# Getting started Signing in, your profile, the bar across the top, the home page, alerts and search. ## Signing in Link: /manual/getting-started#signing-in Your portal emails you a link and a code: no password needed. 1. Go to your portal's address (for example meridian.portspace.io) and enter your work email. 2. The portal emails you a **sign-in link** and a **six-digit code**. 3. Open the link: it shows a page with a **Sign in** button. Press it on the device you are using — or type the code on the sign-in page instead. Either one works once and expires in fifteen minutes. Nothing is spent until you press **Sign in**, so a mail scanner or a link preview that opens the link first cannot use it up. The sign-in page answers every address the same way ("a link is on its way if this address may sign in"), so it never says who is a member. [Screenshot: The sign-in page: your work email, then the link or the code from the email.] #### Other ways in - **Continue with Google** and **Sign in with Microsoft** (Microsoft 365) work too, where the firm has switched them on, for the same work email. The portal's email domains still decide who may enter. - **Sign in with a password** is optional, for someone who has set a password of their own on their profile (see [Your password](/manual/your-settings#your-password)). It shows on the sign-in page only once someone at the firm has one: type your work email and password. Two-factor sign-in still asks for its code after it. Five wrong tries lock that account for a quarter of an hour (and many from one address lock that address). - Two-factor sign-in, once you have set it up, asks for the six-digit code from your authenticator app after the link or Google — see [Two-factor sign-in and devices](/manual/your-settings#two-factor-sign-in-and-devices). #### Who may sign in The portal's administrator decides under [Firm → People and roles → Invite and sign-in](/people#invite): either anyone with an address at the firm's own email domain, or only people who have been invited. Someone outside the company (a vendor, a client contact) can always be invited. An **invitation** email works the same way as a sign-in link: its page says who you are invited as, and **Accept and sign in** accepts it. #### When it does not work - Forgotten the address? **Sign in** at the top of portspace.io asks for your portal's address and takes you there (**Go to my portal**). Or, under *Forgotten the address?*, it emails you every portal your address can sign in to. - Refused? The page says why. *This account is switched off*: the firm's owner switched it off — ask them, or PortSpace support. *Too many attempts*: wait a quarter of an hour, or use the emailed link. For the developer password, it says that the address is not allowed, or that it only works from the addresses PortSpace allows. - Still stuck? The sign-in page has an **Email support** link at the bottom. ## Your profile Link: /manual/getting-started#your-profile Your name, time zone, security, layout and what the portal holds about you. Where to find it: Your name, at the right of the bar → **Your profile** Your name at the right of the bar opens a menu. Under your address it says how many of the firm's AI actions are left this month and how many were bought (*AI actions: 112 of 150 left this month · 240 bought*). It turns amber when the month's are nearly gone, with **Buy more** for those who buy them. A firm on its own AI key reads *Own AI key — no AI actions used*. Then come **Your profile** and **Sign out** — and, for those who manage people, **View as someone else…**, to see the portal as a designer, an accountant, a contractor or a client. Alerts are the bell beside your name — see [Alerts](/manual/getting-started#alerts). [Screenshot: Your profile: details, security, workspace style, tips, your access and your own connections.] #### What is on your profile [Your profile](/profile) has these parts: - **Your details** — your **name** (what the portal calls you on notes, comments and history), **job title**, **sign-in address**, **your time zone** and **alerts by email**: straight away, once a day, or never. Leave the time zone on the firm's unless you work somewhere else; it decides your "today" and the hours on meetings. - **Security** — two-factor sign-in, your signed-in devices ([Two-factor sign-in and devices](/manual/your-settings#two-factor-sign-in-and-devices)) and your password, if you want one ([Your password](/manual/your-settings#your-password)). - **Workspace style** — the firm's (*Use my firm's style*), or a familiar layout of your own (Tabbed or Project-first) if you came from another spec system — see [Workspace style](/manual/administration#workspace-style). - **Tips and tours** — *Show the tips again* brings back the welcome tour. - **Your access** — your role and what it lets you do, and your projects (starred, managed, or holding a task of yours). Roles are set under [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles). - **Your Slack or Teams**, **Calendar feed** (your tasks, meetings, deliveries, pick lists and due dates in your own calendar app, updating on its own) and **Yours elsewhere** (your tasks, timesheet and expenses) — see Your own settings. #### Your data **Download what this portal holds about you** saves your account, devices, activity and alerts as one file, whenever you like — and, for the firm's people, your time and expenses too. **Ask to be removed** asks