BidScreen Cloud October update: AI-built assemblies, crews, published rates and more

Measuring is rarely the slow part of a bid. The setup around it is: building assemblies line by line, chasing rates you can defend, labeling a 30-sheet set before you can start, and keeping metric and imperial straight. This BidScreen Cloud release goes after that setup work, with more than 60 changes since our last update. Here is everything that shipped, grouped by where you will run into it.

Build an assembly from one sentence

On the Construction Classes page, Build with AI sits next to Add class. Describe the work in plain English, like "4 inch concrete sidewalk with #4 rebar on 4 inch base," and it drafts the whole assembly.

• It asks before it builds. You get one round of quick multiple-choice questions (base material, rebar spacing, forming included?) with the common answer already picked. After you answer, it always builds a draft. Anything it still had to assume is stated so you can change it.
• It shows its work. A live progress trail lists each step: comparing against similar audited assemblies, then checking your resource library for each material, labor and equipment line.
• It checks the math. Every formula runs through the same calculation engine as your takeoff before you see it. It catches bad syntax, unknown variables, loops, illegal units and quantities that come out far off for a sample shape, and it compares the draft with the closest audited preset for missing lines.
• It uses your library. Lines are matched to your own Resource Library. Anything new is marked, with close matches in the same unit offered as swaps.
• You can edit it by chatting. Ask it to "add vapor barrier" and it adds the barrier, the seam tape and the install labor.

In our test, the sidewalk draft came back in about 45 seconds with materials, consumables, labor and equipment, each with its formula and what a 1,000 SF sample comes to. Every line it creates is marked for review, and you can edit all of it. Build with AI is part of the Intelligence plans.

Assemblies that match how you price

Choice lists and yes/no switches

Variables now have a kind. A choice list is picked by name, so you choose "#4 rebar" and the formula gets the 0.668 lb/ft behind it. A yes/no switch turns parts of an assembly on or off, like Include forms or Include vapor barrier, instead of typing 1 or 0. Older include-style variables show up as switches with no change to your data. Both work everywhere values are set: the class editor, the prompt when you draw, the takeoff worksheet and the preview.

Lines that use another line's quantity

A line can now take its quantity from another line in the same assembly, not only from the measured area, length or count. Finishing hours can come from the cubic yards of concrete, or form oil from the linear feet of forms. The formula editor has a "From a line" option, renaming a line carries into every formula that uses it, and a line other lines depend on can't be deleted by accident.

Production rates

Enter how much work gets done in an hour or a day (250 SF per hour, 600 tons per day) and the hours follow. Formulas now read in plain English and name their units, for example "One for every 4 LF of the Edge Forms line."

Smoother editing

Changing a rate, a crew or a line updates the table in place instead of blanking it to a spinner. Construction Classes is now in the estimating page switcher next to CSI Codes, Rate Tables and Resource Library.

Crews

Estimators price labor the way it shows up on site. You can now build a crew in the Resource Library from labor and equipment, like a cement mason, three laborers, a skid steer and its operator.

• The crew rate is worked out from the members' rates. Edit a member's rate in the crew builder and every crew using it follows.
• Add a crew to any assembly like any other resource, and give it a production rate per crew-hour.
• Expand a crew anywhere (library, assembly, takeoff worksheet) to see each member's count, rate and cost per crew-hour.
• On a single project you can change a crew's make-up without touching the company-wide crew, and switch back to the library crew any time.

Prices you can trace

A whole assembly at once

Find rates sits at the top of every assembly, next to the Rate heading. One click looks up every line, three at a time, and puts the answers in one review table: current rate, found rate, source, confidence and a link to the source. High and medium answers are ticked for you, low ones are shown but left unticked, and lines that already have a price are skipped unless you ask. Nothing is saved until you apply.

Labor from BLS wages

Labor rates now come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey (May 2025 release) before any AI search. The project's county is matched to its BLS area, then to the trade's occupation, falling back to the state and then national figure when BLS doesn't publish the local one. That's 28,357 published wages across 585 areas. Foremen use the supervisor wage, helpers the helper wage and apprentices the 25th percentile. You see the wage, the 25th to 75th percentile range and the BLS page, and you can add your labor burden percentage before it's applied.

Equipment from the FEMA schedule

Hourly equipment rates come from the FEMA Schedule of Equipment Rates, covering 465 equipment types. These are owned-equipment rates (fuel, maintenance and depreciation) without an operator, so price the operator as labor. Day, week and month rental rates still come from AI research, as do materials.

A few honest limits: BLS and FEMA data are U.S. only, and outside the U.S. rates fall back to AI research. Whole-assembly pricing is part of the Intelligence plans.

Faster setup for any trade

Trade resource libraries

The Resource Library can now be filled from ready-made trade libraries: about 12,000 named resources across 35 trades, including five equipment libraries and General Conditions. Add a whole trade in one click or pick individual items. Anything you already have is skipped. They come with names and units only, so the rates stay yours to set by hand, from a rate table or with Find rates.

407 audited assembly presets

The preset library was rebuilt from 237 to 407 assemblies with 4,340 lines, now using variables, so one Concrete Sidewalk with a Thickness setting replaces separate 4, 5 and 6 inch copies. Every one of the 29 trades was audited line by line for units, completeness, double counts and production rates. The preset picker previews each assembly in sections with a sample quantity per shape.

Smaller library improvements

• Add Resource asks for the type first and fills in a sensible default unit.
• Resource codes are now optional, so new rows start blank instead of with an auto LAB- or MAT- code.
• Large libraries load fully (past 1,000 rows) and the table is denser and faster to scroll.

