Creating Quotes with Quote Generator

Quote Generator turns an RFQ into a priced, formatted quote. This article walks an estimator through the whole flow — from starting a quote to sending it — using the screens you'll see in the app.

Before you begin. An administrator first has to enable Quote Generator from the App Store and grant your group access, and then you may need to sign out and back in for it to take effect. If Quote Generator isn't in your launcher, or you open it and get "Access Denied," that's almost always one of these. See Getting Access to Apps and Extensions.

Finding Your Way Around

Open Quote Generator from the app launcher. You'll land on your Dashboard — "Your quote workspace." The sidebar on the left is your map:

• Dashboard — Your KPIs and recent quotes
• Quotes — Every quote, grouped by workflow stage
• Customers and Vendors — The companies on your quotes
• How it Works — A guided tour of a real sample quote
• Admin — Configuration (administrators only)

Tip. New to Quote Generator? Open How it Works once. It teaches the object model — Product Family → Specifications → Product Preset → Quote Item — on a live sample, and the rest of the app clicks into place.

Creating a Quote

1. Click + New Quote.
2. Under Start from, choose one:
   • Upload Documents — Extract a quote from an RFQ, spec sheet, or P&ID. Accepts .pdf, .docx, .msg, and .xlsx.
   • From Preset — Start from one or more saved standard designs (for example, a LACT Skid or Meter Skid).
   • Blank — Build a quote from scratch.
3. Attach the customer and project, then click Create quote.

Tip. Starting from Upload Documents or From Preset gives you a head start — the app pre-fills line items that you then confirm in Reconcile, instead of typing everything by hand.

Reconcile: Reviewing the Extraction

When you start a quote from uploaded documents, the AI extracts the units and line items for you. Reconcile is where you review that extraction before it becomes your quote. You reach it by clicking Review → on the quote's banner, which reads "N lines still need a decision." and switches to "✓ All lines resolved — ready to price." once none are left.

The top of the screen shows an intake summary: how many units and lines were extracted, and how many verification items are still to review. Verification items are extraction-quality flags, not quote lines. You Acknowledge (reviewed, fine) or Dismiss (not relevant) each one, and the count tracks only the open ones.

The flags are grouped by type:

Flag	What it means
missing	A BOM line that's in the documents but wasn't extracted.
spurious	A line that's on the extraction but isn't supported by the documents.

Each item shows the Item, a "Why it's flagged" explanation citing the exact document and page, the Source document, and a Resolution — Acknowledge or Dismiss. Work through them like this:

1. Try the shortcut first. Click Attempt to auto-resolve all to let the system clear what it safely can, then review whatever's left. Anything you remove goes to the Recycle bin.
2. Read "Why it's flagged," then decide. The explanation points to the source page, so you can check it before you Acknowledge or Dismiss.
3. Check the matched base. Reconcile matches your extraction to the closest saved design — the Matched base shows a % match and a why. Use change base to pick a different one, or no preset to work from the extracted lines alone.
4. Open the quote. Once the open items are cleared, click Go to quote → to open it, priced, in the Canvas.

Verification items are not quote lines. A verification item is a note about the extraction's quality. Acknowledging or dismissing every open item is what clears the banner and lets the quote total settle.

Building the Quote on the Canvas

The Canvas is where the quote lives. A small icon on each line shows where it came from — uploaded from your documents, added by hand, or prefilled from the preset (and, on quotes that use them, expanded from a kit). Hover an icon for the details, and use the sources filter — From uploads, From the preset, From kits — to show just one kind.

• Add and organize line items. Add parts, labor, freight, or other lines, and group them into sections and kits so the quote reads cleanly.
• Add a whole unit. Use + Add unit (top right) to add another unit or skid, including one that wasn't in your uploaded documents. Each unit gets its own sections and lines.
• Swap a part. Use Pick a different part to open the catalog and rebind a line. Specifications appear as plain labels (Line Size, Pressure Class), never raw keys.
• Set your pricing. In the PRICING row, adjust the Contingency (%) and pick a Margin tier (for example, Standard 20%). These drive the quote's totals.
• Pull in vendor pricing. Use Upload Vendor Quotes to bring vendor pricing into the quote's lines.
• Recompute after edits. Edits stage rather than re-pricing instantly. When you see "Costs are stale — N staged changes," click Recompute prices, or discard staged edits to back them out.
• Use the attention flags as filters. The chips in the toolbar are clickable — click one to show only those lines. This is invaluable when you have, say, 21 unpriced lines to work through. Clear them before you move on.
• Check the Customer view and Preview PDF. Toggle Customer view to see exactly what the customer will see, with internal costs hidden, and click Preview PDF to see the finished, customer-facing quote before you send it.