the firm to remove your personal details. It asks first, and tells you when it has gone. A firm's only owner is told instead how to hand ownership over or close the portal. ## Asking the manual Link: /manual/getting-started#asking-the-manual Type a question; the answer comes from the manual's own words. Where to find it: Help → **Manual** → the box at the top of the manual's first page The box at the top of the manual answers from the manual's own text, and points at the sections it used. - **Your past questions** — click one to see its answer again, with nothing spent. - **Common questions** — what people on this portal ask most. A question already answered here in the last 90 days is answered from the record rather than asked again. When the manual does not cover something, it says so and offers *Tell us what you need*. That goes to support as a feature request; the site administrator sees what people ask. Tip: To look something up yourself, use the search box on the manual's first page or in its sidebar: each result opens the section that answers it. ## The bar Link: /manual/getting-started#the-bar Up to six menus across the top, with search, the alerts bell and your name. The bar across the top holds up to six menus, with search, the alerts bell and your name to the right. [Screenshot: A menu opened from the bar: entries grouped under labels, the page you are on marked.] #### The menus - **Projects** — *Work*: [Home](/) (the page you land on, which opens on what needs you — see [Home](/manual/getting-started#home)), [Projects](/projects), [Tasks](/tasks), [Calendar](/calendar), [Meetings](/meetings), [Waiting on a decision](/approvals) (every approval still open, firm-wide) and, for those who manage projects, [My projects at a glance](/manage). *Deliveries*: [Receiving](/receiving) and [Pick lists](/pick-lists). - **Library** — *Products*: [Product library](/products), [Price lists to review](/products/pending), [Clip from a website](/products/clip), [Import products](/products/import). *Companies*: [Makers](/manufacturers), [Vendors and contacts](/vendors). *Templates*: [Specification templates](/templates), Product templates (for those who manage settings), [Project templates](/project-templates), [Categories](/categories). *The firm*: [Fonts and resources](/resources). - **Finance** — *Selling*: [Proposals](/proposals), [Change orders](/change-orders), [Invoices](/invoices). *Buying*: [Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs), [Purchase orders](/purchase-orders), [Vendor bills](/vendor-bills), and [Imported quotes](/quotes) where the portal has quotes brought over from an old system. *Reports*: [Dashboard](/dashboard), [Month-end](/month-end), [Aging](/aging), [Profitability](/profitability), the firm's tax report (named for its tax, e.g. *Sales tax*), [Commissions](/commissions) where they are switched on, and [More reports](/reports). - **Time & expenses** — [My timesheet](/timesheets), [My expenses](/receipts), the [Expense queue](/queue) for whoever decides, and [Labor cost](/timesheets/report). - **Firm** — [People and roles](/people), [Settings](/settings), [Plan and billing](/billing), [What's in the portal](/stats) and [Imported files](/files). - **Help** — [Manual](/manual), [Find a setting…](/find-setting), [Setting up](/setting-up) and [Contact support](/support). #### Only what you can use You see only the menus and entries that lead somewhere you can use. A designer without money rights has no Finance or Firm; a Restricted seat has no firm-wide library chores; a client or a contractor gets their projects and Help (whose *Contact* reaches the firm, not PortSpace). A menu opens on a click, not a hover, so it works on an iPad. Longer menus lay out as labeled columns. A menu closes when you click or tab away from it, or press Escape. The menu holding the page you are on is underlined along the bar's edge — a project's own pages, an item, a board or a file count as Projects — and inside it that page is marked, so you always know where you are. #### Asked before anything goes Removing, deleting, voiding, merging or undoing asks first, in a small box over the page. It names what goes and has its own two buttons: *Cancel* and the action itself (*Remove*, *Void*, *Merge*…). Escape or a click outside is Cancel. On anything that deletes, Cancel is the one already highlighted, so Enter on a quick keyboard never deletes by accident. #### Long lists Long lists come a page at a time. The foot of the list says where you are and how much there is: *« First · ← Previous · Page 2 of 23 · 1,380 products · Next → · Last »*. Lists shown newest first say *Newer* and *Older*. The filters and search you set are kept from page to page, and a page number past the end shows the last page. Where everything fits on one page there is no footer. #### On a phone **On a phone** the menus sit in one **Menu** button. Each menu is a section that opens on its own, one at a time, starting with the one you are in. The browser tab and the home-screen icon carry your firm's name. ## Home Link: /manual/getting-started#home The page you land on: the day, what needs you, the week ahead and your projects. Where to find it: **Home** in the Projects menu, or the firm's name at the left of the bar [Screenshot: Home on the example hotel: the day, The firm's figures, Needs you, This week and Your projects.] #### The top of the page **The home page** opens on the day, a greeting by name under it (*Good morning, Nora.