ProEst: Advanced Estimating Software for Construction Industry

ProEst

CLOUD BASED
CONSTRUCTION SOFTWARE

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

Since 1976, ProEst has helped over 8,000 of the world’s most prominent construction companies streamline and improve their estimating processes. They continue to live up to their reputation for reliable and expert innovations with the ongoing development of ProEst estimating and on-screen takeoff software. Currently, the company is growing and has 1227 clients in its database (May 2023).

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

1. PROCESS

ProEst Cloud gives clients’ very innovative solutions to fulfill their needs. It means that the application is continuously developing – we started with 3 programmers on this project, and now the team consists of 6. Daily meetings with the client enable the determination of business requirements, which has resulted in the implementation of many new functionalities in recent years. This agile process is supported by tools such as Pivotal Tracker, Testim.io and Gitlab CI.

TIMELINE

Jarek, Senior RoR Developer

“For me, ProEst is both challenging as well as the interesting project. The volume of data that is constantly processed is huge and all the modules of the system are tightly interwoven, which requires high discipline and software optimization skills from the developers. The project also includes some image processing algorithms developed by us in the C++ language and employs cutting-edge web development techniques (e.g. Native code execution within the web browser) in order to achieve high efficiency.”

2. Web App

ESTIMATE

Core of the system. This is an advanced spreadsheet adjusted to estimators’ needs. It calculates costs of the project in realtime. Users can use a big predefined database of construction elements and adjust their quantities, different types of costs or markups. Estimate module works on big data, so was challenging to preserve good performance.

BASIC CONTENT & FEATURES MANAGEMENT

Being one of the most sophisticated modules of ProEst, “Takeoff” provides users with the ability to upload PDF files that contain construction drawings. After uploading and processing, the drawings can be then annotated or highlighted. The user can measure lengths and areas by drawing shapes on top of the drawing, based on which the estimated cost of the project gets computed instantly. The module also consists of a tool, which enables users to automatically search for all the instances of an object based on a selected template.

BID LEVELING

This tool is designed to improve the process of organizing bids made by aspiring subcontractor companies into even packages and selecting the best companies for the job. It helps with the identification of discrepancies between the bids by offering interactive visualization of per-package costs and real-time computation of per-item adjusted costs. Results of complex computations are delivered to clients in real-time, as soon as they make any changes within the estimate or prospective bidder selection.

Tomasz, Team Leader, RoR developer

“ProEst Cloud is the largest project we have been working on. Our team consists of six experienced developers. It ensures high quality of the code. This is a very important aspect for us and our client. Every team member contributes to the project and it is the base of success.”

REPORT WRITER

This powerful tool enables managers to create their custom reports and professional proposals, which can be exported to different formats. Custom reports are generated very efficiently and preserving flexibility.

WORKFLOWS

Using these feature company owners can fully customize estimation and designing processes. Due to this flexible solution, ProEst Cloud can fit to clients’ expectations. Workflows are visualized as interactive SVG graphics, so users can easily modify them.

3. AUTOMATED TESTS

In order to provide the highest level of software for the project, we implemented test automation at the beginning of our cooperation. ProEst was tested by our QA team simultaneously in the 4 most popular browsers. This allowed for more accurate application detection, earlier detection of errors and significantly shortened application testing time.

Bartek, Quality Assurance Specialist

“The project had a huge database of manual tests. My task was to automate them and to precisely cover all test cases. There was no boredom in this project, which I liked the most. The tools I used every day were Java, Selenium, and TestNG. Knowledge of JavaScript helped me in special situations. Repeatedly, I used it for elements that were not visible in clean HTML.”

4. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

In conclusion, ProEst is cloud-based construction software that combines a large area of project management and helps define special mechanisms for preparing a cost estimate for tenders. You can store files and customize estimation and designing processes. ProEst customers are large, well-known companies in the construction industry, both private and public.

Testimonial:

“Our search for the right development team lasted for a month, interviewing over 30 companies. We are confident that our decision to go with Railwaymen was the perfect choice. Not only do you have direct access to the executive team but have a development staff with knowledge and creativity that is unmatched. We highly recommend adding them as your extended development team.”

Jeff Gerardi,

President/CEO, ProEst