This article covers the basics of Condition Assemblies, Equipment Assemblies, and Other Assemblies, the articles that follow cover the details of setting up each type of Assembly.
See Related articles for more information on creating Conditions and using various Assemblies.
What are Assemblies?
Basically, Assemblies are Quick Bid's word for "Templates", but they are more than templates.
Condition Assemblies are groups of Items that can be dropped into existing Conditions that take into account the current setup of the Condition, but include custom settings for each Item (such as Layers, Labor/Production information, etc.). Condition Assemblies "remember" how they were saved, but adjust themselves to the Condition into which they are dropped (for example, you may have saved your Assembly from a Condition with a Height of 10', but you can use that Assembly in Conditions with different Heights - the Items will update automatically to that new Height).
Equipment and Other Assemblies are basically groups of Equipment or Other expenses that are dropped into a bid, all at once.
Assemblies are huge time savers - you can set them up with all sorts of customized settings and then recreate those settings with just a few clicks in future Bids. Assemblies also allow larger organizations to standardize how Conditions are priced - Estimators do not have to build out each Condition separately, they can just drop-in an Assembly and most of the work is done for them.
Although Assemblies are part of your Masters, creating/saving them typically doesn't occur until after you've created a Bid and priced a few Conditions or setup Equipment/Other line items.
Let us start with Condition Assemblies.
Condition Types