Create and manage project quotations

The concept of project quotations is introduced to make an attractive offer to a customer as the first step of the project phase.

Using project quotations, you enter the services, basic contact information, special trade agreements and discounts, and estimated taxes and surcharges for a project.

You can also select the activities or tasks for a project and create a hierarchy of tasks and subtasks.

For each activity, you can enter details about the timing and duration of the activity, and about the skills and experience that are required for workers who perform the activity.

For more information, refer to Create a project quotation.

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a description of the work to be done for a project.

It is a hierarchy of tasks that represents the composition of work, cost, and duration of each task. 

To create a WBS, you can use three types of nodes.

• Root node: Root node is the project header node. 
  This is created automatically and is shown by default after you click Advanced WBS.
  When you transfer a project quotation to a new project, the root node becomes the main project.
  When you add the project quotation to an existing project, the root node is ignored.
• Project node: In the WBS, you can have multiple sub-projects which are called project nodes.
• Activity node: Activity nodes contain the project tasks.

  • Standard - You can add tasks to lines of type Project and Standard.

  • Summary - You can add summary lines to lines of type Project.

  • Detail - You can add detail lines to lines of type Summary and Detail.

• You can use these activity types.

You can add several activities under the root node or a project node.
You can add an activity under an activity. You cannot add a project node under an activity.
For more information on working with work breakdown structures, refer to About work breakdown structures

In Advanced project management, you can use several ways to define the sales price for a project quotation.

You can:

• Use the project price setup.
• Define specific prices for project quotations.
• Define specific prices for project lines in the work breakdowns structure of a project quotation.
• Define contract totals for work breakdown structure project lines of type Fixed price.

You can define the default set up for pricing priority on the Advanced project management parameters.

You can change it for each project quotation. You can also define prices during the design of the work breakdown structure.

If you have finished the setup of the project quotation, including the estimates and pricing setup, you must submit the project quotation for review.

A project quotation must be approved internally before you can send it to the customer.

If a project quotation is submitted, internal approval of the project quotation can be done. The user, to whom the approval is assigned, gets a task.

As a result of the project quotation approval, you can choose these options:

• Approve - The project quotation can be sent to the customer.
• Redesign - Changes are required for the project quotation. Its status is set to Created.
• Delegate - Assign the project quotation to another reviewer.
• Cancel - The project quotation is stopped.

The sales representative manages the customer interaction with regards to the project quotation.

If a customer has confirmed a project quotation, you can transfer it to a project.

For more information, refer to Create a project from a quotation by using the Transfer to Project wizard.