Labor estimates created by copying a similar previous estimate, or a template, tend to me more reliable and easier to justify, so your team will have more confidence in your estimate. There are two ways to copy a previous proposal estimate:

1. Select estimating method "Refer to prior estimate" at the top and select the proposal and BOE-WBS to copy
2. Change estimating method to "Refer to prior estimate" in the resource grid and xxx

The second method applies when you want to specify individual resources were copied from a previous estimate without actually copying, perhaps because the prior estimate is not loaded into this application. You can combine estimates copied from a previous proposal together with other resources which may be based on level of effort, formula or copied from other proposals or actual performance history.

1. Select estimating method "Refer to prior estimate"
2. Select or enter the proposal you want to copy from, typing in any part of the proposal description to search
3. Select or enter the WBS from this proposal you want to copy. If you are copying in labor from several WBS elements repeat this step for each
4. Optionally enter a complexity factor which multiplies the copied labor by this number
5. Click COPY LABOR, which brings the popup shown below

1. The planned effort for your selected proposal-WBS is displayed as a reference. If planned effort for your reference proposal-WBS is 0 hrs you can expect nothing to be copied
2. Click "View Details" to open the selected reference proposal-WBS in a new estimating tab
3. The complexity factor defaults to the value you entered above. You can adjust it here before copying
4. Uncheck "Copy estimated hours with resources" if all you need is a list of resources and you wish to estimate the hours yourself. Effort or hours estimated are copied from the reference proposal-WBS by default
5. If you have existing labor in your estimate check this box if you want to replace your existing labor. By default the copied labor estimates are appended into the resources list
6. Enter a remark to explain your rationale and click the CONFIRM button to copy

After you confirm this popup all resources from the reference proposal and WBS are copied into the labor table on the same screen, below.

1. The new resource on row 3 was added to existing resources in rows 1 & 2. You can see the estimating method for all copied resources is set to "refer to prior estimate" while the estimating method for pre-existing resources is not changed
2. Since the option to copy hours as well as resources was checked in the popup above, the effort is copied in automatically. Start and end dates are not copied, they are set from the currently assigned task, WBS or proposal. Duration is calculated from working time and FTE is calculated from effort / duration
   • You cannot change the effort manually after copying it, other than by changing the complexity factor column
3. The rate per hour is read from the resource master and total cost re-calculated
   • The total cost of the copied resource may not match the total cost in the original estimate because the rate per hour is not copied and may be different to the original rate in the reference bid, based on the new start date
4. Your reference or copied proposal and WBS are stored in columns called "Reference Quote" and "Reference WBS". If you copy in resources from several different places these columns are very handy to see what was copied in from where
5. The column "Variance to History" shows the historical estimate. For example the planned effort in the reference WBS was 750 hours (as shown in the popup above). Since the complexity factor input was 1.1 the new effort is 825 hours. You can see the historical effort in the variance to history column which you can show if hidden
   • Variance to history looks the same as the effort for other resources though it is actually calculated as effort / complexity
6. Any remarks you entered in the copy popup are above can be accessed from here.

You can also manually edit the Estimating Method in the resource list table to select "Refer to prior estimate". This is useful if you want to note that the estimate was derived from a previous estimate but you do not wish to actually copy it, perhaps because the prior estimate is not accurate in the system. When you select this estimating method for an existing resource:

• You must select a reference proposal and WBS in the resource table (see bubble #4 in the image above)
• You can still edit the effort manually or the complexity
• The variance to history is calculated as effort / complexity, or put another way effort = variance to history x complexity