*), and one line of what the day holds (*Friday, September 25 · 3 things need you · 2 waiting on others*). Search and **Ask** sit beside it. Good news — a payment in, a proposal or change order accepted, an item approved — sits under the day in green (*✓ Calloway paid 0000-INV4 in full · yesterday*), not as something to do. Opened, it is marked read and goes. For whoever buys AI actions, a line under Ask says how many are left this month and bought, with **Buy more**. #### The firm Those who see the firm's money then get **The firm**: owed to you (and what of it is overdue), collected this month, waiting on a decision (and how many of those are with clients), things late, and receipts to decide. - Each figure is a link to its list, with *Dashboard →* beside them. - A zero is shown quietly rather than left out. - Red only for overdue money and late things; amber for approvals waited on over a week. #### Needs you **Needs you** is a short list, seven lines at most (*and 4 more →*), each a thing to do and a link to it: your tasks (each opens the task), items late or coming up on their orders, damage claims, approvals sent to you or back from the client to revise, receipts to decide, and your latest unread alerts (opened from here, they are marked read). A filled dot is yours to do. A hollow one waits on someone else — approvals and proposals with the client, tasks with nobody on them — and is never red. #### What you see follows what you do - A designer or a restricted colleague sees the work on their own projects and no amounts. Home starts with Needs you, with *1 task late* beside its heading when tasks they hold are overdue, leading to their tasks. - Whoever sees the firm's money also sees overdue invoices by name and bills falling due. - An accountant sees bills to pay, draft invoices to send and, early in the month, *Close* last month. #### This week and your projects Beside Needs you, **This week** lists deliveries, site visits, meetings and pick lists in the next seven days — and bills, for those who see money (the accountant sees the whole week too). A week with less than two things in it is one line at the foot of Needs you instead (*This week: site visit, tue 29*). Below, **Your projects**: starred first (with the star), then those you manage, those holding a task of yours and the example, then the other active ones, however long ago any was last edited. Each has its picture or icon and what waits on it (*1 late · 2 approvals*; nothing under the name when nothing waits), in the Overview's terms. A late task there is red only when it is yours; someone else's is amber, with whose it is (*1 task late (Nora's)*). The firm's *things late* follows the same rule (*1 thing late · not yours* in amber). The project's Overview keeps its whole picture. Tip: While a new firm has only the example project, its figures and lines are said as the example's and never urgent. On a phone everything stacks: the figures two to a row, Needs you, the week, your projects. See also: /manual/getting-started#amber-before-red, /manual/getting-started#alerts, /manual/projects#the-project-page ## Amber before red Link: /manual/getting-started#amber-before-red Three steps for every date and wait: plain, amber, red. Everywhere a date or a wait is shown — Home, a project's *Needs attention*, the Dashboard, Expediting and Tasks — there are three steps: - **Red**, with a circled mark, only for what is past its date, or a damage claim or a reported problem to act on. - **Amber**, with a triangle, for what is due within three days, or has waited on someone longer than usual: an approval or a proposal with the client over a week, a claim with the vendor, an order not acknowledged after a week. - Everything else is plain. The words always say when — *due Mon*, *arrives tomorrow*, *2 days late* — so color is never the only sign. Tip: Expediting has a *Coming up* filter beside *Late*, and the Dashboard's *Late and coming up* card lists both. ## Who else is here Link: /manual/getting-started#who-else-is-here A note when a colleague has the same page open. When someone else has the same specification, project, order, invoice or meeting open, a small note appears at the corner of the page. When they have its editor open it turns amber, because the last save wins. Nothing to switch on. ## Alerts Link: /manual/getting-started#alerts The bell by your name: what is new for you. Where to find it: The bell beside your name → [Alerts](/alerts) The bell by your name counts what is new and opens [Alerts](/alerts). New ones carry a NEW badge and stay that way until you deal with them. - Opening one marks just that one read. - *mark read* / *mark unread* sits on each. - **Mark all read** clears the lot. Nothing clears itself while you read. [Screenshot: Alerts: new ones marked NEW until you open them or mark them read.] Email follows your profile: instantly, in a daily digest, or not at all, per kind under [*Which alerts*](/manual/your-settings#which-alerts). ## Search Link: /manual/getting-started#search Find a record, a page or a setting — and the words inside files, transcripts and mail. Where to find it: The search box in the bar, or the [search page](/search) #### Pages and settings The search box in the bar finds places as well as records. Type what you are looking for in your own words — *tax*, *markup*, *logo*, *roles*, *books closed*, *managers* — and **Pages and