Preparing door hardware order forms

For each new job, estimators re-key three or four internal cost reports into a macro-enabled manufacturer form. They translate hardware codes from memory, and misspelled strings can be rejected by the manufacturer’s system.

The reports include opening costs, door manufacturing details, and sometimes frame data or a schedule. Their formats vary, door identifiers are inconsistent, and the manufacturer’s form expects exact product strings in one of forty-five entry slots per workbook.

The workflow maps internal hardware codes to the manufacturer’s required strings, applies exclusion and consolidation rules, splits pair doors into active and inactive leaves, and populates the form. The mapping has been validated against real jobs; extraction is still being finished.

1. 1

   Extract and normalize

   Combine structured parsing with visual reading, then normalize fractional sizes and inconsistent opening identifiers.

2. 2

   Translate and apply rules

   Use an editable code mapping, exclude out-of-scope doors, consolidate identical specifications, and split pair leaves.

3. 3

   Prepare the workbook

   Preserve the macro-enabled form and recalculate its formula fields while surfacing uncertain cases for review.

Mappings and form rules have been validated against real jobs, including pair-door splitting and consolidation of identical openings. The extraction pass remains unfinished, so the full workflow is still in development.

The mapping library and business rules have been checked against six jobs covering sixty-eight doors. The next milestone is to run the extraction pass end to end on a validated job and review the resulting form and flags.