Estimating Tools for Detailing and Materials using Bluebeam

Estimating Tools for Detailing and Materials using Bluebeam Presented by: Tony Cruz

Tool Chest Setup Ø Enable Tool Chest by right-clicking the tool bar select Show and selecting Tool Chest or by hitting Alt+X.

How to Create New Tool Chest Ø Click the gear to open the Manage Tool Sets Dialog box Ø Click the add button to create a new Tool Chest

Creating Tool Chest Items Ø Give your new Tool Chest a title and save the *. btx file Ø Go to the Measure Tab and click the “ 123” Count button. Click anywhere then select the symbol and go to the properties gear on the toolbar to customize.

Ø Now that the symbol has been created, it can be added to the tool chest by right clicking, go to Add to Tool Chest and pick your Tool Chest you want to add to.

Ø Now that we have all the items added with customized symbols like shown to the right. Let’s open a set of drawings and show it works.

Material Estimating First thing to do is set up the custom columns shown below.

Setting up Custom Columns Click the gear next to the Columns dropdown to open the manage columns dialog box. Ø Click the Custom Columns tab to add new custom columns Ø

Adding Custom Columns Ø When adding columns, it gives several different types of to choose from. (Checkmark, Choice, Date, Formula, Number, Text) Each of these types has a specific function to them except for text.

Ø After all the custom columns have been created, click on the Display Order Tab and scroll down to the bottom to check and enable them.

Ø Now that all the columns are set up. Let’s go to the drawings and show easy it is to takeoff material with the measure tool.

Material Export to Fab. Suite

Ø Ø Once all the material has been taken off and dimensions given for each material. Bluebeam organizes it in alphabetical order and it gives you the total length of each item and separates each piece out all the individual lengths as well. The quantities can be changed if you double click on the number you want to adjust. The number can by typed or use the arrows to increase or decrease the quantity. If a rounded length is preferred, the preferred length can be entered into the Alternate Length column and it will override the Length column when exporting to Fab. Suite. Now that all the material has been taken off and updated as required for the job, it can now be exported out to Fab. Suite.

In order to export the materials to Fab. Suite, you need to click the summary button in the bottom fly out menu and choose the CSV Summary. The next dialog box that pops up allows you to choose from several different options of what you want included in the. csv file.

Now that the. csv file has been successfully exported from Bluebeam, we can go into Fab. Suite and start the import of information. Click File Import, select the Bluebeam option under Estimating and then browse to the file location of the. csv file and hit Import

The next window that pops up is the Import Field Map dialog box. Once you click the OK button, it prompts you if you want to save the type. Select the Yes button and name your import type and click OK.

Once you click OK, the Estimating Job Edit window opens up where you can input all your Estimating information then click the Save button or hit the F 4 button.

The program will take you back to the Import screen and shows you if there were any items that were unsuccessfully imported. Now that everything has been imported successfully, we can now go to the Estimating module and start our quotation proposal to send off to the customer

To make a proposal, go to the Estimating menu and then to Proposal, or type Ctrl+P.

The Add Proposal window is where you put the title of the quote and customer name. It is very beneficial to add the customer into the Address book prior to creating the proposal as it will insert the customers name into the Terms and Conditions if it is set up that way in your Fab. Suite.

Now that you have added the proposal to the estimate, the next window allows you to add the price, address, and the weight if required. Once it is all filled out, click the Make Proposal button and it will make a word document with all the terms and conditions and Scope of Work if you have it set up that way.