settings** at the top of the list (and of the [search page](/search)) says where it is set and opens it there. On a project, *managers* offers **This project's managers** first. Only what you may open is offered: a designer typing *tax* is not sent to Settings they cannot use. **Help → [Find a setting…](/find-setting)** lists every place you may open, with a filter. The filter box at the top of [Settings](/settings) does the same inside Settings, pointing out of it (under *Elsewhere*) to what lives on a project or in People. [Screenshot: The search page: pages and settings first, then records, with highlighted snippets from inside files.] #### Inside files, transcripts and mail [Search](/search) looks through the words inside PDFs, spreadsheets and text files on Files, meeting notes and transcripts, and mail on Communications, and shows a highlighted snippet. It also finds: - a project note or a task by the words in it (a task's notes included); - a proposal by its title, its bill-to or the client's questions on it, and an invoice by who it is billed to; - a specification by its finish, fabric or supplier; change orders and price requests by number or subject; - an item or a library product by its model code, typed with or without its dashes and spaces (*CH-24* or *ch24*; not for a client where the firm keeps makers from clients); - a word in the plural as well as the singular (*lounge chairs* finds *Lounge Chair*). A client or a contractor finds only the files shown to them, and nobody finds an issue set printed with prices unless they may see prices. New files and meetings are indexed as they arrive; older ones overnight, or an administrator can press *index them now* at the foot of the search page. Photos and drawings are found by their titles. # Coming from another spec system Where each screen and habit of your old software is here, and the two familiar layouts: Tabbed and Project-first. ## Coming from a tabbed spec system Link: /manual/coming-from#coming-from-tabbed From a web-based spec system with tabbed item pages: the same records, arranged differently — and the Tabbed layout, which keeps the words you know. [Coming from a tabbed spec system](/guide/tabbed) is a page of its own, with a picture of each screen: what you did before, where it is here, and a button to it in your portal. It is for staff; also under ☰ → Help in the Tabbed layout, and found by searching *tabbed*. The records are the same kind of thing — projects, items, products, vendors. With the Tabbed layout on (the firm's choice, or yours under *Workspace style* on [your profile](/profile#workspace-style)), the portal uses the words you know (*Items*, *Item Name*, *Products*, *Address Book*, *Attachments*, *Distribution*, *OFOI/OFCI*, *Issue Date*, *Revision #*) and that arrangement: the modules in two rows on one bar with the picked project under it, Active Projects as the start page, the item page in tabs, Products as a table. Tip: A line on the start page says which layout is on and where to change it. *Got it* closes it; *Show the tips again* on your profile brings it back. #### Your old screen → here - *Active Projects* → [Projects](/projects): starred projects in a *Priority Projects* band, each with status, items and (if you see project money) value; a line above says what needs you today. *Home* is PortSpace's Home. - *The tabs across the top* → the same modules in two rows; pick a project once and *Items*, *Accounting* and *Communications* open it. Switched-off modules are not there. - *The menu at the top right* → ☰ for everything else (*System Settings* is Settings, for owners and administrators); your name for [your profile](/profile) (*Personal Settings*); *User Guide* is this manual. - *Project Detail View* → the Overview: *Edit project* for the details, *Team* for contacts and staff, *Files* (Attachments); *Rooms/Areas* is under *Items*. - *Item List View* → *Items* (*Specify*): one grid by Item #, the usual columns. *View* has its eight views — *List View*, *List View w/ Images*, *Split View*, *Status View*, *Lite View*, *Accounting View*, *Approvals View*, *Pricing View* — as your modules and access allow (prices only for those who see them; with Pricing off, the budget), plus *Group by area* (with links and subtotals) and *Picture cards*. *Sort by*, *Financial Summary* and *Columns* sit beside it. The Area cell opens the area. *Select All* and *Actions* → check items, use the bar at the foot. *Advanced Filters* → *Filters*. - *Reports → Preview Spec* and *Generate Specs* → *Preview Spec…* and *Issue Specifications…*, kept under *Generated Specifications*. - *Items Detail View* → the item page in its tabs, opening on *Details*; *Item 12 of 200* arrows (or [ and ]) keep the tab. *Item Notes*, *Product Notes*, *Distribution* too. - *Products tab* → *Products*, the usual columns and how many projects use each; *Show products for: Active Project | All Products*, with or without images, *Most projects* under Sort by; *Add to a project* makes an item. - *Item Templates* and *Specification Templates* → *Templates*, side by side. - *Address Book* → [the Address Book](/vendors). - *Accounting* (Proposals, Purchase Orders, Invoices, Deposits, Process Transactions) → *Accounting*: the five screens as you know them, each with *Show … for: Active Project | All Projects* as modules and access allow, and *Full list →*; then the other money pages. - *Timesheets* → [Timesheets](/timesheets). *Tasks* → [Tasks](/tasks). *Pick