Using the Circle tool

Draw a circle in one drag — either as a free annotation or as the on-canvas representation of a product that's drawn as a circle.

Where this lives: Customers → Appointment → Drawing → Tools → Circle
For: Admin
Manager
Customer Care
Sales

Why this matters

The Circle tool does two jobs that look the same and behave differently. Used on a general layer, a circle is a free annotation — a piece of communication on the canvas, no price attached. Used on a product layer whose product is configured to draw as a circle, the circle is the on-canvas representation of an instance of that product. Same gesture, two outcomes.

Circle is the right tool when the real-world shape is round. Where Polygon makes you approximate a curve with many vertices, Circle gives you the curve in one drag — and the result reads cleanly as a circle on the contract drawing instead of a many-sided polygon pretending to be one. The size of the circle on the canvas is not to scale and does not drive pricing; the measurements that matter are entered separately on the layer.

Either way, the circle ships out the door. The canvas renders on the contract PDF the customer signs, on the job information PDF the production team reads, and on the proposal.

Step 1 — Decide where the circle belongs: a product or an annotation

Open Drawing on the appointment, then pick a layer in the layer sidebar. The layer you choose determines what the circle means:

A product layer whose product is set to draw as a circle. The styling controls in the toolbar dim out, because the circle will use the product's preset fill color, stroke color, stroke width, line style, and label. The circle you draw represents an instance of that product on the canvas and is labeled with the product's name on the contract drawing. The size of the circle on the canvas is illustrative — measurements that drive pricing live in the layer's measurement inputs, not the canvas geometry.
A general or custom layer. The styling controls stay live. Circles you draw here are annotations — they don't add anything to the option card, and the shape is yours to style.

A product's draw tool is set when the product is created (Admin → Products → Visibility → On Contract → Drawing shape type), and an admin can change a product from Circle to any other tool at any time.

Drawing is read-only on a sold appointment or on the pre-existing layers of a sold change order, so on those the toolbar will be inert regardless of layer type.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Choosing the layer in the layer sidebar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-01-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Choosing the layer in the layer sidebar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-01-ipad.png

Step 2 — Select the Circle tool

If you picked a product layer whose product is set to draw as a circle, Bidvio already selected Circle for you. The toolbar highlights the Circle button and you can skip ahead to drawing.

If you picked a general layer, tap Circle in the drawing toolbar on the left — the icon is an outlined circle. The button highlights to show it's the active tool.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Selecting the Circle tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-02-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Selecting the Circle tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-02-ipad.png

Step 3 — Apply a drawing preset, or style the circle yourself

There are three ways to style a circle on a general or custom layer.

Apply a drawing preset (the fast path)

Tap the Presets menu at the top of the toolbar (the "P" icon). It lists every drawing preset your company has configured. Tap one and Bidvio sets the active tool, fill color, stroke color, stroke width, stroke style, and label to match.

A drawing preset is a named, saved combination of tool + styling + label. It's how a company standardizes the look of a recurring annotation across every rep without anyone having to remember the recipe. Presets are configured by an admin in Admin → Appointment Format → Drawing presets and apply to the next shape you draw — not retroactively. The Presets menu is locked on a product layer.

Customize the styling for this one circle

Because a circle is a closed shape, four styling controls apply to it:

Fill color — the colour inside the circle.
Stroke color — the outline.
Stroke width — choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, or 100 px.
Stroke style — Solid, Dashed, or Dotted.

On a product layer, skip the styling step entirely

The styling controls (and the Presets menu) are locked. The product's preset is the point: every circle drawn for a given product should look the same so the install crew reads them consistently. If you want a one-off styling for a circle that represents a product, draw it on a general layer instead and explain the intent in Customer Wills or Contractor Wills — but you'll lose the contribution to the option card's quantity.

Setting styling — by preset or by hand — before you draw is the right order. To restyle an existing circle, erase and redraw.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Presets menu and stroke controls/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-03-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Presets menu and stroke controls/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-03-ipad.png

Step 4 — Drag across the diameter

With the Circle tool active, touch the canvas at one edge of the circle and drag to the opposite edge — the two points define a diameter. The centre of the circle is the midpoint between the two, and the radius is half the distance. A preview follows your finger so you can see the resulting circle before committing. Release to place it.

This gesture is easy to misread the first time: the points where you touched down and lifted are not the centre of the circle, they're two points on the circumference, directly across from each other. If you want a circle of radius R, drag a distance of 2R — diameter, not radius.

If Snap to Grid is on (the dot-grid icon near the bottom of the toolbar shows whether it's active), both ends of the diameter jump to the nearest grid intersection as you drag, which keeps the circle's centre on a half-grid increment and the diameter on round-number positions.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Dragging across the diameter to draw a circle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-04-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Dragging across the diameter to draw a circle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-04-ipad.png

Step 5 — Reposition or resize after drawing

To move or reshape a circle after the fact:

Tap the Select tool in the toolbar (the hand icon).
Tap inside the circle. A single dot handle appears at the right edge of the circle — the radius handle.
Drag the radius handle in or out to resize the circle around its centre; the centre stays put. Drag anywhere else inside the circle to translate the whole circle without resizing.

Snap to Grid applies the same way during these edits — the radius handle snaps to the grid if you have it on. Resizing the circle on the canvas doesn't change the product's quantity on the option card — the canvas is illustrative — but if the circle's new size and the measurement values on the layer no longer agree, update the measurement inputs separately.

To change a circle's fill, stroke color, width, or style after placement, erase it (the Eraser tool, or Select + delete) and redraw. There's no per-shape style editor.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Select tool showing the circle's radius handle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-05-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Select tool showing the circle's radius handle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-circle-tool-05-ipad.png

Step 6 — What ends up on the contract

A circle only shows up on the contract if the layer it lives on is included in the option being sold. Every layer carries a per-option inclusion toggle in the layer sidebar with three states:

Included (green check) — the layer renders on the contract drawing for this option and its products count on the option's totals.
Recommended (orange triangle) — the layer shows in the recommendations view so you can pitch it, but it's not on the contract until you (or the customer) flips it to Included.
Excluded (red X) — the layer doesn't render on the contract and doesn't count on totals for this option.

That distinction matters for circles in both directions. A product circle on a layer that's only Recommended doesn't add its product to the option's totals, and the circle itself won't appear on the contract drawing or the job information sheet for that option. An annotation circle on a layer that isn't Included doesn't carry through to the documents either.

When a circle's layer is included, the canvas renders on the contract, the proposal, and the job information sheet. Product circles carry their product's name as a label; annotation circles render with the fill, color, and style you drew them in. The drawing is often more durable than the prose around it: where they conflict, most crews follow the drawing first.