Loading profile systems

Before Vinstra Flow can price a window it has to know what your windows are made of. That means loading four configurations: profile, hardware, flynet and glass. Until these exist, a design will draw but the material and cost sheets will come back thin or empty.

Do this once, carefully, with your supplier catalogues open.

Profile window configuration

Profile window configuration, at config/profile_window_configuration. Placeholder image.

This is where a profile system is described: the frames, sashes and beads that make up a window in a given system and colour.

1. Go to Config, Profile window configuration.
2. Select Add.
3. Fill in:
   • Label and Short name. The short name is what appears in tight columns, so keep it genuinely short.
   • System, the profile system this belongs to.
   • Window type and For, which decide where the configuration applies.
   • Colour.
   • Manufacturer.
   • Company, if you run more than one trading name.
   • Default. Tick this for the configuration that should be picked automatically. Set exactly one default per combination, otherwise the choice made for a new design is not predictable.
   • Status, to retire a configuration without deleting it.
4. Select Save.

Load your most used system first and quote a real job with it before loading the rest. It is much quicker to find a mistake in one system than in six.

Hardware window configuration

Hardware window configuration, at config/hardware_window_configuration. Placeholder image.

Hardware is configured the same way and carries Label, System, Window type, For, Manufacturer and Status. Go to Config, Hardware window configuration and add one record per combination you sell.

Hardware is the usual source of a quotation that looks slightly cheap. If a handle or a hinge set is missing from the configuration, nothing warns you; the cost simply is not there. Check the material list on a test job against a real one before you trust the numbers.

Flynet window configuration

Flynet is configured under Config, Flynet window configuration, with the same add, view and update pattern. Load it if you sell flynets, and skip it if you do not. Projects carry flynet type, cost and square footage fields, so this feeds those.

Glass

Glass, at config/glass. Placeholder image.

Glass has more detail than the other three because a glass unit has more to describe.

1. Go to Config, Glass.
2. Select Add.
3. Fill in:
   • Name, Code and Class name.
   • Colour.
   • Spacer and Spacer two, for the sealed unit.
   • Beading and Beading for.
   • Georgian bar, and GB length if the unit has one.
   • Country of origin.
4. Select Save.

Glass prices are held separately, on the Price screen under Glass. Load the glass records first, then price them. See Pricing and suppliers.

Window layouts

Window layouts, at config/window_layout. Placeholder image.

Config, Window layouts holds the layouts a designer can choose from when adding a window to a lead. These are the shapes, the arrangement of fixed panes, openers and transoms. The list supports saved filters.

If your designers keep telling you a shape they need is not in the list, this is the screen that fixes it.

Order to work in

1. Companies and manufacturers, because the configurations point at them.
2. Profile window configuration.
3. Hardware window configuration.
4. Flynet, if you sell it.
5. Glass, then glass prices.
6. Window layouts.
7. Cost configuration, covered in Pricing and suppliers.

Then build one test lead end to end and read the cost sheet before you let anyone quote a customer from it.