Lists* → [Pick lists](/pick-lists). *Pricing (Vendor Bookshelf)* → [Price lists to review](/products/pending). *Communications* → the project's. ## Coming from a desktop spec database Link: /manual/coming-from#coming-from-project-first A desktop spec database's screens and habits, and its purchasing screens, and where each is here. [Coming from a desktop spec database](/guide/project-first) is a page of its own, with a picture of each screen: what you did before (and in its purchasing program), where it is here, and a button to it in your portal. It is for staff; also under ☰ → Help in the Project-first layout, and found by searching *project first*, *furnishing list* or *source*. The records are the same kind of thing — projects, specs, manufacturers, sources, purchase orders. With the Project-first layout on (the firm's choice, or your own under *Workspace style* on [your profile](/profile#workspace-style)), the portal uses the words and arrangement you know. The words: *Spec*, *Item Description*, *Manufacturer* and *Source* — never Vendor —, *Categ* for OFCI / CFCI / CFOI / OFOI / SPSI, *Item Type*, *Item Qty*, *Unit Cost*, *Ext. Cost*, *Issue Date*, *Δ*, *Room Qty*, *Follow-up*, *References*. Tip: A line on the Main Menu and Home says which layout is on and where to change it. *Got it* closes it, and *Show the tips again* on your profile brings it back. #### Getting around - *Login* (Select Project #) and the *Main Menu* → [the Main Menu](/main-menu), the start page. Pick the Active Project there (*Change Project* brings the list back), then the same four columns — *Reference Info*, *Specifications*, *Finish Schedule*, *Reports* — and, with Procurement on, the purchasing columns *Spec Items* and *Purchasing*. Every project page you open becomes the Active Project too. *Home* (what needs you today) is at the foot of the menu and under the firm's name. - *RETURN* on every screen → *RETURN*, first on the bar at the top of every page. Beside it *MAIN MENU* and each column, opening its buttons, with the Active Project under the bar. Search, alerts and your name stay at the right; ☰ holds everything else (*System Info & Utilities* is Settings; the *Solution Center* is this manual and the guide). #### Specs and their lists - *Furnishing Specification Listing* → *Specifications* (the Furnishing List): one flat grid sorted Area → Item # → Item Type, the same columns in the same order (Image, Issue Date, Area, Item #, Item Type, Item Description, Item Qty, Unit Cost, Ext. Cost, Manufacturer / Source, Status, Categ, then your own fields as User Fields), the total at the foot, filters for Area, Item Type, Status and *Categ*. *Sort by* and *Columns* change it; *OFCI Spec List* is the list filtered to OFCI. - *The report menus* (Spec Reports, Project Summary, Reference) → *Spec Reports* above the list: the spec book, *Spec Index by Area* and *by Item Type*, *Issue Specs*, the *Revision / Addendum Index*, *Follow-up Items*, *Request for Quote*, the *Budget*, the *FF&E Qty Matrix* (room quantities) and the project's reports. - *Specs* (the spec screen) → the spec as one dense form, no tabs. The header band holds Project, Manufacturer, Issued, Spec Type, Revision/Addend as Δ, Status, Categ, Item Description, Item Qty @ Unit Cost = Ext. Cost, Area, Item Type, Drwg #, Item #. Then *Description*, the *Item Template*'s fields in the same order, *Notes*, *User Fields*, *Instructions*, *Required for Designer Approval* (each kind checked where an approval of that kind was asked, with its answer), *Lead Time*, *Ship To*, *Source*, *Prepared By*, *Updated By*. - On the spec, *Spec*, *Full Spec*, *Spec w/ Image* (and *with pricing*, for those who see it) down the right open the spec sheet as a PDF, with the pictures under them. PortSpace's own parts (references, cut sheets, revisions, status notes, orders) follow below. #### Reference, revisions and the library - *Manufacturers* and *Sources* → [Manufacturers](/manufacturers) and [Sources](/vendors). *Item Types*, *Item Templates* and *Spec Instructions* → [Item Types](/categories), the product templates and [Spec Instructions](/templates/instructions) (the instruction library; the specification templates keep their own name, under [Specification Templates](/templates)). - *Room Qty Entry* → the project's room quantities (*Room Qty* on each spec too). *Revisions / Addenda* → *Issues & Revisions* and each spec's *Issue revision*. *Follow-up Tracking* → the project's approvals. - *Image Gallery* and *Copy Specs* → the [Product Library](/products), PortSpace's biggest new idea if you come from a desktop spec database: every product the firm has specified, ready for any project. #### The purchasing program *The separate purchasing program* → no transfer file: a spec is ordered where it is specified. *P.O. List*, *P.O. Detail* (its tabs: Purchase Order, Item Costs, PO Costs/Deposit, Vendor Invoices, Expediting Items, Communications), *P.O. Items List*, *Receiving* and *Vendor Invoices* are under *Purchasing* — the project-first purchasing screens, over PortSpace's orders. *VIEW / SUBMIT P.O.