Comp Manager 1.0, available with Appraise-It 11.0 through 11.9, is a simple and lightweight utility which allows you to quickly search comps you've used in previous reports and copy them into your current report. You can access it from the Tools menu in Appraise-It.
The first time Comp Manager or its sister program, the Image Manager, runs, a one-time database generation process scans all existing reports for comp and image data. This can be a lengthy process; it's best to let it run overnight. Future comp and image data is added automatically to the database when you save new reports.
When the database is ready, Comp Manager will open.
The Interface
The Comp Manager window consists of two panes. The leftmost Search pane displays either your available search parameters or your search results. The rightmost Options/Report pane displays either your search options or the available addenda and any comps already loaded in the active report in Appraise-It.
The Active Report
Comp Manager is only capable of working with one report file at a time; whichever report is open and active in Appraise-It at the time you open Comp Manager from the Tools menu is the report Comp Manager will access. When you're looking at your comp search results, you can use the Comp Grids drop-down at the top of the Report pane to view a list of the different comp grids in your active report, and select one to display its contents in the lower section of the pane.
Empty comps in the grids are represented by blank white numbered rectangles; any existing comps are displayed. Drag a comp tile from the results in the Search pane into a tile in the Report pane to copy it into your report. If there is an existing comp in the tile, it will be replaced.
You can click the X in the upper right-hand corner of each tile to clear out the comp contained within that tile.
None of the work you perform in Comp Manager is immediately transferred to the report itself. Click the Transfer To Appraisal button to permanently load your work into your active report.
Viewing Search Results
For an overview of how to use Comp Manager's search functions, click here.
Once you've run your search, the search tiles are replaced by results tiles in the Search pane, and your search options are replaced by your active report's contents in the Options/Report pane.
A bar at the bottom of the Search pane will display how many results were returned, along with arrow buttons which will allow you to navigate your search results if there were too many to fit on one page.
Each comp is represented by a tile containing some basic data about that comp, and a thumbnail of its photo if available. To view all available comp data, click the Show Details button in the lower right of the result tile.
Click and drag on a comp tile in the Search pane to move it into the appropriate slot in the Report pane. When a comp has been used, it will display in the Report pane and be grayed out in the Search pane.
