An alternate’s status is a description of its progress through the approval process. Use the Status button to change an alternate’s status. You can select from a list that contains the following options:

• None - The alternate has no status.

• Pending - The alternate is under consideration. You will typically select this status for a new alternate.

• Acceptable - The alternate has been approved but not posted.

• Rejected - The alternate has been rejected and will not be included in the estimate.

• Posted - The alternate has been accepted and incorporated into the estimate. You cannot select the Posted status; the application will change the alternate's status to Posted when you post it.

• Included - The alternate has been incorporated into the estimate manually.

• Other1-3 - These statuses can be customized using the Estimating Preferences screen to incorporate your company's business practices.

While you can post an alternate with any status, Viewpoint recommends that you use the Status field to track which alternates are accepted and only post those alternates with a status of Acceptable.

The Included status provides another means of identifying an alternate that is incorporated into the estimate. It means that the estimate has been manually modified in some way to "include" the cost items listed within the alternate. In some circumstances, you will want to include an alternate with your estimate, instead of posting the alternate to the estimate.

The difference between posting and including is that when you post an alternate, all the cost items in the alternate are copied to the estimate. At that point, the alternate is set to read-only status within the Alternates tab. When you include an alternate in your estimate, nothing is copied to the estimate. You have to add the cost items to the estimate manually. By creating an alternate and setting its status to Included, you are creating a paper trail. Included alternates are present for historical purposes only.

There are also three customizable status options: Other1, Other2, and Other3. You can customize these if you need additional status options to conform to your business practices regarding alternates. Customize these statuses using the Estimating Preferences screen.

Alternates are totaled by status at the bottom of the Alternates tab. Open alternates include alternates with statuses of None, Pending, Acceptable, and Other1-3. Acceptable alternates include only alternates with a status of Acceptable.

If you created a group of alternates, only one alternate in the group can have a status of Acceptable. When you post the alternate with the Acceptable status, the status of remaining alternates in the group is changed to Rejected.