Cost Schedule Mapping (Cost Allocation) – Product Support Guide

What is Cost Schedule Mapping?

Cost Schedule Mapping is a feature in Blueprint that allows a user to allocate specs and selections line items to schedule tasks. With Cost Schedule Mapping, Homebound can track the earned value of a project as construction progresses.

This was an existing feature that you can read more about in this Costs to Schedule Allocation article. The enhancement to this feature allows for a user to do the same process at the development level. Continue reading to see how this enhancement improves efficiency for users.

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Why did we do this?

Cost Schedule Mapping was an existing feature at an individual project level that was updated to allow the user to assign associations at the development level. This update was created because most often the cost allocations across projects in a development are identical.

Previously, users mapped the same information across every project individually. Now a user can make these associations for a development once and those changes will flow through to all projects. This not only saves time but also ensures that reporting for that development is as up to date as possible.

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Key terms

Specs and Selections	Specs and Selections detail the scope of work for construction of a project. Specs refer to all items that are non-personalized or labor (ex: rough framing, dry wall). Selections are material items that the homeowner chooses (ex: counters, appliances).
Schedule task	The individual action items to be checked off on the schedule when complete.
Schedule template	Schedule templates are schedules that are pre-created for the Pre-Construction and Construction stages of project level schedules. Published templates can be applied to empty project schedules that are in draft state, and are specific to the market, stage, and development to which they are assigned.

✐ Note: You can always look up unfamiliar terms in our Comprehensive Glossary of Key Terms.

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3 steps to Cost/Schedule Mapping

Step 1:

Before you can map scope template items to schedule template tasks, the development will need to have:

A published schedule template assigned to it
A published ready plan template with scope template items added

Once the development has these two components in 'active' status, the summary below will appear. This box will show the number of mapped items / the number of total items and a progress bar.

Clicking on 'Map items' will allow you to assign schedule allocations.

Step 2:

The next screen will prompt you to select a schedule template. Select the schedule template you need to allocate costs to and click 'Continue' in the bottom right corner.

✐ Note: Cost/Schedule Mapping is only available for construction schedules at this time.

From there, you will see a table view of all specs and selections items that have not been mapped. If some items have already been mapped, you can toggle the 'Show mapped items' switch to adjust the view. You will not be able to click the 'Save & Continue' button until you map items.

You can use the drop down to individually select a schedule task to allocate the line item to, or you can use the checkboxes and 'Map items' button to bulk select the same schedule task for multiple items.

Step 3:

Once you have mapped the items you want, click the 'Save & Continue' button in the bottom right corner. This will take you to a summary page where you can choose to 'Continue Mapping' or 'Exit' the screen.

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Video tutorial

Questions? Feedback? Email us at Product-Support@homebound.com or chat with us Blueprint!