Vector Files are Best
Raster files will not be clear enough for the OCR to read successfully
Monthly Archives: December 2019
How is the Cost Plus Schedule of Values different than the other Owner Billing templates?
The Cost Plus Owner Bill is a new Schedule of Values (SOV) template that can be selected under the Billing Area.
The primary differences are that values added via Change Order go directly to the line items, and it provides a way to show when an Owner pays for items directly.
The Billing feature is only available when the project is In Progress. To prepare a bill go to:
- Billing>Owner A
- Select the Cost Plus Owner Bill option from the list of Pay Applications.
- Select the layout to use for the bills under Create SOV
- Using one of the 3 Cost Code templates highlighted below is the preferred method for Cost Plus SOV. It will clearly show the funds that are added and removed from the cost items as the project progresses.
- The Division formats can also be used, but will show less detail where multiple cost codes are grouped in a division or a description.
After Locking your SOV format, you will see that the primary differences of the Cost Plus Pay Application worksheet fall under the Schedule of Values and Work in Progress columns.
Schedule of Values – Under this section you can see the originally budgeted amount and amounts that have been added/removed via Change Order. The Revised amount of the cost code can be clicked on to show the summary of these items in detail.
MAJOR CHANGE: The major difference from the other Owner Billing templates is that Cost Plus automatically applies the changes to the individual Cost Codes value. On the other templates, Change Order totals are added at the bottom of the Owner Bill as a lump sum.
- If a new cost item is added via Change Order, the line item will be added to the bill in the proper numeric division order.
- Clicking on the blue hyperlink in the Revised column value will open the summary to show the detailed Original Bid and Change Order amounts.
Work in Progress (WIP) – the WIP column has been divided into two columns on the Cost Plus template; Owner Paid and To Pay.
- Owner Paid is a new column for Cost Plus, where you will enter any amount that the Owner has paid directly to a vendor for materials or directly to a subcontractor and will NOT pass through the General Contractor (GC) hands.
- It will remove this amount from the Payment Due on the Owner Pay Applications Cover page so it will not be paid to the GC.
- It will remove these values from the Remaining Balance for the GC to bill.
- Retainage will a not be held on these Owner Paid amounts since these do not pass through the GCs hands.
2. To Pay This is the amount you are requesting the Owner Pay directly to the GC. It is the same as the WIP column on the other RedTeam Go Owner Billing SOV formats.
- It should be used to enter the amounts that should be paid to the General Contractor for agreed upon expenses, including any subills or purchase orders that the GC will be paying directly to subcontractor or vendors.
- These amounts will be subject to the Retention that was agreed upon in the Owner Contract and will be held out unless manually reduced in the retainage column on the far right of the Owner Billing form.
How do I use the Plan Splitting Feature?
You can quickly split plans and name and number sheets using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature.
To use Plan Splitting go to Planroom>Drawing. Click + Upload>Upload Files(s) Splitting, Scanning and Linking
The Plan Splitting will take you through 3 steps:
- Upload the file(s)
- Select the areas you would like OCR to read
- Review the results and Publish
Upload
Complete the information on the Upload and Scan screen that appears below:
- Set Name – (* Required) Add a new Set/Folder Name or select an existing folder name to add new Versions or Revised documents to that folder.
- Files – (* Required) Upload one or more documents in the files area
- Set Date – (Optional) Enter a default set date, or you will be able to select the date region after upload if you are scanning. If none is selected, it will default to the date of upload.
- Version or Revision Name/Number – (Optional) Enter the version or revision name or you will be able to select the region after upload if you are scanning.
Click Upload Files
NOTE* The screen that is uploading the file to the server must remain open on your screen or the upload will be cancelled!
Once the Upload step is complete, the system will automatically begin to split the file into pages. You will be able to Wait Here for the pages to be split or click Close and Continue if you want to proceed with other work.
You will receive an e-mail and a task will be posted on your Global Dashboard To Do list when the files have been split and are ready for you to select regions to be read by OCR.
Select Regions for OCR to Read
From the Planroom, click on the green Progress Log button to open the Drawing Progress screen.
Next, click on the word Process in the image below to open the OCR selection window.
This will open the OCR Selection Screen view below:
- The system will select a page at random. If you wish to use a different page, use the Previous Page/Next Page option in the lower left to change.
- To select the region of the plans to read with OCR, click the pencil next to the cell and use your mouse to select the desired region.
- Drag or resize the selection box to adjust the text information captured.
- The arrows will turn to a green check mark when information has been read successfully.
- Click on any double arrows to bypass a cell you do not want to read.
- When all cells have either been scanned or skipped, you will be able to click on the Confirm and Go to Review button.
Troubleshooting:
If the date is not recognized by the OCR, the system will switch to the default date selected during upload or the date of upload if no date was indicated.
The OCR Process searches for and reads text areas. If the document has been scanned, if the lines are not clear, or if the text is part of an image OCR will not be able to identify and read text characters. If this happens, you can bypass the cell and edit during Review.
