The Express Visual Assembly feature of the Takeoff tab enables you to add visual assemblies to the Estimate without leaving the Takeoff tab. Each time you add a visual assembly using this feature, the Estimating module stores the last settings you entered the previous time you added this visual assembly to the NotePad or Estimate tabs.

To open a job in the Manage Estimates screen, click Estimating > Estimating > Manage Estimates in the All Tasks pane. Then select the job you want to open, and click OK.

You cannot save different copies of the same visual assembly using the Express Visual Assembly feature. To save different visual assemblies, you must create the visual assemblies in a catalog or estimate. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you create visual assemblies in your catalog and estimates if you work with many different visual assemblies. For more information on using visual assemblies in the Catalog and Estimate windows, see Use Visual Assemblies.

To use the Express Visual Assembly feature, you must have a catalog selected as the active catalog in the Catalog tab. See Organize the Catalog Tab for more information.

Once the assembly has been added to the Estimate, you can then add quantities to its members. See Digitize Quantities in a Visual Assembly for more information.