If you regularly bid similar jobs, or if you want to save your Estimate Tab pricing associated with the Conditions you create, you may want to create a few template Projects that you can duplicate to get your jobs set up quickly and efficiently.
Benefits of Creating Template Projects
- You set up a template Project with the Conditions, Layers, Bid Areas, Typical Areas or Typical Groups, Image Legend settings, and Estimate Tab pricing exactly how you like it. When you duplicate this template Project, all that good stuff gets duplicated right along with the Project. All you have to do is make updates to it and add new Plans for each job you need to do takeoff on.
- Saving Conditions as Styles is super-convenient, however you cannot save pricing with Condition Styles - you'd have to fill in the Estimate Tab from scratch each time you create a new Project.
- You can set up templates for different types of jobs: schools, strip malls, office buildings, hospitals, etc. or for different geographic regions (to reflect different pricing).
Super Timesaver!
If you use Quick Bid to price your estimates, you can create linked (interactive) template Projects. When you duplicate the Project in On-Screen Takeoff, you are prompted to duplicate the connected Quick Bid estimate. What a timesaver! You'll have a new Project in OST and QB, with Conditions and Pricing all set for you to load your plans and draw takeoff.Suggestions/Reminders
Synchronizing Databases
When you create a new database (which you should be doing regularly...see Best Practices For Using On-Screen Takeoff), if you synchronize an existing database to your new one, Projects (even template Projects) - are not copied over. You'll need to copy them from your old database to your new database, after synching Masters.
See the previous article for details on copying and pasting Projects from one database to another.
Job Status
Create a locked Job Status named "Template" and set all template jobs to it.
After duplicating, set the Job Status to something appropriate. This won't prevent modifications to your template Projects, but it'll make it harder to do so. See Related Articles for more information on creating and locking Job Statuses (especially important if you are working in a shared SQL database).
Naming Template Jobs
When you name your template jobs, use a logical naming convention. In our example, we use the format "TEMPLATE - <job type>".
Template jobs shown on the Projects Tab (which is grouped by Job Status).
To share a database with other users, you must use Microsoft SQL. Never share an Access type database (the default for OST) and never store an Access database on a remote/network drive. See Sharing Databases - Multiple Concurrent Users for more information.
General Housekeeping
Over the years, we've developed some guidelines and suggestions for the best way to manage your Bids and Databases. Please see Organizing Your On-Screen Takeoff, Quick Bid, and Digital Production Control Projects and Bids for details.
 Copying and Pasting Projects from One Database to Another | Duplicating Projects Within the Same Database  |
Related Articles