OST - 03.01 What are Projects, Bids, Jobs?

A Project (or Bid or Job) is another name for a construction job for which a user is doing a quantity survey. It is a collection of the images and takeoff associated with a building project. In OST, a Bid/Project/Job includes the original "Base Bid" and all Alternates and Change Orders, also known as "Child Bids". We will cover Alternates and Change Order in Related Articles.

In On-Screen Takeoff, We use the terms Project and Bid fairly interchangeably, although in this documentation we try to stick with "Bid", as much as possible.

There are four ways to create a Bid:

• Create a new Bid. The most common way to create a bid. To create a Bid from scratch, pages are added to the Cover Sheet and Conditions are created or added on the Image Tab.
• Download a project from a Planroom. Typically, you'll download an "OSX" file that creates your bid and provides you a mechanism for downloading project files (images, blueprints). You'll still create your Bid Areas, Layers, Conditions, etc.
• Duplicate an existing Bid. Some clients use a 'template' Bid that is the basis for all jobs they takeoff. Duplicating a Bid makes an exact copy of the Bid in the database; all pages, Conditions and takeoff, as well as the Project Name are the same. Only the Bid Number is changed to the next available number in the database, just like a new Bid. (Copying and Pasting a Bid within the same database or from a different database is similar).
• Import an existing Bid. You can export and import Bids from/to On-Screen Takeoff and even send these exports to other OST users.

We cover creating and duplicating Bids in the next articles. See Related Articles for information on using Planrooms and Importing bids.

The Bids Tab - Bids Tab Context Menu

Creating a Bid