Design Assistant

Command

Prerequisites

• A FireCAD project must be open

Overview

The Design Assistant is a dockable panel that performs automated validation and quality assessment of your fire alarm system design. It runs a series of precheck rules against your drawing data and reports issues with severity levels, helping you catch problems before construction documents are finalized.

Layout

The panel has three main areas:

• Header — Title, drawing name, and summary statistics
• Validation Results — Scrollable list of validation rule cards
• Score Section — Overall design score with action buttons

Header Section

Displays the FireCAD logo, "FireCAD Design Assistant" title, and the current drawing name.

Pre-Check Summary

A statistics bar showing:

• Checks Passed (green) — Number of rules with no issues
• Issues Found (orange) — Number of rules with warnings or failures
• Auto-refresh checkbox — When enabled, validation reruns automatically after each save

Validation Results

Each validation rule displays as a card with:

• Rule name and category
• Severity indicator:
  • Green — Passed, no issues
  • Yellow/Orange — Warning, medium severity
  • Red — Critical issue, requires attention
• Detailed message describing the issue
• Action buttons (when applicable)

Validation Categories

The Design Assistant checks for issues including:

• Battery Capacity — Required capacity vs. panel charging capacity
• Current Limits — Standby and alarm current vs. circuit limits
• Circuit Quantity Limits — Device count vs. maximum allowed per circuit type
• Unconnected Devices — Devices with missing required connections
• Report Validation — Out-of-date reports (via fingerprint comparison)
• Additional rules as configured

Score Section

A fixed footer showing:

• Score Badge — Circular indicator (0-100) with color gradient
• Score Message — Summary of design quality
• Score Explanation — Detailed description of what the score means

Action Buttons

Recheck Behavior

Clicking Recheck creates a fresh database connection to ensure the validation uses the latest data. This means:

• Changes made in the Project Circuits Editor are immediately reflected
• Database values updated in other windows are picked up
• No need to close and reopen the Design Assistant

Auto-Refresh

When the Auto-refresh checkbox is enabled:

• The Design Assistant automatically reruns validation after save operations
• Rapid saves are coalesced into a single validation run to prevent excessive refreshes
• The setting persists across sessions

Tips

• Run the Design Assistant before submitting construction documents to catch common issues
• Use the auto-refresh feature during active design to get continuous feedback
• Red (critical) issues should be addressed before finalizing the design
• Yellow (warning) issues are advisory and may be acceptable depending on project requirements
• The Recheck button always uses fresh database data, so you can make changes and recheck without restarting

Related Commands

• Refreshing Validation — ATDESIGN_ASSISTANT_REFRESH
• Validating the Active Drawing — ATVALIDATE

FireCAD is the industry-leading AutoCAD add-in for fire alarm system design — from circuit layout to wire routing to code-compliant reports.
Learn more and get started at getfirecad.com →

Inspect Point Integration — Fire alarm system device lists and bill of materials can be pushed directly from FireCAD into Inspect Point, eliminating manual data entry and ensuring every device is ready for inspection scheduling and ongoing asset management.
Learn more here →