progress.

In Quantity tracking, a contract component's basic details from Contract cannot be edited. You can associate a contract component to an assembly.

You can assign a contract component to a claiming scheme by adding a claiming scheme to the Contract discipline in Actions > Manage claiming schemes. You can then edit a contract component to change the claiming scheme. A contract component can only be in the Contract discipline. See Claiming Scheme Creation for more information on how to add a claiming scheme.

Methods of Creating Components

There are four methods for creating activity, material, and assembly components:

Component Creation
From Scratch	Create each component manually using the new component slide out panel.
Import Template	Import multiple components into InEight Plan simultaneously.
Copy	Create one new component from an existing component.
Split	Create multiple new components from an existing component.

Component Attributes

When creating components, a number of fields called attributes are available to be filled out. It is not necessary to fill out every single field, but the more information input, the better. Attributes help make tracking components easier. In many cases, depending on the size of the job, you may have hundreds of thousands of components. In such a case, it can be difficult at times to distinguish the differences between components if only a few attributes are filled out.

Validated Fields

You will rely heavily on certain component attributes for reporting purposes. For these attributes, it is important that data integrity is maintained. 

For example, the area and system fields are commonly used for reporting. For these fields, it is important that the area and system entered are always spelled and formatted exactly the same way every time. Imagine a scenario where the data entered for the area field is spelled and formatted five different ways by five different users. In this case, when a report is run for areas, the report will only identify the data that is spelled and formatted one of the five ways. All data for the other four will be left out and your report will be missing crucial information.

To solve this problem, validated fields are used. Validated fields are simply a pre-defined list of values that populate into a drop-down menu. Instead of making these fields free text fields, a drop-down list is utilized. This drop-down list is maintained in the Configure CWA and project values page. You access the Configure CWA and project values page from the Actions menu on the Components page in Quantity tracking.

Location

In the Location section of the Configure CWA and Project Values page, you can add a construction areas, construction segments, and commodities as data validated tag values to assign to components. Examples of construction areas are North and South. An example of a construction segment is Phase 1. Examples of commodities are rebar and steel. These can then be used to map your components for reporting.

Depending on how your project is set up, if you assign a component to a work area in Work packaging, the component's location is updated to match the work area and cannot be edited in Quantity tracking. The setting that controls this behavior is called Automatically inherit CWA to component from assigned work package.

Engineering

In the Engineering section of the Configure CWA and Project Values page, you can associate turnover packages and systems of work such as fire, water, sprinkler system etc. to a component. You can further define subsystems for a component.

Depending on your permissions, you might not be able to edit these component attributes. This list will typically be maintained by an administrator. If you need the drop-down list for a validated field updated, contact your system administrator.

Using Component Attributes

Back on the Quantity tracking Components page, you can add the component attribute columns to your view. Clicking into a field under one of the component attribute columns provides the drop-down values for the attribute as defined previously on the Configure CWA and Project values page.

Split Contract Components

You can split a contract component into new smaller components. In Quantity tracking you can select a single component, and then click the Split component icon. The Split component dialog box opens. You can split the original component to up to 50 new components. You can apply quantity to the new components. The original component (line 1 in the split component window) will have its quantity reduced.

The original component cannot be set to a value less than zero. If all the quantities are associated to the split components, then the lowest value the original component can be set to is zero.

Validated lists in Field attributes

The Field attributes drop-down list is found under the Discipline Specific section of the Edit activity components dialog box.

To create the validated lists, go to Platform> Master data libraries> Attributes and then click the Add attribute icon. The Add attribute dialog box opens, enter the attribute information. In the Type field, select Validated list. After you save the attribute, it shows on the Field attributes page.

Schedule Components

The Schedule section in Edit activity component > Component Details tab lets you manage schedule details directly from an activity component. You can enter or update the Activity ID, Activity name, Planned start date, and Planned end date of a schedule. You can enter free-form text or search existing data. If an existing Activity ID is selected, all other fields are populated with any data from InEight XER imports. The Do not schedule check box integrates information from InEight Design.

 

Overview – New Component Slide Out Panel

Title		Description
1	Summary Menu	Contains general high-level component information such as Name, WBS, Quantity, Unit of Measure, and Discipline.
2	Location Menu	Contains exact location information of the component such as Building, Elevation, Construction area, and System.
3	Specifications Menu	Contains information regarding exact specification for the component such as: Size, Weight, Thickness, Material code, and External link.
4	Procurement Menu	Contains information regarding the procurement of the component such as Supplier, PO #, and Shop/Field. This section also shows related contract information for contract components..
5	Discipline Specific Menu	Contains information that is specific to the discipline selected in the summary menu. This is different for every discipline.
6	Engineering	Contains information regarding the engineering of the component such as Turnover, Test Package, and Owner Code.
7	Claiming Scheme Menu	Shows the claiming scheme selected in the summary menu.
8	Claiming History	Shows a log of what has been claimed to date for this component and by whom.
9	View Full Page Link	Opens the slide-out panel into a separate window and expands all menus. Allows for scrolling through the menus instead of opening accordions individually.
10	% Complete Field	Shows overall percent complete of the component.

Component Creation

The following step by step walks you through how to create a component from scratch.

Create a Component from Scratch

The following Step by Step walks you through how to create a component by copying an existing component.

Copy an Existing Component

The following Step by Step walks you through how to create multiple components by splitting an existing component.

Split an Existing Component

The following Step by Step walks you through how to edit multiple components at the same time.

Step by Step — Bulk Edit Components

The Bulk delete components option in the Actions menu lets you delete up to 500 of the first components listed at the same time. The components must have zero claimed quantity to be deleted. Components with installed quantity are never deleted, so only the first 500 zero-quantity components can be deleted.

The following Step by Step walks you through how to delete components with zero claimed quantity in bulk.

Step by Step — Bulk Delete Components