Proposal Writer

[Kerry Fullington]

Thermwood Team,

Are there any plans (in the near future) to fix or improve the Proposal Writer. There are functions that have never been turned on and functions that don't work very well.
The cabinet count is not not correct (the check box to show or not show tall cabinets is missing) and the way it lists materials is useless. It takes so much time to re-do the proposal in Word that one might as well start from scratch.
It would be nice if we could use the add photo function.
This would be a great feature of eCabinets if it worked.

Kerry

[Justin Melhiser]

Kerry
I will pass this over to the programmers. If There are certain things you would like to see added to the proposal writer, please fill out a feedback and I will make sure it gets to the programmers.

[Joe Dusel]

What I also think would be handy is if you could enter job specific information that would get printed in fields of not only the Proposal Writer, but also in a title block for the LDE, on Cost Sheets, Nest Diagrams and Cutlists.

Somewhere in the eCabs database it would also be nice to store company related information with name, address, phone number, email, web site and such.

Joe

[Neville Bastian]

Hi everyone inc Justin,
Justin I don't think sending info back to feedback is always the best way to go. I mean its like the Beatles getting together and throwing ideas around to create their next Album.Being a island does not always result in a great product being developed.
Well that shows how old I am.
With the proposal the name of the game is to look as professional as you can with its presentation, Have a preamble that you can control and a ending with your fine print information. There needs to be a area where you can put what additional items are that Ecabinets can not work out such as counter tops and appliances. There also needs to be a insertion of render drawings that have been previously saved somewhere and ability to have a breakdown of rooms if you are doing a full house of cabinets. A summary of what each room cabinetry would be ideal such as internal material,external material,upper doors,base doors and door finish.
I guess you could do this all for us or it may be better for it to call up a program like MS Word where we then can insert the raw information into a template program and jazz it up.
Someone else may have a few other things that could be added?

Regards

Neville

[Kerry Fullington]

Neville, Joe,

I went ahead and sent feedback attaching a proposal and notes on many of the changes I would like to see. Maybe you guys need to send feedback just saying that improvements need to be made in this area.
The more feedback the better the chance of seeing changes.
You can post here also but always send feedback.

I think this area needs a lot of input for features. The proposal writer needs the ability to include or not include many things. It needs to be very easy to edit and needs the ability to add photos as well as page background images.

The Proposal like the Presentation Drawings need to make the customer say WOW!!!

[Joe Dusel]

I really hate using the feedback feature of the software. It doesn't allow for a preview, there is no spell check and the interface is generally not up to the standards of the rest of the software. I think it would be much better to have a Feedback Forum. This allows others to chime in like we are doing here to take an idea from one person and add things that we think may be also useful. It also allows the posters to quickly learn whether some feature they are looking for might already be available in the software, or if there is a work around for their problem.

Joe

[Kerry Fullington]

Joe,

The only problem I have with a Feedback Forum is the fact that open forum always seem to run off on a tangent (like this one is doing now, we are talking about the feedback system instead of the proposal writer) and they also would take a great deal of monitoring to keep up with the original request.

Feedback through the software is an email directly to the people who need to receive it.


I would hope that many reading this thread are going to send feedback with suggestions for the Proposal Writer, let's work on the software Feedback in another thread.

Feel free to post any suggested improvements for the Proposal Writer.

Kerry

[Michael Kowalchuk]

Just to chime in - I have found a neat online spell and grammar checker that is useful for situations where one is not easily available, and there is also a thesaurus function:

http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/

[Kerry Fullington]

I have attached a copy of one of my proposals. I am trying to create a template in word to simplify this but it still takes a lot of time to enter all the information.
What do some of you include in your proposals. I am looking for ideas here.
(you will notice I forgot to add my cabinet numbers in the line drawings. I have to do this in a photo editing software because I don't like the way eCabinets numbers them.)

Kerry

[Gary Puckett]

Kerry,

Looks good to me I really like the counter top installer clause. So many time I have to go and make alterations so the granite people can install the top. When I made counter tops and installed them I did what ever it took to do the job not call the cabinet maker back to make a cut out.

Gary

[Gary Puckett]

How about shipping and handeling , it would be nice to be able to add that amount 10,15 % even if it is just an estimate.

Also it would be nice if their was a way to have a primary and secondary materiel. For instance if the original material was cherry plywood, with a secondary wood solid cherry and the client wanted to see the price in maple all you would have to do is change the primary from cherry plywood to maple plywood, and the secondary from cherry to maple, and you have the price difference.

Gary

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Kerry,
I had a look at your work in progress proposal.
That sort of proposal would need to be given to someone who you were very sure on them paying the deposit.
I have a lot of kitchen renovators in my locality who like getting quotes from me because of my cad program and my showroom. In fact many are just after idea's and a design so they can get quotes from other cabinet makers or maybe do a DIY themselves with the Chinese kitchens. I accept that and have a mind set accordingly. I know they don't realise they are really wanting a kitchen designer but not excepting to pay for one. A free quote and a free design are two different things.
My thoughts are to have two or three versions of what you have done one like yours for sure things, mid range detail such as 4 lineal meters of base cabinet $000, 3 lineal meters of upper, 6 drawer boxes etc $0000 with a couple of render sketches with no measurements then a summary type, Kitchen cabinets as per discussion $0000 with one render.

That way you pick the quote for the client type.

I usually find the sure thing clients will come back 2 to 3 times before placing the order. That's when I'd do the full sign up proposal like your example and deposit is then paid.
It would be good if Ecabinets could produce the hard work in this output with what ever format we require advanced,midrange or summary.
If the accessory requested is linked to a cabinet also flowed through with a cost inc fitting labour and mark-up that would be good. This could be hardware and our buy in products such as counter tops, sinks and appliances.
I like the way you had scanned pictures of the wire baskets etc. If they could be retrieved each quote then we had the option of deleting them if not required.
Once we had the basics from Ecabinets we could cut and past into our own template. Enhance to our individual ideas.

Regards

Neville

[Al dedenus]

So where on the forum is this area to place "feedback" ???

[Al dedenus]

whoops found it in ecabs

[Kerry Fullington]

Neville,

In the past I never included measured drawings. (people shop the rendered views just as bad) but I did them for this job because it is a re-model and the electrician and plumber needed positions and specs for appliances.
I have been working on this design at least four months (four or five revisions) so I hope I have it locked in but I don't have a deposit yet so who knows.

I never give a "guesstimate" up front because that number always sticks in their head if the actual bid is higher.

Kerry