How To Search for an Estimate in Estimator

Our updated search mechanism is intended to make the search functionality more specific by using keywords to find the projects you’re looking for.

The fewer keywords the user uses, or the more generic the keywords are, the less helpful the results are. For example, if you’re looking for a specific hospital project, a search like “Texas hospital Baylor” (i.e. state project type client) will return better results than simply typing “hospital” (i.e. project type). In addition to that, it will limit the results that it returns to prevent Estimator from having to create hundreds or thousands of estimate cards.

The total card returned will be the top 100 files from the search. 

That updated Stored Procedure can be downloaded from this link - Find Estimates stored procedure download

This will need to run on the Estimates database (DESTINIData). 

To search for an estimate in the database, click the "Estimates" folder and type the name or part of the name of the estimate and click Enter or click the blue search box.

 

Note: Templates are NOT searchable in the Estimates Folder and can only be found under the Template folder.

When a version is closed and a new version is created, if the Name is changed, in the search you will only see the Parent Name. Example: Parent Name is Becktech Estimate, created version name changed to Dallas Office when you search for Dallas Office, the Parent Name of "Becktech Estimate" will show up, but once you open that version and save it, then Dallas Office will show in the Recent folder. Estimate Name change

Here is a list of items that are searchable in the Project Info tab (searchable v. not searchable)

  • Name (Estimate) – searchable
  • Project Name – searchable
  • Client - searchable
  • Address - searchable
  • City - searchable
  • State – searchable
  • Zip – searchable
  • Estimate Number - searchable
  • Project Type – where is this entered (Project View) searchable
  • Project Status (aka Estimate Status) - searchable
  • Version – not searchable
  • Notes – not searchable
  • Created – not searchable
  • Updated – not searchable
  • Updated By – not searchable
  • Total Cost - not searchable
  • Total Cost/Area - not searchable
  • Direct Cost - not searchable
  • Direct Cost/Area - not searchable

Missing Groups 

When you drag off a grouping it automatically gets added to the Filtering Bucket on the right. Right-click on the Filter grouping and select Show Column Chooser and add the missing column to the grouping. 

Searching for Estimate errors and how to fix

1. One of the main reasons a user cannot search for estimates in the database is when the search feature for the SQL server is missing on the database server. To verify and fix this issue click on this article.

2. Another reason that can prevent the search feature is the database is missing the upgrade script from DESTINIData upgrade scripts.

Error message: 

2021-06-14 21:25:59,933 ERROR DE.Data.Repos.EstimateRepo [(null)] - There was an error finding estimates from the search criteria 20.
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: IsOffline
at System.Data.ProviderBase.FieldNameLookup.GetOrdinal(String fieldName)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.GetOrdinal(String name)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.get_Item(String name)
at DE.Data.Repos.EstimateRepo.FindEstimates(String searchText, String dataSource)

Resolution: 

Re-run the database migration scripts