Duplicating a project

When to duplicate

Duplicating a project makes a complete copy under a new name and leaves the original untouched. Use it when:

• a client sends revised drawings and you want the original takeoff kept alongside the new one;
• you need an as quoted and an as built version of the same job;
• you want to reuse a finished job as a starting point for a similar one, keeping its Categories, groups and database links rather than rebuilding them.

Duplicating a large project with many drawings takes longer than a small one. Leave the page open until the toast appears.

Where the control is

You can duplicate from two places:

• On the Projects page, in Table layout, the Actions column at the right of each row has a Duplicate button. Hover it to see the Duplicate tooltip.
• Inside a project, the Actions menu at the top right has a Duplicate item.

Cards layout has no action buttons. Switch to Table with Actions → Toggle Layout → Table , or open the project.

Duplicating from the Projects page

1. 1

   Find the project in the table. Use Search projects... if the list is long.

2. 2

   Click Duplicate in the Actions column. The Project Name dialog opens, with the prompt "Enter a name for the new project being created from this duplicate."

3. 3

   Enter a Project Name for the copy. The original's name is not suggested, so choose one that tells the two apart (e.g. Riverside Phase 2 - Rev B).

4. 4

   Click Duplicate, or press Enter. The button reads Duplicating... and a Duplicating project... overlay covers the page.

A toast confirms Project Duplicated with the message "the new name" has been created successfully. The copy appears as a new row in the table; you stay on the Projects page.

Duplicating from inside a project works the same way, except that when it finishes ZeroCount opens the copy.

What the copy contains

The copy is a full snapshot of the original at the moment you duplicated it:

• Client, Project Type and Description from the original.
• Every drawing, in the same Categories, with the same order and rotation.
• Every marker group of every type (Detection, Count, Linear, Area and Annotation) with all their markers, colours and labels.
• Zones, AoIs and legends drawn on each drawing.
• The scale and calibration saved with each drawing.
• Database, Contractors Choice, Assembly and Custom Item links on groups.
• Each drawing's revision and status badge, so a project whose drawings are all Completed produces a copy that also reads Complete.

The copy gets its own Created date and its own Last Updated time. From that point on the two projects are independent: a change in one never reaches the other.

Common issues

The copy has not appeared

Wait for the Project Duplicated toast. Large projects take a while to copy. If the toast appears but the row does not, the table may be filtered: check the Status and Type filters and click Reset if either is active.

An error toast appears

Error followed by a message means the copy was not made. The usual cause is a dropped connection while a large project was being copied. Check the connection ring on your avatar at the bottom of the sidebar, wait for it to turn solid green, and try again with the same name.

I wanted a copy with no markers

Duplicate always copies everything. To start with clean drawings, duplicate the project and then use Reset Drawing on each drawing you want cleared. See Resetting a drawing.

Next steps

• Updating a project — change the copy's client, type or description.
• Archiving and recovering a project — put the original away once the copy is in use.
• Resetting a drawing — clear the markers from a copied drawing.
• Uploading drawings — add the revised drawings to the copy.