Creating a Project from an Estimate

You can create a project from a primary estimate. The new project contains the values and records of the primary estimate. Role requests are copied from the estimate to the project as resource requests, estimate tasks are copied as project tasks, and line sets are copied as milestones. A Customer Purchase Order budget is also created, with its amount set to the net amount of the estimate. If estimated expenses are enabled, the budget's expense amount is the total of all billable estimated expenses. If the estimate has non-billable estimated expenses, an Internal Budget is created for their total. If the estimate has vendor line items, a Vendor Purchase Order budget is created for each vendor account. For more information about setting an estimate as primary, see Setting an Estimate as Primary.

If your estimate includes multiple estimate products, you can create multiple projects using those estimate products, but only one project can be associated with one estimate product. For example, if your estimate contains two estimate products, you can create one project containing both of those products, or two projects, each with one estimate product.

Creating a project follows three steps shown in a progress tracker at the bottom of the window: Select Estimate Products, Project Preview, and Edit Project Details. You always pass through the Project Preview step, allowing you to see the records that will be created before the project exists.

Notes:
  • Your administrator must assign you the Services Estimator - Create Projects from Estimates permission set to add an estimate to an opportunity.
  • If your estimate includes estimate products, you can create one project or multiple projects but each estimate product can only be associated with one project.
  • When a project is created from an estimate, the estimate's records that are associated with the new project are locked. The Mass Adjust Rates and Move Estimate Dates actions on the estimate are disabled. The Add from Template action is disabled when role requests independent of estimate products have been added to opportunity. Fields on the estimate that can affect role requests, such as global discount, RPG, and uplift, are read-only.
  • If a role request belongs to an estimate product or line set that has a billing type of Fixed Price, the resource request created from the fixed price role request will have a requested bill rate of zero.
  • If milestones are enabled in Services Estimator in your org, the project will automatically be marked as active. The Amount field on the milestone is populated with the amount of the line set if the line set's billing type is Fixed Price. If the line set's billing type is Time and Materials, it's populated with zero. If the record uses a custom billing schedule that withholds holdback, the Amount field on each milestone is the amount billed for the corresponding schedule item, after its holdback is withheld or released. For more information, see Billing Holdbacks Overview.
  • If the Create Milestone Tasks checkbox is selected on the estimate, milestone tasks are automatically created for the project's deliverable milestones and the project's tasks are organized underneath them on the project's schedule. For more information, see Milestone Task Hierarchy Overview.
  • Account
  • Currency
  • End Date
  • Opportunity
  • Start Date
Note:

The fields above are copied from the estimate to the project by default. Your administrator can customize the field values that are copied from an estimate to a project. For more information, see Services Estimator Administration.

A budget with a type of "Customer Purchase Order" is also created and associated with the project. The budget's amount is the net amount of the estimate. If estimated expenses are enabled in your org, the budget's expense amount is the total amount of all billable estimated expenses associated with the selected estimate products.

A budget of type "Internal Budget" is created for the total amount of all non-billable estimated expenses associated with the estimate.

If vendor line items are enabled in your org, a budget with a type of "Vendor Purchase Order" is created for each account associated with a vendor line item. The budget derives its account from the vendor line item, and stores the total cost of the account's vendor line items.

For more information, see Budget Fields.

To do this:

  1. Do one of the following:
  • On a primary estimate record, click Create Project.

  • On an opportunity record associated with a primary estimate, click Actions | Services Estimator | Create Project from Estimate.

    Note:

    Your administrator must have added the Create Project from Estimate action to the Opportunity record page. For more information, see Services Estimator Lightning Components and Setting up Services Estimator.

  1. Select the estimate products to include in the project. All selected estimate products must be in the same currency.

    • The estimate products are displayed in separate cards by default. To change the view to a list, click Change View then select List. Your selection is retained whenever you use the same browser on the same device. Click Select All to select or deselect all estimate products.
    • The selected estimate products will be added to the opportunity related to the estimate as opportunity products if they haven't already been added. If the estimate products have previously been added to opportunity, the related opportunity products will be updated and the related resource requests will be deleted and new ones will be created with the updated details.
  2. Click Next.

  3. In the Project Preview step, review the opportunity products that will be created from the estimate products and the financial information, estimate vendor line items, and other project records that will be added to the project.

    • An estimate vendor line item is included as a milestone if its Create Milestone checkbox is selected.
    • The Budgets, Milestones, Project Tasks, and Delivery Risks sections of the preview can each be expanded and collapsed independently.
    • A section with no records to show displays a message instead of appearing empty.
    Notes:
    • The Delivery Risks section lists the estimate's risks that are flagged as delivery risks, together with their name, impact, likelihood, severity, mitigation plan, contingency, and comments. These risks are carried over to the project as project risks. Risks that aren't flagged as delivery risks aren't shown, and a column is only displayed if you have access to the relevant field. For more information about flagging a risk as a delivery risk, see Adding an Estimate Risk.
    • Your administrator can control whether the milestone field on the Resource Request object gets populated when creating a project from an estimate. If populated, the created resource requests within the associated line sets will be consolidated. For more information, see Services Estimator Settings.
  4. Click Next.

  5. Complete and update the project detail fields as required. For details of the fields displayed, see Project Fields.

    Notes:
    • Your administrator can control the project detail fields that are displayed and their order by specifying a field set in the Create Project from Estimate Field Set field in the Services Estimator Settings custom setting. For more information, see Services Estimator Settings.
    • Your administrator can control the fields that are automatically populated by assigning custom mappings. For more information, see Services Estimator Administration.
  6. Click Create. You will receive a notification when the project has been created.
Notes:
  • If any estimate products fail to copy, you'll receive a notification. Your administrator can view more information about the failure in the related app log record. For more information, see App Logs Overview.
  • You can't create a project from an estimate whose custom billing schedule has an unreleased holdback. Release the outstanding holdback on the schedule, then create the project.
  • You can't create a project from an estimate that is currently being processed by another action. Your administrator can troubleshoot any issues with process locking using the relevant process lock record. For more information, see Services Estimator Process Lock Fields