I'm a Head Contractor
Welcome to the Head Contractor Feedback Forum. We encourage all Builders to post suggestions and ideas for improving EstimateOne. Posting new ideas and voting on existing ideas will help us understand what improvements our Users want to see made to the EstimateOne platform.
161 results found
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Reminder to Call
It would be a good if there was a 'Reminder to Call' tag for sub-contractors on the Invitations page. This would allow estimators to tag important sub-contractors to call at a later date.
17 votesThank you for this great suggestion! We know that builders refer to our Invites & Responses often while managing their tender. We also understand that builders leave notes against subbies as a reminder to call them back. So it makes a lot of sense for builders to be able to tag subbies with a reminder to call.
Something we will look into further, thank you for getting in touch. -
Notify uploader via email when errors uploading documents
When uploading documents, it would be helpful to be notified via email if the upload has errors
2 votesThank you for this suggestion, we appreciate it’s important to know if something went wrong in your document upload. We’re happy to take it onboard as a consideration for future improvements.
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allow Builders to include "terms and conditions" of tender that Subcontractors must agree before they can access documents
For sensitive projects such as defence or government works we often require Subcontractors to agree to some conditions of the tender. This is usually a document the Subcontractor signs and returns to us. It would be good if we could enter the conditions of tender straight into EstimateOne and have Subcontractors agree to these conditions (by ticking a box) before they can access documentation
4 votesThank you for this suggestion! It definitely makes sense, it’s something we will look into.
If it helps, the best way to do this at the moment would be inviting your subbies to a seperate tender and issuing them the required contract. When they sign and return, you can create a new tender issuing the documentation to the compliant subcontractors. -
Tell me when I am looking at a project I already have received an invitation for
Projects I am invited to can sometimes appear differently to the same project when it appears on the noticeboard.
When I am looking at projects on the noticeboard, make it clear to me if I have already been invited to this project.
That way I do not request documents for projects I am already invited to.
1 voteGreat suggestion! It makes a lot of sense to be able to see if you have any invitations when looking at a project. We have been discussing this internally, so it certainly helps to hear customers asking for it. Thanks for taking the time to post this, we’ll be in touch with an update when this progresses.
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Alert a Subcontractor if they have opened an invitation for a withdrawn project
When I withdraw from a project I issue correspondence to all Subbies letting them know we have withdrawn from a project.
Whilst this should be enough, there are still some cases were Subbies do not get this email.
In this case they might have the original invite email and have access to the documents page.
If I have withdrawn from the project it should be clear to the Subbies that this is the case. We don't want to waste Subbie's time looking at projects we aren't pricing. We also don't want to receive calls or queries from Subbies about documents…
1 voteThanks for your feedback, this is a good suggestion. This requires a bit of thought from our end on the best way of managing this.
Until then, we advise you continue issuing correspondence to your subcontractors to advise them when withdrawing.
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Allow builders to send follow up reminders via SMS
Allow builders to send follow up reminders via SMS
3 votesThanks for your suggestion, this is something that we are considering.
At this time we need to conduct more research with Subcontractors and whether they consider this idea to be of value. We already send a lot of correspondence to Subcontractors through email and need to understand whether they would be willing to receive SMS notifications in the future.
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Export a subby specific drawing register
Builders will often provide subbies with a personalised drawing register that is effectively a drawing register contextual to the documents an individual subby was transmitted. This currently requires manual collation of information and input into an excel file that is usually turned into a pdf... times that effort by the number of subbies you have on a project and you have a time-consuming process with plenty of opportunity for human error.
0 votesThanks for your feedback! A drawing register on a subbie specific level is a very valid suggestion. This piece of work is considerable, and would require us to research how many of our clients would also be after this. Thank you again for the suggestion!
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If a subbie has closed business- allow an inactive button, which allows you to see their previous involvement without deleting them.
If a sub-contractor has stopped tendering, an inactive button will allow you to see what they've priced without deleting them permanently.
5 votesHi Valentina,
Really good idea! We are committed to improving the functionality of the Address Book and we will continue to investigate and work out the best ways to do it. This is something we will definitely dive deeper into. For the moment as a work around, I would recommend you remove their email address’ (preventing them from displaying at the invitation step), or adding them to an insolvent / out of business list as a way of keeping on top of them. -
Allow Builders to store both a Mobile and Direct Line for contacts in my Address Book
It would be handy if we could store both of these details about a contact so that I can always make contact with them.
Currently we are only able to store a mobile or a direct line in addition to the company phone number. I am asking for the ability to store a direct line and a mobile number for a contact.
1 voteHi Neil,
Thanks for your suggestion. We’ll take this into consideration as we look at ways to improve the Address Book.
A good way to work around this at the moment is to add the same contact again with an alternative number. -
Allow me to "save" the list of files that failed to upload so that I can retry uploading these files.
It would be good if I could save a copy of these errors in order to find the files, check they are valid (not corrupt files) and then retry uploading these files.
Currently the moment you upload another file, the error messages are cleared which makes it hard to figure out what files I am yet to upload.
1 voteGreat idea! We appreciate your suggestion. We are absolutely committed to improving documentation management, and we will keep your suggestion on hand while we work through future improvements.
