Generating a Material List Report
The SoftList module comes set up with sample material definitions and report styles. You can use the sample definitions and report styles to generate material list reports right away. A set of drawings—foundation, main floor, and second floor—have also been created. You can use these drawings to learn how to generate a material list report.
To generate a material list report, the floors of the plan that are to be used in the calculation of the material report must first be assembled in the order that the plan will be built, from the lowest to the highest floor of the building.
To Assemble the Floors of the Building
1. From the Projects folder and select the folder Material List Sample.
2. Select the drawing Foundation.
3. In the SoftPlan program, select Build ® Assemble Floors.
The Assemble Floors menu opens:
Note:
· If the set of floors has been previously assembled, their stacking order will appear in the Current Assembly section of the Assemble Floors menu. You can then select the ok button on the menu and follow the information in the next section, Generating a Sample Material List Report.
· If the floors of the building have not been previously assembled, continue with step 4.
4. Highlight the lowest floor to be used. In this example highlight the Foundation drawing from the Available Floors section of the menu.
5. Press the Add button. The Foundation drawing appears in the Current Assembly section of the menu.
If a roof plan has been designed for the floor of the building it will be automatically included with the floor when it is selected in the assembly of the building.
6. In turn, select the Main Floor and Second Floor drawings as explained in steps 4 and 5 in this section.
7. Once all floors have been assembled, press the ok button.
Note:
· It is necessary to assemble the floors of a building only once. The stacking order that you choose is saved in the Assemble Floors menu for use when generating cross sections, elevations, 3D views, and material list reports for the building.
· If you want to remove any of the drawings that are not to be included in the material report calculations, highlight the drawing in the Current Assembly section of the Assemble Floors menu, and then press the Remove button.
· If you want to clear all drawings from the current floor assembly for the plan, press the Reset button.
Generating a Sample Material List Report
After assembling the floors of the building that are to be included in the material report calculations, you can then generate the material list report for the building. To do this:
1. Select Build ® Material List. The following menu opens displaying the different material definitions that are currently defined: for example, By Floor and Standard Detailed:
2. You may choose any of these sample material definitions to generate the material report. If this is your first time generating a report, use the Standard Detailed definition.
SoftList begins calculating the material list report and a Processing Screen appears displaying the current floor being processed and the material whose quantity and cost is being calculated.
Note:
If SoftList finds an error in a material formula, it displays a warning message describing which material formula has an error and what that error is. Illustration 1 shows a sample Warning message that might be displayed when the material list is being calculated.
Illustration 1: Warning Message
In Illustration 1 the warning message shows that there is an error in the Concrete Footing material formula. It indicates that SoftList found that the variable footing_dpth used in the material formula for Built-Up Beam is not a variable, global variable, or constant. When warning messages are displayed, note the error. You can then return to the material formula and correct it. In this case the variable footing_depth was spelled incorrectly.
If a warning message is displayed while the material list report is being generated you can make one of the following choices:
· Select the ok button from the warning message to continue to generate the report and continue to report all errors.
· Select the Continue button to continue to generate the report and to tell SoftList not to display any more warning messages containing that particular error for that particular floor.
· Select the Cancel button to stop the report generation.
When the report calculations are complete, SoftList displays the newly generated report. Illustration 2 displays a portion of a sample material list report.
Illustration 2: Sample Material List Report
· The total estimated cost for the entire building project appears at the bottom right corner of the report.
· Illustration 2 is a sample material list report. It may differ from the reports you generate.