Using the Polygon tool

Draw a multi-sided shape vertex by vertex — closed for an area or finished open as a polyline — either as a free annotation or as the on-canvas representation of a product that's drawn as a polygon.

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

Why this matters

The Polygon tool does two jobs that look the same and behave differently. Used on a general layer, a polygon 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 polygon, the polygon is the on-canvas representation of an instance of that product — either as a closed area or as an open polyline. Same gesture, two outcomes.

Polygon is the most flexible of the drawing-shape tools. Rectangle reads as four right-angle corners; Triangle as three corners; Circle as round. Polygon reads as anything you tap out — irregular footprints, multi-corner regions, runs of connected segments. The shape communicates the layout; the measurements that drive pricing are entered separately on the layer, regardless of how you draw the polygon.

Either way, the polygon 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 polygon 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 polygon means:

A product layer whose product is set to draw as a polygon. The styling controls in the toolbar dim out, because the polygon will use the product's preset fill color, stroke color, stroke width, line style, and label. The polygon 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 and shape of the polygon on the canvas are 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. Polygons 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 Polygon 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-polygon-tool-01-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Choosing the layer in the layer sidebar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-polygon-tool-01-ipad.png

Step 2 — Select the Polygon tool

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

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

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

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

There are three ways to style a polygon 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 polygon

Polygon supports four styling controls because a closed polygon has an interior:

Fill color — the colour inside a closed polygon. For an open polyline, fill is ignored.
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 polygon 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 polygon 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 polygon, erase and redraw.

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

Step 4 — Tap to add vertices, then close or finish open

Polygon is unlike the other shape tools: you don't drag, you tap. Each tap on the canvas places a vertex. The preview shows a rubber-band line from the last vertex to where your finger currently is so you can see where the next segment will land.

There are three ways to finish a polygon:

Close the shape. Tap near the first vertex (within roughly ten points on the canvas). A small ring highlights around the first vertex when you're close enough — that's the visual cue. Tapping inside the ring closes the polygon into an area, with a fill if you've set one.
Finish it open — a polyline. Double-tap the canvas at the position of the last vertex. The polygon stays open: a connected run of segments with no enclosed area. On a product-polygon layer, an open polyline is interpreted as a length, not an area, and contributes its total run length to the product's quantity.
Switch tools mid-polygon. If you select a different tool before closing or double-tapping, Bidvio auto-commits the current polygon as an open polyline. Nothing is lost; the shape just becomes a polyline at whatever vertex you left off.

A few details worth knowing:

The first tap also drags slightly without committing, so a brief stray tap doesn't accidentally start a polygon. You need a clean, deliberate tap.
A polygon needs at least two vertices to exist; tapping once and switching tools discards the in-progress shape.
If Snap to Grid is on, every vertex snaps to the nearest grid intersection as you place it. That's useful when you want a polygon's vertices to align with grid-aligned shapes around it.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Tapping vertices with the closing ring highlighted near the first vertex/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-polygon-tool-04-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Tapping vertices with the closing ring highlighted near the first vertex/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-polygon-tool-04-ipad.png

Step 5 — Reposition or resize after drawing

To move or reshape a polygon after the fact:

Tap the Select tool in the toolbar (the hand icon).
Tap the polygon — its interior if it's closed, its outline if it's open. A dot handle appears at each vertex.
Drag a vertex handle to move that vertex; the polygon reshapes around it. Drag anywhere on the polygon body to translate the whole shape without changing its corners.

Snap to Grid applies the same way during these edits — vertex handles snap to the grid if you have it on. Reshaping the polygon on the canvas doesn't change the product's quantity on the option card — the canvas is illustrative — but if the polygon's new shape and the measurement values on the layer no longer agree, update the measurement inputs separately.

There's no in-Select way to add or remove a vertex on an existing polygon. To change the vertex count, erase and redraw. The same applies for changing fill, stroke color, width, or style: erase and redraw.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Select tool showing the polygon's vertex handles/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-polygon-tool-05-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Select tool showing the polygon's vertex handles/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-polygon-tool-05-ipad.png

Step 6 — What ends up on the contract

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

When a polygon's layer is included, the canvas renders on the contract, the proposal, and the job information sheet. Product polygons carry their product's name as a label; annotation polygons 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.