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Setting up a project
An H1 project holds everything for one building: its plan, climate zone, elements, assemblies, the compliance result, and the details that appear on the report. This page covers creating one and getting it organised.
Start from the Dashboard
The Dashboard ("Your work") is your home base. It lists your H1 projects and Assemblies on two tabs, with recent items under Jump back in. Two buttons start new work:
- New H1 project - opens a fresh project in the H1 Compliance page.
- New assembly - opens the Assembly Builder (see Assemblies and products).
You will also find the built-in sample project here, marked with a teal "Sample" corner ribbon: a complete demonstration job ("123 Sample Street, Sampletown") with a plan, take-off, assemblies and AI results. It is read-only - View sample to explore, Copy to edit for an independent editable copy. Each project card carries its H1 Compliance report action and an Insulation take-off action, with plan viewing, copying and the other secondary controls in its More menu.
Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) anywhere to quick-open a saved project by name.
Name the project
Give the project a name in the Project name field at the top of the H1 Compliance page (for example, "12 Beach Road dwelling"). The name is how you find it on the Dashboard and how it prints on the report.
A status indicator next to the name shows Saved, Unsaved changes, or Not yet saved.
Set the climate zone
Under Climate zone, either enter the site's NZ postcode (Thermly resolves the territorial authority and zone) or pick one of the six zones directly from the Climate zone dropdown. The zone is per project and selects the reference building for the heat-loss check. Zones follow H1/AS1 6th edition, Appendix C. Where a postcode's delivery range spans an official zone boundary, confirm against the territorial-authority table - the free climate zone finder does exactly that, and can carry the confirmed zone into a new project.
Fill in the project information
Project Information holds the details that print on the report cover and headers. It collects only what genuinely varies per report; blank fields render as "Not specified", so you can complete them any time before generating:
- Site address, Consent reference, and the building designer (the designer is a per-report field - it is never auto-filled from your profile, because the report author and the building's designer are different roles on a compliance document).
- Notes - a free-text box for anything worth recording (for example which spaces are excluded from the thermal envelope as unheated). Notes print on the report but never affect the calculation.
The report author's Name, Organisation and Role come from your Profile settings, so you set them once instead of retyping them per project. A collapsible Report author (override) covers the occasional report you prepare on behalf of a differently-named colleague; it pre-fills from your profile, and editing a field stores an override for that report only.
Everything else the report needs is derived rather than typed: the heated floor area is read from the traced or entered envelope, and the version on the report comes from the project's save history.
With a plan attached, ✨ Read with AI can pre-fill the site address, designer and consent reference (and, optionally, Notes) from the drawing's title block, for you to check.
Attach the plan (optional but recommended)
Attach the architectural plan set under Plan PDF (optional). It uploads to your account and stays available to View plan, Download, Replace or Remove. On accounts with AI features, the plan card also offers ✨ AI plan summary - a floating window listing what the drawing set states, with page citations. See Uploading and calibrating your plan.
Save, and track status
Click Save to persist the project to the Dashboard. New starts a fresh project (it confirms first if you have unsaved changes). Generating a report also saves the project automatically first, so a report always reflects a saved version.
Each project carries a status you control:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Editable working state. Reports carry a preview watermark. |
| In Review | Set aside for a final check; still editable, still watermarked. Address review comments, then submit or return to draft. |
| Submitted | Submitted for approval; awaiting sign-off. Reports print without the watermark. |
| Approved | Final and locked. Make a copy to revise. |
Make a copy (in the Dashboard card's More menu and the row actions) creates an independent duplicate named "<name> (copy)" and opens it ready to edit. The copy is faithful - envelope, R-values, report details, assemblies, openings, and the attached plan with its take-off diagrams are all duplicated - and it works even on a locked or approved project, which is the intended way to fork a signed-off job to revise it.
Organise with folders
On the Dashboard, group projects into folders. Projects not in a folder sit in your Workspace. Filter and sort the list by zone, name, or date, and switch between Cards and Rows.
Share with your team
If you belong to an organisation, you also get shared folders visible to the whole team. Move a project into a shared folder to collaborate on it. Colleagues can add review comments against each element at any status (a submitted project stays reviewable); the In Review status marks a project as set aside for that final check. Organisation admins can also set a report logo and accent colour so generated reports carry the practice's branding. See Can I share projects with my team?