Set up your space

IN THIS ARTICLE

Set up the reusable parts of your space before your team starts modelling real deals.

1. Explore the sample deal

Once you've created your space, Estii opens a sample deal and offers a short introductory tour.

Welcome tour

The tour walks through the main deal surfaces: overview, estimate, scope, schedule, proposal, and approval.

Sample deal

After the tour, explore the sample deal or open the pipeline to access more guides from the Getting Started section.

2. Set up your rate card

Before you build a real deal, define your default rate card. To access it, start the Roles tour in the Getting Started panel, or navigate to Roles in the main navigation.

Rate cards hold role costs, prices, margins, and the default work unit for time-based estimates.

The roles screen

Add a role

To add a role, click New role and enter the role name and cost per day or hour.

Adding a role

By default, Estii calculates the price and margin from the rate card rules. You can override the calculated value by setting an explicit price on a role.

Settings

Normal margin is the default margin used to calculate the default price per role
Low and high margin are used to warn users if explicit price exceeds the target margin. They are also used to allow minor adjustments to the rate card within a deal.

Rate card margin

Import existing roles

You can import existing roles and rate cards from a CSV file by clicking Import.

Import roles dialog

3. Create a stream

Streams are groups of roles that work together on common activities or deliverables.

To access your streams navigate to Streams in the main navigation.

Streams define standard allocations or ratios of roles to use across deals. Use them for loaded teams, common deliverables, platforms, or workstreams that need the same role mix repeatedly.

Within a deal, Estii tracks estimates associated with a stream so you can review their total value and add or remove related work from scope together.

Empty streams page

Click New stream to open the stream window, and enter a name

Creating a stream

Allocate roles and percentages to the stream. Estii calculates the overall cost, price, and margin.

Stream roles

You can also allocate streams inside other streams to represent loaded resources or more complex delivery dependencies.

A stream containing another stream

4. Create a product

Products are unit-based resources for recurring services, one-off expenses, and pass-through costs.

To access your products navigate to Products in the main navigation.

Products

5. Adjust estimation settings

There are a number of global estimation settings in Settings > Estimation

Default currency
Capacity (hours per day/week/year)
Contingency (loading per risk level)
Work unit (days or hours)

Contingency

Contingency is a percentage added to raw estimates to cover the cost of "known unknown" risk that would likely result in additional costs.

Contingency is defined by risk level and automatically added to items based on their risk profile.

Contingency settings

Capacity

Capacity is the number of hours to allocate per day, week, and year. It affects day-rate calculations and schedules.

Capacity settings

Work unit

The preferred unit for estimation and rate cards (day or hour)

Work unit settings

6. Set up reusable work

Use the Library to manage reusable commercial knowledge:

Library items are reusable scoped and estimated pieces of work.
Phase templates define the default categories and sections for new phases.
Deal templates are complete deal blueprints for repeatable offerings.

7. Invite members to your space

A member is a user with access to your space.

Navigate to Settings > Members
Enter the invitee's email address
Select a permission level
Click Invite member

Adding a member

Your space is ready for real deals when the default rate card, common roles, any streams or products, estimation settings, and core members are in place.