Best format/ view for Construction Estimates?

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

I have used Appsheet to build an estimation app, key features include -

  1. A table of materials rates & labour rates.
  2. Stages, divided into sub-stages, divided into specific works (combination of 1 or more materials & labour tasks) E.g. Stage = Foundation; Sub-Stage = Excavation & Back Filling; Works = Marking/ Excavation/ Filling with different Aggregates etc.
  3. Work quantities are cumulated from child records that carry specific measurements/ dimensions.

I have created an interactive dashboard view that juxtaposes Stages with Sub-Stages, Work items and groups of measurements (child records of Work Items), but the view doesn’t work very well.. i.e. if a specific parent record (Stage for Sub-stage, Sub-stage for Work Item), is not selected, all child records of every parent show.. this can be very confusing for the end user.

Is there a setting I am missing?

Is there any other view/ combination of views, that anyone might recommend?

2

In interactive dashboard, it is not currently possible to have a specific parent and then associated children record to be selected when one navigates to the interactive dashboard view. Selection of a specific parent record needs to be done by the app user.

As an alternative, you could explore setting up a dashboard as shown in the sample app below.

In this sample app, based on the color value selected by the user in the Filter table’s enum in the Filter view within the Dashboard view, the chart view changes.

You can similarly change the sub-stage and work items based on a stage enum button. You could have a two step implementation. When a stage is selected in the Stage enum button , another enum button titled sub-stages, shows the possible sub-stage options for that selected stage option. When the sub-stage is selected the corresponding sub-stage and work items are shown.

The dashboard view in this implementation needs to be “non” interactive type. Also if you have multiple app users, you could replace the Filter table with the Users table where in there is one row per each user. Then you can store the stage/ sub-stage selection of each user in her/his respective row.

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3

Enable Interactive Mode

What to do

  1. Go to UX → Views

  2. Open your Dashboard view

  3. Turn ON:

    Interactive mode = ON

Verify Parent-Child Relationships

Your tables MUST be linked like this:
Table relationships

Stage
 └── SubStage (Ref → Stage, IsPartOf = TRUE)
      └── Work (Ref → SubStage, IsPartOf = TRUE)
           └── Measurement (Ref → Work, IsPartOf = TRUE)

Use Inline (Nested) Views Instead of a Flat Dashboard

This is the BEST UX for estimation apps.

Recommended structure

  1. Stage → Detail View

  • Shows:

    • Stage summary

    • Inline Sub-Stages

  1. Sub-Stage → Detail View

  • Shows:

    • Sub-Stage totals

    • Inline Works

  1. Work → Detail View

  • Shows:

    • Materials + Labour

    • Inline Measurements

4

Thank you Suvrutt… I will look up your suggestion, try it out, and give you my feedback.

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