Collecting Input: Work Breakdown Structure

In regards to the CSI item, when we were building SmartBidNet I ran into the same issue. Nothing seemed to satisfy the masses and we ended up coding in the 16 Division (Circa 80s-90s), The 2004 format and lastly the 2014. We then had to create the ability to add a "custom" set, which meant mapping to all the others we coded. It was a nightmare. Not to mention the changes that occurred with CSI MasterFormat meant constant changing. I am not sure how they are managing it now as it doesn't appear to have been changed in years.

I think this should be up to the user. Also, when using MasterFormat & Uniformat there are licensing requirements to consider. If the user adds them then that doesn't apply....

This all sounds great—I'm glad you're headed in this direction. My vote: out of the box, give us a couple of examples, but let us build our own templates so we can scale internally. I don’t want pre-formatted WBS structures—just give us the flexibility to create our own or import from tools like OST/excel to get started.

Right now, we organize our takeoffs using UF3 (ASTM version) and a custom version of Subcontractor Package (basically CSI-sorted bid packages). I'd love the ability to right-click in the top-right window and quickly toggle groupings—for example, Building > UF3, or even User > Building > UF3, depending on how we’re working that day.

When creating a condition, I want to be able to copy the line item above it and have it inherit all the WBS properties. Then I just tweak the name or adjust the necessary fields—super efficient...right now it drops it to the bottom of the folders then you have to move it up.

A few things that come to mind:

1. We currently only get two grouping levels for folders: for example we have two folder levels taken up by User and then Building. It affects our reporting big time. I’m hoping the new WBS sorting will improve the reporting views to have multiple levels.
2. On the right panel, it’s great that you can sort by WBS—love that. But I’d also want that same sorting functionality on the left panel, organized by page and the same grouping structure as on the right. Right now, I can’t really make folders or sort alpha-numerically on the left, which makes it hard to keep things organized. Once more users are involved, it’s chaos. Honestly, it already feels messy with just two people.

Good info. Thanks for the input!

And this is why I keep plugging the idea of a basic model…. Neither the left panel nor the right panel will be capable of accurately communicating “what is happening when” between users without basic modeling. Right now, both panels tell you the same thing but in different ways.

PlanSwift had this problem as well, since pages are handled separately from takeoff summaries. Therefore, the takeoff process should proceed from a template side panel (if needed) to a takeoff summary side panel that includes pages. And this is what I have been advocating all along: When takeoffs are on overlays (or whatever you want to call them), pages and takeoffs can be harmoniously united on a single panel and multiple users can work together effectively.

@john.

I love both right and left panels. When Using OST I was use to having the QTO by page, but then when I needed to go find ALL the quantitites I would go to the takeoff tab ot get the entire summary. Then the flip side when I was using eTakeoff it shows ALL the quantities in the summary and that sucked, the only way to get the quantities on the page was to turn on the clunky legend. I feel if we can get the WBS sorts to show the same information the user has it sorted on the left and the right we will be winning! To you point it needs to be user specific on their views, as if user A changes the WBS sort, it CANT change for user B.

Kyle,

I get what you are saying, but both examples you are siting give only one side of the story. I am suggesting both are combined. But perhaps “takeoff summary” is a misnomer; “takeoff” would probably fit better. Leave summaries to reports, since that is what they are.

From what you said previously, it seems to me that the current use of side panels is actually a source of confusion, not a solution to it. What if you both initiate the same takeoff, each from a different side panel?

At any rate, I forsee this being a problem for the collaborative aspect of zzTakeoff in general, and I want to mention it before we go too far down the same old road.

The general idea of pages on the left, and takeoff totals on the right was a left-to-right approach. Choose the page on the left, perform the takeoff in the middle, then see totals on the right. Users asked for totals "per page" to be shown below the pages, which is why we added them there. It's somewhat redundant, but also a different way of viewing per page. We are planning to add an option to allow the left sidebar to be toggled to "thumbnail view" which would make it feel more like a typical PDF viewer. This would for sure be a user-controlled setting. As you guys have requested, we are also planning long term to build a "Plans" tab (some have called this "Blueprints" tab) at the top to the left of the "Takeoff" tab for overall plan management and version control of pages.

