Door schedule to quote
From a door schedule to a quote, opening by opening.
Estimators spend hours re-keying schedules. This walkthrough shows how a schedule becomes priced openings, and where you stay in control.
1. Upload the schedule as you received it
CSV, Excel or the PDF drawing sheets, up to 2,000 rows. You can also upload the whole drawing set, up to 95 MB: the door schedule sheets are found for you, and each opening keeps the sheet page it came from. Title rows and two-row group headers (DOOR and FRAME above TYPE, MATL and GA) are recognized, and saved formula results are used without running formulas. In a PDF, the schedule table is found on each sheet, sheets that repeat the header are joined, title blocks and notes are left out, and each opening keeps its page number. Scanned sheets are read by OCR: values it is unsure of are marked, and nothing is added until you have checked each scanned sheet against what was read.
2. Map the columns
Mark, quantity, size or width and height, hand, label and the door and frame codes are proposed from the headers. You can ask AI to suggest columns; only the header row and three sample rows are sent, and nothing changes until you apply it.
3. Translate each code once
Each distinct code, such as door type F or frame type F1, is translated into your catalog choices, or marked “by others”. Hand and label normalizers propose, never apply. Translations are saved with the import and reused for the next revision, and your team’s answers are remembered for the next bid: gauges, materials, finishes, hardware lines and spec decisions are reused, while type codes, which each architect defines per job, are offered for you to confirm.
4. Add the hardware sets
Upload the hardware sets from spec section 08 71 00 or the hardware schedule (PDF with a text layer, Excel or CSV), or the whole project manual, where section 08 71 00 is found for you. Each opening’s HW SET then sets its preps, such as lock or exit device, closer, electric strike, power transfer and door position switch, priced from your own adders. You see every set, line by line, with what each line is and the prep it drives. Lines that can’t be identified are never guessed; you choose what they are.
5. Add the specification section
Upload section 08 11 13 (PDF with a text layer, or Word), or the same project manual: the hollow metal section is found for you. Its requirements for exterior and interior doors and frames, such as gauge, steel, core, edges, construction and finish, are matched to your price book, and you confirm which openings are exterior. Each opening then carries those values with their clause numbers. A schedule code that falls short of the spec, such as a lighter frame gauge, is flagged; a heavier one passes.
6. Resolve exceptions in groups
Rows that need a choice, break a rule or need review are grouped by cause, so twenty openings with the same unknown code are fixed at once. A rim exit device on a pair with no mullion, or a prep your price book doesn’t price, comes up for review instead of a silent $0. Resolutions are kept by mark.
7. Commit, then re-quote addenda
Openings are added to the project and priced. What you checked and accepted, such as a frame furnished lighter than the spec or a prep your price book doesn’t include, is proposed as a clarification or exclusion on the quote, naming the openings and the clause. When an addendum changes the schedule, “Re-quote from a revised schedule” creates the revision and re-imports it: you see what was added, changed or removed (including openings whose hardware set or spec requirements changed), choose whether your own edits or the schedule win, and the revised quote prints a “Changes from” summary with the price difference of every opening.
See it with your own data.
Start with one spreadsheet and a result you already know.