* opens PortSpace's own page to edit, send and receive an order. #### Habits kept in every style - The *Flag* kept on each spec: the first column of the Furnishing List, the Flag menu (*Flag the items shown*, *Clear every flag*), *Show → Flagged*, and flagged-only spec books, issue sets and orders — see [The Flag](/manual/specifications#the-flag). SPSI is one of the *Categ* codes. - Instruction lines by Item Type and project category — the master list as the [instruction library](/manual/library#the-instruction-library), each spec's lines on its form, printed in the spec book. - Area codes, headings, Public / Guest and room numbers, and the printed number by the firm's rule (Area-Item#, ItemType-Item# or the project-first way) — see [Areas and rooms](/manual/projects#areas-and-rooms). - Δ revisions: numbered Specs, Budget and Finish schedule revisions, each item's revision tied to one with its reason and Revision or Addendum, the revised fields shaded in the spec book, and the Revision / Addendum index — see [Revisions and history](/manual/issuing#revisions-and-history). - Budget add-on charges and Budget vs Actual — see [Add-on charges and budget against actual](/manual/money#add-on-charges-and-budget-against-actual). - The room-by-surface Finish Schedule and OFCI quantities by area — see [The finish schedule](/manual/projects#the-finish-schedule). - Client fund requests, the P.O. approval chain and the Yardi / P3 exports — see [Client fund requests, the approval chain and the accounting exports](/manual/money#client-fund-requests-the-approval-chain-and-the-accounting-exports). # Start a project The project list, a project and its tabs, the Project menu, duplicating and templates, the brief, areas and rooms, the finish schedule and takeoff. ## The project list Link: /manual/projects#the-project-list Every project, its icon and its job number — and where a new one starts. Where to find it: Projects → **Projects** The list opens on **active** projects, sixty at a time, with the page and the count at the foot (*Page 2 of 3 · 142 projects*). It is sorted by *Recently issued*. You can sort instead by *Most specifications*, *Job number*, *Name*, *Client*, *Newest* (the most recently created first) and, for those who see project money, *Value*. - **All** brings the completed and inactive ones back — with **Archived** and **Templates** chips (and any other status the firm uses) whenever there are some. - A search or **Yours** looks across everything. Search by name, job number or client. - Each project has an icon tile: its picture, or its initials in a color of its own until one is set. [Screenshot: The project list: icon tiles, job numbers and clients, sorted by Recently issued.] #### Starting a new project 1. Press **+ New project**. 2. Fill in the job number, name, client, status and budget (in the firm's currency). The job number offered is the next after the firm's latest, skipping any in use — the same number Duplicate and a template offer. 3. Save. Whoever creates it becomes its manager, so the alerts about it have someone to reach from day one. The new project opens on its Brief, at **What they sent** — the one place there is anything to do yet. Where the Brief is switched off, it opens on the Overview. More managers are added on the project's Overview: **Managed by**, **+ add** (or search for *managers*). See also: /manual/projects#the-project-page, /manual/projects#duplicating-a-project, /manual/projects#project-templates ## My projects at a glance Link: /manual/projects#my-projects-at-a-glance The morning page for whoever runs the jobs. Where to find it: [Projects → **My projects at a glance**](/manage) — for managers of projects, and administrators The projects you manage on one page, with what is open, overdue and unassigned on each, and every open task under them. Administrators can widen it to **all** active projects. - A project with nobody holding open work or hours this week shows just its figures. - *Everyone this week* or *Due in the next 7 days* is left out when it has nothing in it. Both empty: one line saying so. [Screenshot: My projects at a glance: each managed project with its open, overdue and unassigned work.] ## The project page Link: /manual/projects#the-project-page A project's address, its header, its Overview and the tab strip. Where to find it: Click a project on the [project list](/projects) #### Its address A project's address is its job number and name — *avenue.portspace.io/projects/24-107-00-fremont-street-hotel* — so a link pasted into an email or a chat says which job it is. - The job number is what finds it: rename the project and the old address still works. If the job number itself changes, links with the old one keep working too. - Each item has an address of its own the same way, by its number under the project — *…/projects/24-107-00-fremont-street-hotel/items/l-101*. Renumbering an item keeps its old address working. - Older links with a long string of letters and numbers still work and open the same page. - Links for clients, trades and payments are private links of their own and don't change. #### The header Opening a project lands on its **Overview**. Every page of the project — each tab, and the pages under them such as one invoice, order, item or meeting — starts with the same one-line **header** at the same height, so the tabs never move. The header holds the icon tile and the name (a link back to the Overview), the job number, the status, the client and who manages it, **Star**, and the **Project** menu for what is done to the whole project: Edit project, See it as the client sees it, Duplicate, Save as template, Archive, Delete. [Screenshot: The example hotel's Overview: the property's picture, Needs attention, Where the job stands, Next up and