We're in the process of adding views for the takeoff totals & templates (right sidebar). In the end I think we could have enough settings that each user can customize their view of the software to suit their particular workflow. Ideally you could customize: the toolbar, right click menu, sidebar views, etc. We want to be sure it's super easy and simple out of the box, but customizable for advanced users.

Here are some questions/comments:

1. Kyle, when you mention grouping by "user", there are multiple "user" fields: Created By, Updated By, or maybe Assigned To? Are you thinking more of an Assigned To (defaults to the person who created it, but can be re-assigned)? The reason I ask is because if you're grouping by Created By or Updated By and another user is helping or adjusting your takeoff, that data could show up under their User grouping unless we allow you to have some kind of "Assigned To" that you can control and re-assign to yourself if someone else adjusted a takeoff you were working on.

2. Suppose you create a "view" on the right as you mention for: Building > UF3 with the name "Grouped by Building/UFC3" or similar. If you're in that view, and another user is in that view, do you think showing/hiding objects on the page should show/hide for all users in that view? Do you think visibility of items should be directly associated to the view, or kept separate. To clarify: we could attach the shown/hidden state of every item directly to the selected view, or we could create a separate toggle for "Team Visibility" or "Personal Visibility" that does not save to the view itself, but saves separately to allow views to be used by multiple people at the same time with different visibility of items per user (I hope the question makes sense...if not we can talk by phone or Zoom call).

3. Do you see a need in the sidebars to display additional columns, or is the primary thing you need is grouping by specific columns. Currently there is 1 column with somewhat of a combined view in a single column (takeoff type, name, measurement, color) which helps us keep it quite condensed. If we add more columns it could start to get bloated, but we can if needed. From what we gather the primary use people want is grouping (with the idea maybe the reports tab could be on a separate monitor and used to start takeoff as well if a user wants all the other columns). We could add more columns in the sidebars, but would come at the cost of screen real estate.

4. Manual sorting: with the current folder structure, users can arrange the sequence of takeoffs any way they choose. For each view, we are planning to give you the ability to choose which column you want to sort by. If you sort by a specific column, just keep in mind the manual sorting (where you can drag drop takeoffs into an exact sequence above or below other takeoffs) goes out the window. Also, since users could group by many different ways, currently the manual sort only works if grouped by folder. If we want ability to group by "Building" for example, and manually sort within that, we would need to store (in the database) a separate manual sort order for each takeoff per-view (which we can do if you guys want it). This is a non-issue if you are choosing a specific column to sort by such as alphabetically because the sort order is not stored per-item in this case.

5. Takeoffs are measurements (until we apply formulas to get quantities), so technically a single takeoff could be used across multiple divisions or trades in an estimate to achieve quantities. So just something to keep in mind if we attach WBS data to a takeoff, it kind of assumes that takeoff itself will show up in that division or whatever grouping you have on reports. We're planning that you could override the WBS data at the takeoff section level (1 area out of 5 for a specific takeoff for example), but just creates some interesting overlapping scenarios in the views and reports.

6. If we allow custom views of the left sidebar for pages, can you give a few examples of things you would want to group by there? Just so we can be sure we're solving what you're after.

Thanks for all the input!

Heber,

Happy to hear about the Plans page. But working from supply side, I have precious little interest in page totals (as they are) or thumbnail views. Not sure what is meant by “views for the takeoff totals and templates,” but it sounds interesting enough.

Other thoughts:

3) PlanSwift has 2 columns showing the name of the item and then allows you to select the second from a list: takeoff, description, qty, etc. This could be improved by allowing 3 columns. First column can be toggled b/w item name and its description. Second column can be toggled b/w qty and takeoff. The third column could be a checkbox for marking completion, revision, or review. If you could do this without actual columns, that would be fine too. I have no interest in sorting the takeoff. That’s what reports are for.

