[David Cutler]

Based on a suggestion that Troy had made on a webinar I viewed I typically set the scale for each page individually. We already have a best practice of checking the scale with a custom measurement on each sheet called “scaling”. When I get a new drawing set as part of getting familiar with the project I page through each sheet and use the custom scaling tool to measure the length of the visual scale on the drawing sheet. When I do this Bluebeam prompts me to set the scale. Two clicks, a quantity entry and another click and my scale is set.

[David Cutler]

Great tip Troy.  I never knew this was an option.

[David Cutler]

Good questions Troy.  I did check the properties and the markup is not locked – I learned something here though as I didn’t know it was possible to lock markups.  Grips are Yellow.  No Sessions here – I’m the only one working on this project…

[David Cutler]

I’m not familiar with “Power Query” Doug.  Is that an Excel function or another program?  I did investigate Pivot Tables a bit but didn’t get too far with it.  At this point I’m using the “Subtotal” option in the “Outline” tools in Excel.  It’s not perfect as I need to add some formulas in every time to get my item numbers, descriptions and units of measure where I need them, but it keeps me from having to re-key everything.

I’m not positive but I think my manager still writes everything down on a yellow pad, adds it up with a calculator and then keys the quantities into B2W so I’m light years ahead of him.  Need to make some time to show him some of the new tricks…

[David Cutler]

Format painter is a great tool!  I use it in Word, Excel and even Outlook.  To make this even easier you can add the format painter button to your toolbars to save a couple of clicks when you need it.

If you need to change the description on a number of markups – say to change from asphalt to concrete – you can select multiple items in the markup list and then open up the properties menu and make the change once there.

 

[David Cutler]

The estimating software that we use, Bid 2 Win (B2W), only allows 4 specific columns to be imported from Excel.  If setup correctly when you import your takeoff quantities the software will match your data with the pay item database that has already been established.  The challenge is that the task number, description and unit of measure must match <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>exactly</span> in order for the match to work.  To make this work I exported a master list of tasks from B2W into Excel and then I copy and paste the item number and description from Excel into my custom tools as I create them.

At this point I include both the task ID and description in both the “Subject” and “Label” fields for my custom tools.  I also use this information in separate custom “Item” and “Description” columns.

Once I complete my takeoff I export the comments into a .CSV format.  I then use a number of Excel tools to combine the individual takeoff items into groups and sub totals and then import the data into the software.  It took some practice to work out some kinks but I have it working pretty slickly now!

 

[David Cutler]

A good example of this would be if you wanted to calculate the volume of a variable depth sewer trench from a profile. Typically sewer profiles are drawn with significantly different horizontal and vertical scales as @troy-degroot mentioned. You would create a volume measurement with the “depth” set as the width of the trench. You would then select the area of the trench following the drawn pipe profile as the bottom and the ground surface as the top boundary. Bluebeam does the rest.

Note that you should think about units when you set these up. If set correctly you can get Cubic Yards directly as opposed to having to convert from Cubic Feet to Cubic Yards in another step.

[David Cutler]

That’s a good question Roye. A lot depends upon the size of the project. One takeoff recently had 299 separate housing units over a 40 acre site. I had hours of time on that one for each type of utility to ensure I didn’t miss anything. The one I have on my desktop now has 1 sanitary lateral, 1 section of watermain and a few storm sewer runs so I would be switching profiles multiple times. I guess I could have specific task profiles and a general profile that has everything. I’ll have to think about that one.

Typically I try to take the job off in the order that our crews build them – start with sediment & erosion controls then move into clearing, earthwork, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water, curb/stone/pave/sidewalk and then miscellaneous. I have my custom tool sets organized in that order. This works well for standard markups, but when you get to dynamic fill you have to scroll through all of your custom area tools to find the one you need as they don’t “roll up” and worse yet there isn’t a slider bar and the scroll wheel doesn’t work either – hence when I found the way to get my desired tool into the “recent tools” section at the top I jumped on it.

[David Cutler]

Thank you for the tip Doug. I watched a quick intro video on the feature. Going to have to explore this further…