The dashboard layout
Every page outside a drawing has the same shape: a narrow sidebar down the left with the navigation and your user menu, and a header across the top with breadcrumbs on the left and that page's action buttons on the right. The rest of the screen is the page itself.
When you open a drawing the sidebar changes job entirely: the navigation is replaced by the marker sidebar for that drawing. See A tour of the takeoff workspace.
The left navigation
| Entry | Icon | What it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Projects | The list of every project for your company. This is the home page of the app. | |
| Templates | A collapsible group. Clicking the row folds it open and closed rather than navigating. |
The Templates group holds four libraries, all shared across your company:
- Groups — saved marker groups you can apply to another drawing. See Group templates.
- Zones — reusable sets of polygon zones. See Zone templates.
- AoIs — reusable Areas of Interest that focus detection on part of a drawing. See AoI templates.
- Custom Items — your company's own priced items, alongside the component catalogue. See Custom items.
The group opens on its own whenever you are on one of those four pages, and the entry you are currently on is highlighted.
The branding strip
At the very top of the sidebar sits a small logo with two lines beside it: Ensign ZeroCount, and under it your company name and the app version, for example Ensign Software · v0.24.0.
Quote the version if you ever report a problem. The whole strip is also a link back to the projects list, so it doubles as a home button from anywhere in the app.
The user menu
Your avatar, name and company sit at the foot of the sidebar. Click the row to open the menu.
The menu opens with a connection status block that is not clickable:
- A coloured dot and a label reading Connected, Connecting…, Reconnecting… (attempt N), Offline, or Offline — N pending changes when edits are waiting to be sent.
- When connected, a Session line with a copy button. Copying the session id is useful when reporting a problem to Ensign.
- When not connected, the time the connection dropped and a Reconnect now button.
Below the status block are four items:
| Item | Icon | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| User Preferences | Opens the preferences dialog: appearance, canvas controls, detection, measurement and confirmations. Your choices are saved when you close it. See User preferences. | |
| Help | A quick reference held inside the app: getting started, AoIs, zones, ignore colour groups, switching between drawings, and the keyboard and New Takeoff shortcuts. | |
| Recent Updates | What has changed in the app, newest version first. See Recent updates. | |
| Logout | Signs you out and returns to the login page. Shown in red. |
The user menu is hidden while the sidebar is collapsed into Review mode on a drawing. Widen the sidebar to bring it back. See Takeoff and Review modes.
The header and breadcrumbs
The top-left of every page carries a breadcrumb trail showing where you are, building up as you go deeper:
Projects › project name › category › drawing name
Only the parts that apply are shown, and the last one is in bold. Each earlier part is clickable:
- Projects returns to the projects list.
- The project name returns to that project's drawings.
- The category returns to the project page and scrolls to that category, ringing it briefly so you can spot it.
- The drawing name does not navigate. It opens the Select Drawing panel instead, so you can switch to another drawing in the project without leaving the workspace. See Opening drawings and switching between them.
To the right of the breadcrumbs are that page's own controls, which change with the page: New Project and Actions on the projects list, the drawing toolbar once a drawing is open.
The Leaving Takeoff confirm
While you have a drawing open with work in progress, anything that would navigate away from it asks first. A dialog titled Leaving Takeoff appears, reading Are you sure you want to leave? with Cancel and Leave buttons.
This covers the breadcrumbs and the branding strip alike. It is a prompt, not a warning that something will be lost: markers are saved as you make them. Choose Leave to go, or Cancel to stay on the drawing.
Next steps
- The Projects page — the list you land on and what each column means.
- Creating a project — start a job.
- Your first takeoff, start to finish — one PDF from sign-in to Excel.
- A tour of the takeoff workspace — what the screen looks like once a drawing is open.