Import Tasks from an Estimate

Activity required : project.rw, estimating.rw
Plug-in required : Project Management, Estimating

This extracts data from an estimate to create one or more tasks in the project. It is one of the ways to add tasks to a project. The other is to add emergent work.

The process is conditional on the following:

• the project status must be either 'Awaiting Work' or 'Work Ongoing';
• the estimate must not have been previously imported (i.e. any estimate can be imported only once);
• the estimate must be internal (if the estimate isexternal, Epic requires an additional custom plug-in - see custom imports);
• the estimate must have at least one customer task within it (if updating a task, then exactly one task).

Tasks can be imported to create new tasks within the project, or, if there is exactly one customer task in the estimate, to update a single tasks in the project that has a status of 'With Estimator'. This second option is primarily to allow formal estimating of emergent work.

Note that tariff items will also be extracted from the estimate.

1. Open the parent project's editor
2. Open the equivalent read-write editor
3. Expand the 'Estimate(s)' section and click the 'Import Tasks' button. This will only be enabled if all the above conditions are true:

   

4. This will start a single-window wizard:

   

5. The options are:
   • 'as new customer tasks' - as it says
   • 'update an existing 'with estimator' task' - disabled if there are no such project tasks - if you select it you must choose which project task for a displayed list
   • 'add tasks fixed price' - for invoicing purposes, if not selected the tasks are priced by cost
   • 'include yard tasks in contract' - whether to create both customer tasks and yard tasks within the project or simply to roll up all yard tasks into their parent customer task.
6. Click 'Finish' and the tasks will be imported. Epic may display a message stating you need to refresh the projects task list.

Custom Import

Epic's base functionality can only import internal estimates. If you choose instead to generate estimates in external programs you will require a specially written task import function in a custom plug-in. If such a function is available it will be displayed as an additional button to the right of the standard 'Import Tasks' button.

See also:

• customer task
• custom plug-in
• estimate
• external estimate
• internal estimate
• project
• tariff item
• task
• yard task

How To's:

• add emergent work
• open a project's editor
• open read-write editor