Retraction of TMR APR-22166

May 29, 2023

TMR APR-22166 aimed to update the Data Analytics Pricing Service for AASHTOWare Project Preconstruction™ and Estimator™. Data analysts who price items in those systems wanted the service to take market area into consideration. However, given that the Data Analytics Pricing Service in AASHTOWare Project Estimation™ already uses the market area and there are no plans to release an updated version of Estimator™, Infotech^Ⓡ concluded that the TMR should be retracted.

Before arriving at this conclusion, Infotech researched the linked call tickets to better understand the request at hand. Below, you can check out an overview of the TMR’s creation and a breakdown of how the Data Analytics Pricing Service operates differently in AASHTOWare Project Preconstruction and AASHTOWare Project Estimation.

Overview of TMR Creation

There were three linked call tickets to this TMR: 00164222, 00164588, and 00169025. Notably, the TMR name and description changed between call tickets, which proved to be the initial source of confusion with this TMR. Before the TMR was closed, the following key changes occurred:

• The TMR was initially titled: “Pricing service should use the market area to price items.” After staff dug deeper, they found the title was misleading. The TMR title was then changed to reflect the request more accurately; it is now titled:
  • “Data Analytics Pricing Service for Preconstruction and Estimator should the use market area to price items.”
• The TMR description changed twice as Infotech received clarification on the desired functionality. After some research, the final TMR description read:
  • “As a Data Analyst, pricing items in Preconstruction or Estimator using the Data Analytics Pricing Service, I need it to use market area like price items in Data Analytics. Currently, the market area is not taken into consideration.”
• One of the two agencies that endorsed the TMR is transitioning away from using Estimator.

At last year’s Estimation Summit, the majority of agencies using Estimator announced they would be transitioning to AASHTOWare Project Estimation.

Pricing differences between the modules

The Data Analytics Pricing Service considers…
AASHTOWare Project Preconstruction	Regression and Average Prices based on Quantity and Date
AASHTOWare Project Estimation	Regression and Average Prices based on Quantity, Date, Market Area, Season, Terrain, Urban/Rural, Work Type, and Improvement Type

Summary

While using the Data Analytics Pricing Service in AASHTOWare Project Preconstruction and Estimator is limited by design, the Data Analytics Pricing Service in AASHTOWare Project Estimation accomplishes the desired task outlined in TMR APR-22166. As a result, TMR APR-22166 was retracted. Infotech reached this decision as staff researched the linked call tickets and determined the specific audience, task, and systems at play. Currently, there are no future planned releases for Estimator.