Getting Started
Welcome to flexureflow! This section will guide you through the basics of using our application.
Search paytems, bid prices and contracts
The following figure shows all filters and features for a typical pay item search for City of Chicago (CDOT, DWM & CDA). This can also be used to search for all pay items of a contract if you know the specification number.
Search contacts using keywords from contract/specification description
The following figure shows all filters and features that can be used to search City of Chicago contracts using keywords from contract/specification description.
Using plotting tool to estimate cost of a pay item
The following figure shows how to use the plotting tool to visualize the variation of the unit price of a pay item with the quantity. This includes plots for three different data points, as shown in the legend, which can be turned on/off by clicking.
Additional tools to estimate the cost of a pay item
Following are additional options to estimate the unit price of a pay item:
Weighted Average Tool
Use the Weighted Average tool to see a quantity-weighted average unit price for the awarded bids in your current search results.
How it works
- Run your search filters
- Click “Calculate Weighted Average”
- Adjust the price range sliders
- The Lower bound slider lets you ignore very low awarded prices (potential lowball or outlier bids).
- The Upper bound slider lets you ignore very high awarded prices.
- Watch the numbers update. As you move the sliders:
- The weighted average is recalculated instantly.
- The line below the sliders shows how many awarded items are included in the calculation.
Apply item, district, county, and other filters as usual. The tool uses only the items in the current results.
The tool calculates the quantity-weighted average awarded unit price and displays it above the sliders.
Only items with awarded prices between the two sliders are used in the average.
Tip: Start with the default range, then slowly tighten the bounds to see how sensitive the weighted average is to low or high outliers.