Lately.] #### The Overview **The Overview** carries the whole picture. Its figures are the same ones the tabs count, so the two always agree. At the top left is the **property's picture**. Those who set up projects press *Add a picture of the property* (or *Change picture*), upload one or choose one of the project's photos, and see it before **Save picture**. - Check *Use it as the project's icon too* to make its center square the project's icon as well — checked already when the project has no icon, unchecked when it has one. - *The client sees it on their Overview* is checked unless you uncheck it. Beside it: the client and their contact, the location, and **Managed by** — changed right there by those who set up projects with **+ add**, or × to take one off. Someone archived shows as *(archived)* until replaced. Under it, **People on this project**: the firm's people who work on it without managing it (see [Team & tasks](/manual/project-work#team-tasks)). Then what is specified against the budget, with a bar, **Edit project**, and [**Ask the project AI**](/manual/ai#ask-the-project-ai) beside it (for those who may ask; @ works there too). #### What the Overview lists - **Needs attention** — late orders, decisions waiting on you or the client, overdue invoices and unpaid deposits, open claims, past-due visits and overdue tasks, answered price requests, and what the client sent that is not read yet. Each is a link to the exact place: what is past its date first in red, what is coming up next in amber ([Amber before red](/manual/getting-started#amber-before-red)). - **Where the job stands** — one line per stage (Brief, Specify, Propose, Order, Invoice) with its figures and a link: amounts for those who may see prices, counts for everyone else. - **Next up** — the next tasks and meeting. - **Lately** — the last eight things that have happened (nothing still to come; that is under Next up), with *All activity* for the rest. Needs attention and Next up are left out when they have nothing in them. With both empty, one quiet line stands in their place (*Nothing needs you on this project right now.*). Where the job stands, Hours and Lately are always there. Then the **Project details**: the detail fields, the tax that applies and why, the project's email-in address, **Outside contacts** and pinned **links**, and the **Notes** anyone on the team can add, for things everyone should know. - **Outside contacts** — the client's contacts, the architect, the owner's rep, each with their company and role and a link to their card when there is one; added and changed on the Team page (see [Outside contacts](/manual/project-work#outside-contacts)). Staff only. - Pinned **links** — a client sees only the ones marked *Visible to the client* on [Files](/manual/project-work#files). #### Editing the project **Edit project** (on the Overview, or the header's **Project** menu on any page) edits the who and where: name, job number, client and contact, location, billing address, ship-to and notes. Those who may see prices also edit the budget, tax rate, tax name and currency. The project's *structure* — areas, room types, categories, icon and color — is the **Areas and rooms** tab under Specify (see [Areas and rooms](/manual/projects#areas-and-rooms)). Each points at the other, since the split is the portal's own, not an industry one. #### The tab strip Under the header, on every tab of the project and on one invoice, proposal or purchase order, sits the **tab strip**, in the order the work happens. The pages of one item, board, file, meeting, price request or change order carry the header alone, with the project's name leading back. [Screenshot: The tab strip: the groups on top, the open group's sections under the line with their counts.] - **Overview**: the project at a glance, where it opens. - **Brief**: What they sent · Areas · Whole project · Concept. - **Specify**, its row in two labeled parts: *Specs* — Specifications · Finish schedule · Takeoff (when the project has room types) · Issue sets · Areas and rooms (for those who can edit) — then, past a divider, *Design* — Swatch boards · Layouts · Renderings (with Visualizations on, once there is a layout or a picture) · [Presentations](/manual/project-work#client-presentations). Design shows when the project has any of them or you may make them; without, the row is the specs alone. On a phone each part has its own line. - **Propose**: Proposals · Change orders · Approvals. Someone who does not see prices has the tab as **Approvals**. - **Order**: [Price requests (RFQs)](/manual/purchasing#price-requests-on-a-project) · Purchase orders · Expediting · Receiving · Installation. - **Invoice**: Invoices · Statement · Budget and margin. - Then, past a thin rule, the two groups that run alongside every phase: **Team** (team & tasks, meetings, time, activity) and **Files** (files, photos, transmittals, communications). The open group's sections sit in a quieter row under the line, each count saying what it counts: *7 orders*, *8 items · 1 late*, *2 waiting on you*. A group on the top row shows a number only when something in it needs you — late orders, overdue tasks, a decision waiting on you (in red), a vendor's prices come back — so a quiet tab means nothing is waiting. Clients and contractors see a short strip of their own, in plain words. On a phone the groups wrap onto two lines, all in sight; the row of sections under them scrolls sideways, with