It is important that the files be Vector based and not Raster based content files for the OCR to read. (See More detailed information about this on the upload screen or at the bottom of this section.)
Click Confirm and Review and you will be given the option to Wait or Close and Continue with other work
You will receive an e-mail and the task will be added to To Do list on Global Dashboard when the files are ready for Review.
Review and Publish
To review the results of the OCR read and file naming, click on the Red Progress button and click the Review Link next to the plan set.
- Review Screen will open with a list of files on left-hand side.
- Click on a file to view details. The information will display and can be edited in New Version section on right.
- Sheet Title and Sheet Number will be combined to create the full sheet title.
- You can manually correct errors by typing into the cells or you can check the boxes next to a sheet and click the rescan selected option.
- This can be done as many times as needed to read all sections.
- Sheets can be approved one at a time or in Bulk with check boxes.
- Once all files are approved, the Publish button will become active.
- You will still be able to edit the files names, and dates from the Planroom folder.
- New Versions and revisions can be uploaded via the Upload button and by selecting the same folder name so the system will match revised sheets by Sheet Numbers.
DETAILS ABOUT DRAWING FORMATS FOR OCR
Are my drawings best formatted for uploading?
PDF files need to have Vector based content for text to read successfully. Raster content is not properly formatted for text reading. Please request Vector-Based PDF files from the design team to use with the RedTeam Go text reading feature.
How can I tell if I have Vector or Raster files?
The easiest way to tell which file type you have is to zoom in on file content. If it is a Vector file, the image will remain sharp, while a Raster file will become blurry or pixilated. Another check is to attempt to highlight text on the drawing with your mouse; if you can’t highlight the text, it is Raster file.
What is the difference between Vector and Raster based content?
Vector Files
Vector files are created from a mathematical model which creates links between two points or a series of points and then displays the line segments between them on your computer. The text needs to have these sharp lines to be read successfully.
Raster Content
Raster files have a series of pixels in the form of a grid of color squares rather than lines of letters, so they cannot be read successfully due to the lack of sharp lines. Any file that is scanned will also have raster content.
AutoCAD Files
In order to use the text reading on files created by AutoCAD, the files must be provided in TrueType font with no alteration from the original font and with a Z coordinate value of zero.
The ‘Text as Comments’ feature should also be turned off before the file is published as a PDF to be used with text reading. To turn off the feature, navigate to the command line in AutoCAD. Enter EPDFSHX and change the value to zero (0).
How do I use the Bid Responses page?
The improved Invitation Responses screen allows you more control and better features to view, manage and enter bid information quickly and efficiently.
After you have sent Bid Invitations, you can manage responses by going to Bidding>Invitations>Invitation Responses.
Settings
To customize your view, click the Settings gear icon and select Edit Bid Invitation Columns. Drag and drop items into your preferred order or toggle columns On or Off.
Filter
Use Filters to display response results based on Response Statuses, entire Divisions or by specific Cost Codes. You can select any combination of these items to show exactly what you need to see.
Contact Card
Click on a subcontractors name to open the contact card. Here you can view, add or edit their bid numbers, comments and company contact details. One click options to e-mail, update Trades & Cost Codes assigned to the company, or to resend Bid Invitation.
Manage Responses
In addition to opening the contact card by clicking on company name, information can be edited or added to the Bid Management sheet cells. Using these cells you can update Bid Intentions, change Dates, upload attachments, Import the Bid Quote into Filing Cabinet enter important notes about the subcontractor or their bid in GC memo area.
You can also check on Bid Invitation Send and Delivery success using these two columns:
Server Status – This column will say ‘Sent’ to confirm that the Invitation has successfully left the RedTeam Go Server
Delivery Status – This column will report if the Bid Invitation e-mail has been accepted by the recipients e-mail server.
Important Note on e-mail Delivery* Once the email has been accepted by the recipient’s email server it does not always mean that it has been delivered to the recipient’s inbox. If a recipient reports that they have not received the e-mail, there are a number of things that can interfere with Delivery. Besides going into their Spam or Junk mail filter, it can also be rejected from their mail due things like company security settings, firewalls or a high setting on a third-party security protection software. While RedTeam Go has no control over the factors that could cause e-mail to be turned away from the recipient’s mail service, our Customer Experience team will do our best to help you troubleshoot an issue whenever possible.
Print Reports
Use the Print icon to quickly access the Bid Invitation reports
- Bid Invitation Detail Report – Filterable report that holds the records of all who have been sent invitations on the project, even if they have been removed from the Bid Invitation List screen. This report displays shows bid quote pricing by Cost Item so companies who bid on more than one cost item will appear multiple times on this report.
- Bid Invitation List – This report shows each invitee once with the total of their combined bid on all Cost Items.
- Deleted Invitees Log – New report to improve record keeping during Bid Management. It will record time and date when a company is removed from the Bid Invitation List. This will record by cost code if a company is removed only from certain cost items and will record the name of the employee who removed.