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Suggest the completed addresses for companies in my Address Book as I type them.
This functionality currently exists when entering the address of a project on EstimateOne. It would be good if I could also have an Address suggested to me as I am creating and updating the Addresses on file for Subcontractors in my Address Book.
The same as when I add a new project, if there is no suitable suggested address we could then fall back to adding the address manually.
1 voteThanks for your suggestion Chad. We are looking into whether this is possible in all areas of the app. We know that this would be of great help to speed up and streamline the app, but may take some time due to some technical implications of using the auto-suggest feature across the board. We are committed to improving this throughout the app, but currently aren’t able to have the auto suggest feature, hopefully we can soon!
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Provide ability to filter Builders "Recently Awarded"
Add the ability for builders to search the Recently Awarded information by category eg, Retail. Filtering through this information without search functions is very time-consuming. We are using this information regularly, and will often find out here who has been awarded a project we tendered.
1 voteGreat idea. It is great to learn how users would like to use this information and hear that the Recently Awarded information is of value to you.
We’ll be looking into your suggestion and any other ways we could improve this part of EstimateOne. -
Hide Subcontractors on my "Do Not Use" company list when using "Invite Single"
When using this feature to issue a single invitation I am unable to tell that the Subbie I am inviting is on my "do not use" list. It would be good if I could prevent these Subcontractors from appearing altogether.
1 voteAppreciate the feedback. We acknowledge that a “Do Not Use” category would be simple when searching and inviting subbies and does warrant further investigation. To help you manage this for the time being, we recommend that you delete these contacts emails, that way you won’t be able to issue them an invitation.
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Hide Subcontractors on my "Do Not Use" company list when searching my Address Book
When searching my Address Book it would be great if there was a way to hide companies that appear on a certain list.
For example, we have a list of Subcontractors that we "do not use". When searching the Address Book I can show Subbies on this list but I cannot hide them. When searching for Subcontractors to invite to a tender it would be good if we could hide Subcontractors just as we can show them.
1 voteThanks for the feedback. We understand the benefits of a ‘Do Not Use’ list in the Address Book to help you manage and sort your contacts. This is something we would look at when investigating how we can improve on Address Book management.
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Add the ability to "Filter" table when creating a list
Before we receive documents for a project we will use the "Lists" feature to prepare the send out list of Subcontractors we will issue invitations to tender.
When creating this "Contact List", it would be great if I could "filter" out Subcontractors on the "Do Not Use" company list so that I do not add undesirable companies to the "Contact" list.
1 voteThanks for the feedback. This is something we will take into consideration as we look to improve subcontractor management. For the time being, we suggest you make edits to the company names so they can be easily displayed, like “DNU Subbie”. You only see the company name in this step so it’s an easy work around while we investigate a system wide Do Not Use tag.
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Ability to add addendum notes to subbies invited after addendums published
When inviting new subcontractors after addendums have been published, enable the invitation to include notes sent on addendum
2 votesThanks for your feedback. We understand that this would be very useful for both yourself and the Subcontractors, and that these Addendum notes are not currently available in the invitation.
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Allow Builders to include the Architects logo on project correspondence
Adding the Architects logo is a great way of encouraging them to engage in the EstimateOne platform. Generally they have their own system for managing emails & correspondence so it can be hard to get them to use the same platform as the Builder for a project.
1 voteWe appreciate the feedback, this makes sense. There are other areas we are committed to improving on the correspondence product before we investigate this further.
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Allow me to set sub trades
It would be good if I could set up sub-trades in my Address Book. That way when setting up a project I could better specify the works required. i.e for Piling it would be great if I could specify if the works required were Sheet Piling, Bored Piers, sheet piling or a combination of the 3.
3 votesThanks for the feedback. We will look into this further as we explore how we can improve address book management.
For the time being, we recommend you create these sub-trades in your address book, such as “Piling – Sheets” etc, and assign subcontractors accordingly. This way, the particular sub-trades will be visible in the Trades step.
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Update the copy in the RFQ correspondence to make it clearer that the project has been awarded
Currently the copy in this email reads:
[BUILDER] is inviting [SUBBIE] to quote on the [PACKAGE NAME] package for [PROJECT NAME].
We would like this updated to:
[BUILDER] has been awarded the above project and invites [SUBBIE] to quote on the [PACKAGE NAME] package for [PROJECT NAME].
2 votesWe have recently updated the subject in the RFQ correspondence to include Awarded project. We will consider this additional change. Thank you.
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Allow me to include a note in my "Invitation to Tender" email so that I can indicate whether or not a BOQ is to come.
After issuing invitations I will often receive a barrage of emails from Subcontractors requesting a BOQ or asking if I have included a BOQ in the package I just sent.
It would be good if I could avoid these emails all together. One way to do this would be to include a note in the Invitation to Tender email indicating whether or not a BOQ was going to be made available for the package.
Not every trade requires a BOQ so an option to say "No BOQ will be provided" is also required.
1 voteCheers for the suggestion. Right now you could issue separate correspondence, but we can certainly see how being able to do this in the same step would be easier.
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