Transcription
The projects tab is where you'll access and organize all your jobs and on-screen takeoff. Let's dive in and learn how to navigate your projects efficiently, use powerful filtering tools, and find out where to access advanced features.
When you open on screen takeoff, the projects tab is your starting point. This is where you'll access and manage all of your projects and databases. You'll see two main types of icons. The yellow cylinder icon represent your databases. These are digital storage locations that hold all of your projects. The dollar sign icon shows your individual projects within those databases. The blue Q icons indicate jobs connected to our QuickBit estimated software. If a project name appears in bold with a plus sign next to it, that means it has alternates or change orders attached. Click the plus sign to expand and see all of the related records for that project.
Now, let's talk about how to organize your databases and projects. Most users create a new project for every job they work on. This keeps everything organized. However, you typically only need to create a new database once per year. If your company handles a high volume of projects, you might create databases more frequently to keep things manageable.
As you build more projects over time, your projects tab will fill up quickly. This is where the four filtering options at the top become essential for staying organized. First, let's look at the project name filter. This lets you type any part of a project's name to narrow down your results. For example, if you're looking for the downtown office complex project, just type downtown and your list will shrink to only matching projects.
Next, the estimator filter lets you view projects by specific estimators, but it only works on password protected databases. This becomes especially useful for larger teams where different estimators handle different projects. You can also filter by job number and job status. Both of these use information you've entered on the job cover sheet. The job status filter is particularly valuable for seeing which projects are in bidding, awarded, or completed phases, for example.
One important thing to note, filters in on-screen takeoff stay active until you clear them. You'll want to clear your filters when you're finished, or you might wonder where some of your projects went.
Now, let's look at sorting and the column information displayed below the filters. You'll see column headings that show key information about each project, and you can sort by any of these columns. Simply left-click any column heading to sort your projects by that information. The small triangle next to the column name shows your sorting by that field. Click the same column again to toggle between ascending and descending order. On-screen takeoff uses standard alphabetical and numerical sorting. So numbers come before letters. These columns give you valuable information at a glance. Project names, status, bid due dates, how many sheets you've imported, and how many conditions you've created during takeoff. This overview helps you quickly assess project progress and workload, which can save you significant time when managing multiple projects.
Finally, let's explore the context menu features. Right-clicking unlocks additional features, and the available options change based on what you've selected. When you right-click on a project, you'll see options to create new folders, projects, or databases. You can access the open window to manage databases. You can also import OST job files or export them to email to colleagues. Additional options let you duplicate projects, delete them, renumber conditions, or change a project status without opening the cover sheet. The group by job status option reorganizes your view by project stage. This becomes especially useful for seeing what's in bidding versus what's been awarded. Finally, you can expand or collapse all projects at once.
When you right-click on a database, additional management options become available. Use properties to maintain database details or perform compact and repair operations or create manual database backups, all directly from this menu.
To wrap up, the projects tab is where you'll access and organize all of your work in on-screen takeoff. Use the filtering system to stay organized as your project list grows. Sort to prioritize your work and leverage context menus for advanced project management. With these tools, you'll navigate large project lists efficiently and keep your estimating workflow running smoothly.