Trimble Quest Help
Unfortunately, there is not yet an industry standard for how consultants should create and format a unit rate bid (bill of quantities (BOQ)), which means that unfortunately some work is required to prepare the bid document before it can be imported into Trimble Quest.
Firstly, it needs to be in one of the following Excel file formats for it to be possible to import:
.xls
.xlsx
.csv
Once it is in the correct file format you will want to clean it up a bit. One of the easiest ways to do this is to copy the relevant columns and paste them onto a new sheet as values only. This ensures that there are no hidden formulas in any of the columns which might cause an error on importation.
Next, you will want to delete any headings that are unnecessary, for example, the headings labeling the columns as being for unit or bill qty, as it is not necessary to import the column headings.
The last thing you need to do is to create a section depth column. In order to do this, you can simply add in an extra column, and then next to each of your section headings, for example, Earthworks or Masonry, you can fill in the number 1. Then if there are subsections you can fill in the number 2 next to each subsection heading (and the number 3 next to each sub-subsection heading etc.)
The following video will help to understand how to clean up and format your BOQ:
Next topic: Importing Bid Items from Excel