Build cards from a quote
Upload a quote you already sent; answer a short interview; get Install Cards that rebuild it and experts that know how you work.
Most firms already have the answer to "how long does this take" sitting in quotes they have sent. Build from a quote turns one of those into Install Cards, checks the cards against the quote's hours, and asks you only what it cannot work out. Your quote may be wrong in places; the interview is where you decide which side is right.
Where to start
- Card Library → Install Cards → Build from a quote (Owners and Admins).
- On the welcome screen of a new workspace: Start from a quote you already sent.
- If you bought Concierge, our team can run the same interview with you.
What to upload
An Excel (.xlsx), CSV or PDF quote, up to 20 MB. A spreadsheet needs a header row with a description column; quantity, part number, manufacturer, unit and hours columns are read when present. Up to 400 lines are read, and you are told if any were left out, if a sheet had no header row, or if an item line could not be matched to any kind of work.
Hours can sit on each line, on one or more labor lines, or nowhere at all. With a single block of labor hours, DarkBird proposes how it splits across the work and you confirm or adjust the split. With no hours at all, the interview asks for your total first.
What happens before the first question
- Reading the quote
Lines are read and labor lines are told apart from products.
- Picking the experts
The same expert panel the scoping interview uses is chosen from what the quote contains.
- Grouping the work and drafting cards
Lines are grouped into kinds of work (cameras, the recorder, cabling drops…). Each group is matched to a card already in your library or gets a new draft card with labor steps and hours.
- Checking the hours
The cards' hours are worked out exactly as an estimate would and compared with the quote. A group more than 7% off is flagged.
Quick or Deep
| Quick | Deep | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | About 8 minutes | Up to 15 minutes |
| Questions | Up to 12 | Up to 25 |
| Asks about | The hour split, each flagged group, approving the cards, and up to 2 questions about how your firm works | All of that, plus the experts' concerns, how each card scales with quantity, and who does the work where two trades meet |
DarkBird suggests one and says why: Deep for quotes with many kinds of work, more than one trade, many flagged groups, or a labor block shared across three or more groups. You choose. When a Quick interview ends, Go deeper continues in Deep without asking anything twice.
Answering
- Flagged groups: choose The card is right, The quote is right (the card is rescaled to the quote), or Set the hours.
- Cards: approve them in batches, or choose per card: Approve, Keep as draft, or Drop.
- Expert and company questions: tap a suggested answer, or answer in your own words.
- A counter shows how far along you are, and the time against the target. Pause saves everything; pick it up again from Earlier quotes on the same page.
What saving does
- Approved cards go into the Card Library. Cards you did not approve are saved too, marked Needs review. Dropped cards are not saved.
- An edited copy of a card already in your library updates that card only if you approved it.
- A Quote check project (in Planning) rebuilds the quote from the cards, with the quote's hours kept beside each card for comparison.
- Your org-wide Expert Profile and the experts for the trades involved learn what you told the interview. Standing facts ("we standardize on one recorder platform") are kept with the expert for that trade.
- Card calibration is not changed: a quote is an estimate, not actual hours. Calibration still learns from projects you review.
Finish now is available at any point. It saves what is settled; cards you have not approved are kept as drafts.