Big plan sets, organized

Read every sheet's label from one box

Box the sheet number and the title once in the title block, and every sheet of the same size is read from the same spot. Sheets with a text layer are read directly. Scanned sheets use AI vision, with OCR as a backup. Sheets that don't look like the one you boxed, such as another consultant's title block, are flagged instead of saved.

A labels review you can trust

Before anything is applied, a review list sorts every sheet into Looks good and Needs a look. A sheet needs a look when it has no sheet number, no title, a sheet number another page also has, or a different title block. You can move through the list with the arrow keys, tick with Space, and edit a sheet number and title with Enter, with a preview of what each box captured. Fix one sheet, and "Re-read with your fixes" uses your corrections as examples to re-read the flagged sheets. One Apply button applies the ticked rows.

Discipline folders

The Pages panel now groups sheets into discipline folders: Civil, Landscape, Structural, Architectural, Electrical and so on. The discipline is read from standard sheet numbers (C-, L-, S-, A-, E-) and two-letter civil codes like SD, SS, EC, UT and TC, with the title breaking ties, so "S-3 STORM DRAIN PLAN" lands in Civil, not Structural. New disciplines include Traffic, Dry Utilities, Hazardous Materials and Equipment. A paving contractor can open the Civil folder and ignore the rest.

• Move any sheet to another discipline from the right-click menu or the selection bar, with a searchable list that can also create a custom discipline.
• Rename a folder for every page in it, or reset it to auto.
• The Excel export's By Page sheet adds Discipline, Sheet, Label and Set columns.

Editing pages

• Edit a page's sheet number and label as two fields right in the Pages list (double-click or the hover pencil) or on the thumbnail.
• Rename a page from the right-click menu or with F2.
• Duplicating a page keeps its plan set, and plan-set names read from title blocks still appear in the labels review and the Excel export.

Construction notes from a box

Draw a box around a notes list (Grading Notes, Storm Drain Notes, Demolition Notes) and the AI reads only that area. On dense sheets, reading the whole sheet used to miss the list or pick up title blocks and stray text. In our testing on real civil sets, boxing the list turned sheets where it previously found no notes into complete, correct lists. The notes window now lives in the Area, Line and Count class picker, where you actually choose a class, and turns each note into a class in one step. Notes are no longer extracted automatically on upload, so nothing runs until you ask for it.

Scale you can see before you replace it

If a page already has a scale and you start setting a new one, BidScreen Cloud now stops and shows it: "This page already has a scale: 20′ / line." The view zooms to the calibration line you drew, and you choose Keep it or Clear and set new. A scale set from a ratio says so, and a calibration line that looks out of place is called out as possibly wrong.

Two more scale fixes:

• Ratio scales on older large sheets. Some 36 to 48 inch sheets uploaded before March 10, 2026 are stored at a lower resolution, and a ratio like 1" = 10' was applied at twice the scale on them, so lengths measured half and areas a quarter. Ratios now use each page's real resolution. Scales already applied on those pages stay as they are until you re-apply them, so if you have an older large set, it's worth re-entering the ratio.
• The toolbar's scale readout now rounds to two decimals (60′ / line instead of 59.9998…).

Classes on the plan

• Manage classes now lists every class drawn on the plan, including imported shapes and classes that were never saved, with the color used on the plan.
• Clicking a class's color square in the Classes panel opens that class's editor directly, so changing a color or fill is one step.

From takeoff to a shopping list

The Excel export has a new Order List sheet: every material totaled at the item level, grouped by type with subtotals, and a "Used in" column showing which classes each quantity came from. Each store-bought material links to a Home Depot search and a Lowe's search for that item. Bulk items sold by the yard or ton, like ready-mix, aggregate, asphalt and rebar, say "Supplier quote" instead. The links open a search for the item name. They don't add anything to a cart or show live prices.

Metric, everywhere

If your company or project is set to metric, BidScreen Cloud now follows it all the way through: drawing, the quantities worksheet, assemblies, rate tables, estimates and exports.

• Assembly inputs accept and show metric (mm, m, m², m³, L), including compound units. Before this, a metric user's "100" thickness could be read as 100 inches.
• Every dimensional unit converts, not just LF, SF and CY: tons to tonnes, pounds to kilograms, gallons to liters, acres to hectares. Trade units like EA, BAG and SHT stay as they are.
• Conversions use exact factors everywhere, and density is converted properly, so tonnes are no longer about 19% heavy.
• A rate in a unit that can't apply to its resource (dollars per ton on a cubic-yard line) leaves the line unpriced with a "Wrong unit" warning instead of multiplying the wrong numbers.
• Plan PDF legends, Excel headers, formula descriptions and tooltips all say metric under a metric project.

Reliability fixes

Some of the most important changes in this release are ones you shouldn't notice:

• Small or dense drawings keep every shape. A duplicate check could mistake separate shapes that were very close together for copies and drop them. It now only removes exact duplicates.
• A page that fails to load can't be saved over as empty. If a page's shapes can't be read, the server now refuses to overwrite them with an empty page.
• Deletes stick across tabs. Deleting a shape in one tab is no longer undone by an older tab saving later.
• Exports with special characters in the project name work. A project named with a dash, an accent or a degree sign no longer fails with an export error, and the saved file keeps the real name.
• New classes show up in the Library tab without reloading the takeoff.

Try it

Everything here is live in BidScreen Cloud. Log in at app.vertigraph.com to try it. Build with AI and Find rates come with the Intelligence plans, BidScreen Cloud Pro Intelligence and Pro+ Intelligence, and every paid plan starts with a 30-day trial. If something here doesn't fit the way you bid, tell us.