5) I have very little interest in the WBS as it has been described here. I am trying to put together coherent, shippable lists of materials that can be used in the order that they are required to actually build something. That WBS data (as described here) is attached to the measurement at all is problematic since measurement belongs properly to a model of the object and not to a particular trade or kind of material. The WBS (as described here) would need to be associated with the material or labor parts for a particular assembly.

"The general idea of pages on the left, and takeoff totals on the right was a left-to-right approach. Choose the page on the left, perform the takeoff in the middle, then see totals on the right. Users asked for totals "per page" to be shown below the pages, which is why we added them there. It's somewhat redundant, but also a different way of viewing per page. We are planning to add an option to allow the left sidebar to be toggled to "thumbnail view" which would make it feel more like a typical PDF viewer. This would for sure be a user-controlled setting. As you guys have requested, we are also planning long term to build a "Plans" tab (some have called this "Blueprints" tab) at the top to the left of the "Takeoff" tab for overall plan management and version control of pages.

We're in the process of adding views for the takeoff totals & templates (right sidebar). In the end I think we could have enough settings that each user can customize their view of the software to suit their particular workflow. Ideally you could customize: the toolbar, right click menu, sidebar views, etc. We want to be sure it's super easy and simple out of the box, but customizable for advanced users."

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Glad to hear this. I really like the current format, and providing users the ability to tailor the interface to their liking is the right way to play this.

I rarely used the right panel much in Plan Swift except to click on bookmarks for quickly returning to certain pages, but I have found the right panel very helpful over here in zztakeoff for organizing/categorizing things more efficiently. The left panel becomes very chaotic quickly, just like it did for me in Plan Swift. Perhaps my life would have been easier in that software if I had set it up similarly to how zztakeoff currently displays everything.

When you need to hide certain takeoff items (like areas) on a page, once you have created an area folder on the right panel and popped all your area objects into there, you can just hide the entire folder and then turn all of those takeoff item types back on when you want to see them again. I would like to be able to "spawn" takeoff items directly into certain folders I create on the right panel so that I don't have to do as much sorting and dragging, but for now it's fine.

Could a "miniature" version of the right panel function simply be embedded into the left panel to accomplish the same effect? Sure. But it's so much cleaner the way things presently are in my opinion.

But again, the ability to customize all of that is the way to make as many people happy as possible.

@Kyle Thanks for your time on the Zoom call. That was super helpful. I've been working with the developers on how to go about making it work in a simple but effective way.

@Jes Regarding "spawning" takeoff items 😂 from the right side (my kids say "spawn" all the time when playing Roblox or Minecraft), we've been playing with this and we are planning to add it. We will also make so that if you have a folder selected in the takeoff sidebar on the right, then it would automatically place in that folder, even when clicking the Area, Linear, Count, etc. from the toolbar on the top. Ultimately that popup for new area will have a way to select what folder it goes in (which would pre-select the folder based on what is selected in the right sidebar).

We're kind of in a middle zone where current organization is all by folders, and partially for compatibility with importing data from previous takeoff tools, but we're also pushing to support grouping by anything you want (Division, Phase, Building, etc.) So we're kind of building a hybrid system. If we can make it work smoothly for both scenarios, that will be super useful and flexible. We have a lot of internal discussions about this stuff. The ideal system resolves the maximum number of problems with the minimum number of features/complexity. It's a distillation process. We have to zoom out and look at every problem we're trying to solve, and then zoom back in and determine how we can "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" as much as possible. All of your input is helping in that process.

I had some theatre lighting software once upon a time that had set columns as you're describing (Division, Phase, Building - only the in the software it was things like Watts, Universe, Channel). When they added user definable columns they let you select whether you wanted numeric columns (which had the ability to be used in arithmetic functions), alphabetic columns (which could be sorted a-z, have various filters applied, etc), and then alphanumeric (where you could choose how it sorted, and gave you more flexibility for content). It's possible I'm explaining a ford pinto to a Ferrari manufacturer here, but I found with those customize options I could build just about anything I needed.