The Cross-Drawing Summary

One table for the whole project

A project of fifteen drawings is fifteen sidebars. Checking that every group is named, linked and sensible by opening each drawing in turn is slow, and it is easy to miss one. Review mode collapses all of that into a single panel: a tab per drawing, and a Total tab listing every marker group on every drawing at once.

This is where an end-of-project sweep belongs. It is also where linking a whole project takes minutes rather than an afternoon.

Getting into Review mode

Click the sidebar toggle at the top of the marker sidebar. The tooltip reads Expand sidebar when the sidebar is narrow and Collapse sidebar once it is widened.

The sidebar becomes a full-width panel, the header toolbar shrinks to a single Export button, and a row of browser-style file tabs appears across the top. See Takeoff and Review modes for what else changes.

The file tabs

One tab per drawing in the project, followed by a bold Total tab at the end. Tabs are ordered by category and then by the drawing order you set on the project page.

Each tab shows:

• a small blue dot when it is the drawing you currently have open;
• the file name, truncated if long — hover for the full name;
• a presence dot when someone else in your company is on that drawing.

Clicking a tab that is not the open drawing loads that drawing's groups from the project summary. You are not opening the drawing; the canvas does not change.

Right-click a tab for Download and Delete . Delete asks for confirmation and warns you if the drawing appears in more than one category.

Refresh summaries

When a tab other than the open drawing is selected — including Total — an extra button appears at the right of the tab row, with the tooltip Refresh summaries.

Use it when you have just changed something on another drawing in a second tab or with a colleague, and the numbers here look stale. Cross-drawing figures are cached, and this is what pulls fresh ones.

A single drawing's tab

Selecting a drawing's tab lists its marker groups, newest first, with the same layout as the sidebar: type icon, label, quantity. Annotation groups are left out unless you are in the Annotations view.

What works and what does not:

Zones view lists that drawing's groups under each of its zones, with anything outside every zone under its Uncategorized heading. Each drawing uses its own name for that heading if it has been renamed.

The Total table

The Total tab is a table of every marker group across every drawing. Annotation groups are excluded.

Rows are paginated 50 at a time. With nothing to show, the table reads No marker groups across files.

Search

The search box reads Search groups... and matches against the group label. It is the same value as the search in the marker sidebar, so a term typed in one appears in the other.

Hide linked

Hide linked is a dashed toggle with a count beside it — the number of groups in the project that currently carry a link. Switch it on and those rows disappear, leaving only the groups still to be priced.

Note that it counts component, Contractors Choice and assembly links. A group linked to a custom item is treated here as unlinked. See Group costs and totals.

Group By

The Group By dropdown merges rows that belong together, so the same fitting appearing on six drawings reads as one line. The button label changes to show what is active, for example Group By: Label.

Merging here is a view, not an edit. Nothing on any drawing changes. To actually consolidate groups, see Merging and deleting across drawings.

The filters

Three faceted filters sit in the toolbar:

• Takeoff Type — Count Symbol, Auto Count, Linear and Area. Only the types actually present are offered.
• Category — the drawing categories in the project. Only shown when there are two or more.
• Drawing — the file names in the project.

Each filter lists the number of matching rows beside every value. Combine them freely: Takeoff Type: Linear plus Drawing: Level 02 narrows to one drawing's linear takeoff in two clicks.

Showing the Category column

Open the View button and use Toggle columns to show Category. As well as adding the column, this wraps the table's rows under category parent rows, so the whole project reads grouped by drawing category. Hide the column again to return to a flat list.

Linking and unlinking in place

Every row in the Total table and every group row on a drawing tab can be linked from here.

1. 1

   Switch on Hide linked so only unlinked groups remain.

2. 2

   Optionally set Group By: Label so one row covers the same group on several drawings.

3. 3

   Click Link on a row. The Database Items window opens.

4. 4

   Double-click the item. The link is applied to every group behind that row.

5. 5

   The row disappears from the list, because it is now linked.

To unlink, click Remove on the row. On a merged row the tooltip reads Remove all linked items, and it removes the link from every group behind it.

Common issues

A drawing shows No data available

Its summary has not been loaded. Click the drawing's tab, then Refresh summaries.

The numbers do not match what I see on the drawing

The open drawing's rows come from live state; every other drawing's come from the cached summary. Refresh summaries reconciles them.

A group I renamed still shows its old name

Renames are made on the drawing itself and reach the summary on the next refresh. Click Refresh summaries.

Next steps

• Merging and deleting across drawings — consolidate duplicate groups without opening each drawing.
• Preparing a project for export — the full sweep before you press Export.
• Linking to database items — the linking flow this table calls.
• Exporting to Excel — turn the table into a workbook.