What each attention flag filters to:

Flag	Lines it shows
needs review	Extracted lines still awaiting a decision from Reconcile.
unpriced	Lines with no price yet — pick a part or set a price.
qty 0	Lines with a quantity of zero.
error	Lines with a calculation or data error.
staged	Lines with edits staged but not yet recomputed.

Saves are all or nothing. If a save is blocked you'll get the "Can't save — fix these first:" banner listing what's wrong, and nothing is saved — there are no partial writes. Fix the listed items and save again.

Moving a Quote Through Its Workflow

A quote advances through the workflow stages your organization has configured. An administrator sets these under Admin → Operations → Workflow stages, so the exact names can differ between organizations. Every quote starts in Draft; from there you move it forward with the Advance to… menu on the quote. A typical setup runs Draft → Sent → Won, Lost, or Archived.

• Advance the stage. Open the quote and use Advance to… (top right) to move it forward — for example, to Sent when it goes to the customer.
• Terminal stages. Won and Lost close a quote out, and Archived sets it aside. Closed quotes drop out of the Open quick-filter but stay fully searchable.
• Revisions. Each revision bumps the Rev number (R0 → R1 → and so on), so the history stays intact.
• Locking. If your workflow marks a stage as locking, advancing to it freezes edits so the record matches exactly what the customer received. After that, make changes by creating a new revision.

Customers and Vendors

Customers are who you quote to; Vendors are who you buy from. You don't have to set either up before you start — a quote works fine without them — but they're where reusable detail lives, so it's worth knowing they're there.

The Vendors page, from the left sidebar, is a directory of your suppliers: add one with + New Vendor, load many at once with + Bulk Import, or Export CSV. A vendor's actual pricing, SKU, and lead time live on the catalog item records they supply — and on the Canvas, Upload Vendor Quotes pulls vendor pricing straight into a quote's lines.

An empty Vendors page is fine. Landing on an empty Vendors page doesn't mean anything is missing — you can quote right away. Vendors are for maintaining supplier detail over time, not a prerequisite.

Your Dashboard at a Glance

The Dashboard leads with four KPI cards. Each is clickable and opens the Quotes list filtered to match:

KPI	What it shows
Open	Quotes in progress — your active workload.
Awaiting customer	Sent but not yet closed — decisions pending.
Won	Closed-won in the last 90 days.
Pipeline	Total value sitting in sent proposals.

On the Quotes list, use the stage tabs — plus the Open quick-filter, which hides Won and Lost — and the columns Quote #, Rev, Customer, Project, Date, and Stage to find any quote fast. There's no dollar-value column on the list; open a quote to see its total.

Troubleshooting

Quote Generator is missing, or I get "Access Denied"

Solutions: three things have to be true. Check them in order.

1. An administrator has enabled Quote Generator in the App Store.
2. Your group has been granted access to it.
3. You have signed out and back in since that change. See Getting Access to Apps and Extensions.

The quote total looks too low

Solutions:

• Check the banner. While it reads "N lines still need a decision." the total excludes those lines. It settles once the banner reads "✓ All lines resolved — ready to price."
• Open Review → and clear the remaining verification items. Attempt to auto-resolve all handles whatever it safely can.

Costs are marked stale

Solutions:

• Staged cost changes have not been applied yet. Apply them so the quote prices against current costs.
• Until you do, the figures on screen are priced against the older costs, which is why the banner flags it rather than silently repricing.

Reconcile matched my quote to the wrong design

Solutions:

• Use change base to pick a different saved design. The % match and its why tell you how confident the match was.
• Use no preset to work from the extracted lines alone if no saved design fits.

Related Articles

• Getting Access to Apps and Extensions — Start here if Quote Generator is missing or you see "Access Denied"
• Connecting Your Systems with Integrations — Connect GrndCtrl to the systems your team already uses
• Composite Tables: Combining Your Data — Join and roll up your synced sources

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