Running electrical estimating software with a remote team: what actually works

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An electrical contractor with estimators in Denver, Phoenix and Dallas has three copies of the same estimating software, three assembly libraries drifting apart, and bid files that live on whichever laptop produced them. When the senior estimator customises an assembly, the other two offices do not get it. When one estimator is out, their in-progress bids are unreachable.

The vendor’s answer is usually “buy our cloud version.” That is a migration, a new subscription, and often a retraining exercise, and in Accubid’s case reviewers report that existing databases had to be rebuilt on the way. The alternative is to keep the software you have and change how it is delivered.

One more wrinkle that did not exist five years ago: none of these desktop products runs on an Apple Silicon Mac. Conest and Vision InfoSoft both say so in their requirements, because SQL Server will not install on ARM. If your estimator bought a MacBook, hosting is not a preference, it is the only route.

No lab, no simulated latency, no invented figures. Three inputs instead. First, what each vendor publishes about remote, virtual and hosted use, in its own words. Second, Microsoft’s guidance on the remote desktop protocol these deployments run over, which gives real thresholds for latency and bandwidth. Third, our own experience: we host these applications for contractors, and Conest runs its CE Cloud edition of IntelliBid and SureCount on our infrastructure, so the IntelliBid rows below reflect production use rather than a test bench.

Vendor statements checked on 24 September 2026. Links to every document are in the sources at the end.

V2 Cloud partner products: Conest. “Runs on a shared hosted desktop” means the desktop edition installed once in a hosted Windows environment that several estimators connect to.

The database link over a VPN. This is the classic failed attempt: leave SQL Server in the office, let remote estimators run IntelliBid on their laptops, and join the two over a VPN. Conest’s requirements say it plainly: not recommended because of slow speed and high latency, which “usually results in connection failures or timeout errors.” The fix is the whole point of this guide. Put the application next to its database and remote-desktop into that.

Latency above 200 ms. Microsoft’s guidance for Azure^® Virtual Desktop is that round-trip latency up to 150 ms does not affect work that is not rendering or video, 150 to 200 ms is fine for text processing, and above 200 ms the experience may suffer. Estimating is mostly text, grids and PDF drawings, so the 150 ms line is the one to design for. Estimators inside North America connecting to a nearby data centre sit well under it; someone working from another continent will feel drag-based takeoff first.

Thin pipes. Conest asks for 100 Mbps for CE Cloud and does not support satellite or DSL. That is conservative, and for good reason: Microsoft’s figures for a 1080p session put spreadsheet-style work at 150 to 200 Kbps but image-heavy work at 3 to 6.5 Mbps, and a takeoff session on a PDF plan behaves like the second. Budget a few megabits per active estimator and more for a second monitor.

The Express edition ceiling. Conest bundles SQL Server 2016 Express, which caps the database at 10 GB, and asks customers with ten or more IntelliBid licences to talk to support. A shared environment makes that limit arrive sooner, because every estimator is feeding one database. Plan the SQL Server Standard licence into the budget from the start if you are anywhere near ten seats.

Hardware licence keys. Conest’s knowledge base still carries instructions for KeyLok USB keys. A USB dongle plugged into an office PC does not follow an estimator into a hosted session, so if your licences live on hardware keys, ask the vendor about software licensing before you move. Conest’s own hosted edition shows this is a solved problem.

Drawing storage. Conest notes that SureCount drawings need additional space on the file server beyond the 50 GB it asks for the installation and database. Full-size plan sets add up quickly across a bid season; size the environment’s storage for the drawings, not just the application.

Check the licensing model before anything else. Concurrent or network licensing on a hosted desktop turns a desktop product into a multi-office platform. Named-user licensing means hosting saves hardware, not licences. Single-seat products such as TurboBid give one estimator remote access, nothing more. Conest prices IntelliBid per user by edition, so confirm how many named users you need before you size anything.

Put the application and the database in the same environment. One hosted Windows environment holds IntelliBid, SureCount and SQL Server; estimators connect to it with a remote desktop client from a Windows PC, a Mac or a thin client. Conest’s requirements ask for a dedicated database server for SQL Server, a 3 GHz quad-core or better, and 16 GB of RAM or more, and those numbers carry over to a hosted server.

Size for your peak, not your average. Bid deadlines cluster. Six estimators who normally work staggered hours will all be in the software at 4 pm on a Thursday, and drawings open at the same time cost RAM. Our plans start from $35 a month and are sized by workload; a new environment is ready in about 20 minutes, so it costs little to start one size up and step down.

Put the environment near the estimators. The 150 ms guidance from Microsoft is a round trip, and distance is most of it. Choose a data centre region close to the offices that do the most estimating, and test from the worst-connected office first. If it works from there, it works.

Keep the vendor’s activation procedure on file. You will need it again when the environment is rebuilt or the vendor ships a major version. Conest’s support line and knowledge base cover SQL installation, database backup and migration between servers; the documents are linked in the sources.

Back up the database, not just the files. The environment’s daily backups cover the machine; the SQL database is what the bids live in. Conest publishes a backup procedure for the IntelliBid database, and it belongs in your runbook next to the activation steps.

Written by Jason Aiginitis, Director of Demand Generation, V2 Cloud. Vendor documentation and Microsoft guidance checked 24 September 2026. Last updated 25 September 2026.

Sources

• Conest: Hardware and OS requirements (PDF, Feb 2026), accessed 24 September 2026
• Conest: CE Cloud platform
• Conest support: Install KeyLok drivers for USB keys
• V2 Cloud: Conest customer story
• Microsoft Learn: Troubleshoot Azure Virtual Desktop connection quality (latency thresholds, Jan 2025)
• Microsoft Learn: Remote Desktop Protocol bandwidth requirements
• Trimble: Accubid Classic product page
• Trimble: Accubid Anywhere product page
• McCormick Systems: electrical estimating
• Software Advice: McCormick Electrical Estimating reviews
• Vision InfoSoft: Electrical Bid Manager
• Software Advice: TurboBid profile
• V2 Cloud: pricing