I use it as a guide as to where to position the bases of the poles to “Square” everything up prior to pegging down. I adjust the span of the 5 legs with respect to each other so that there is more or less equal tension in the band all the way around, and then step away from the van eyeing up the poles for alignment, and adjust the positions of the bases again if necessary before pegging.
Just the way I do it. Before I adopted this method I used to find that I’d start pegging and then when I got to the last side of the awning, its pole was at about 20 degrees to the vertical, and the only way to correct was to unpeg all and start again !
Hope this helps ?
Ic.