a fade at its edge when there is more. ## The Project menu Link: /manual/projects#project-menu What is done to the whole project: edit, see it as the client, template, duplicate, archive, delete. Where to find it: The **Project** menu in the header, on every page of the project What is done to the whole project is under the header's **Project** menu: **Edit project…**, **See it as the client sees it**, **Save as template…**, and: - **Duplicate project…**. - **Archive project…** when the job is finished — see [Archiving a project](/manual/project-work#archiving-a-project). - **Delete project…** (owners and administrators). #### Deleting Careful: **Delete project…** removes the project with its specifications, orders, invoices, change orders, pick lists, quotes, approvals, meetings, files, photos, boards, tasks and any library products used only there, after you type the job number. Time entries and expense reports keep their hours and money without the project. ## Prospects Link: /manual/projects#prospects Potential projects a few people pursue before the rest of the firm sees them, and making one a project when it is won. Where to find it: Projects → **Prospects**, or **Projects · Prospects** at the top of the project list A **prospect** is work the firm is pursuing but has not won: a hotel group that wrote in, a referral, a repeat client's next job. It holds the name, the client company and contact (from the address book), the location, the type, a rough size and budget, the expected start, where the lead came from, and notes; a [brief](/manual/projects#the-brief) the AI reader works on as on any project; and files. It has no specifications, orders, invoices, time or client approvals until it is made a project. #### Who sees a prospect - Everyone with **Pursues new work**: owners always, administrators unless it is untoggled, and any role given it under [Firm → People and roles → Roles](/people#roles). - A colleague added to one prospect (a senior designer asked to weigh in), on its **People** tab: they see that one and no other. - Nobody else learns that it exists: it is not in the project lists, search, Home, the calendar, reports and exports, alerts and digests, Slack or Teams channels, the AI's answers or the counts. Its address answers "not found" to them. - Clients, contractors and vendors never see a prospect, and get no client access to it until it is a project. #### The pipeline [**Prospects**](/prospects) shows them as a **Board** — a column for each stage, **New → Meeting → Proposal out → Won**, with its count and rough value — or as a **List**, a table you sort by any column; click a card or a row to open it. The switch remembers your choice. **Show** picks Open, Lost or Archived. Example prospects carry an **Example** badge and are not counted in the totals; **Remove the examples** takes them away. Home shows a short **Prospects** list of what needs attention — proposals out the longest, starts within 30 days, prospects untouched for two weeks, new ones — to those who see prospects. [Screenshot: The pipeline: each stage with its rough value, the soonest start first.] #### For an existing client Often a new job is for a client you know. On **New prospect**, **For an existing client?** searches your address book and the clients of past projects; pick one and their company, contact and address come along, and the source is set to Repeat client when they have past projects. Pasting their email matches it by company or the email's domain ("Matched to … · 3 past projects"); **Unlink** if it is wrong. A client is never added twice. The prospect's **Client and people** card says "Existing client · 3 past projects · last: …", and the client's card in the address book lists their **Open prospects** to those who may see prospects. #### Paste to fill 1. Press **+ New prospect**. 2. Paste the client's email into the big box, or drop a document: a PDF, a Word document or a forwarded email (.eml). 3. Press **Read it into the form**. One AI action reads it: the name, the client company and contact (matched to your address book, or offered as a new card), the location, type, size, budget if one is stated, expected start, source and a short summary, and the brief's first areas and questions. 4. Check the form. Each filled field says **from the email:** with the line it came from. Nothing is filled that the email does not say: no stated budget, no budget. 5. Press **Save the prospect**. What you pasted is kept as its first note and as the brief's material; a dropped file is on its **Files** tab. [Screenshot: New prospect: the big box for the client's email or a document, and the other two ways in.] [Screenshot: The form after the reading: each filled field says which line of the email it came from.] Tip: Out of AI actions? The reading says so and the form is there to fill in by hand. **Try a sample email** shows how it works without spending anything; so does the demo. #### Start from a past project or prospect **Start from a past project or prospect** lists the projects and prospects you may see, the similar ones first with why ("Same type · similar size"): the same type, a similar size or budget, the same client, nearby. Prospects are labeled with their stage. Check what the new prospect takes: the areas with their brief structure, the client and contacts, and a rough budget — from a past project, what it actually came to in total, by area and by category, and per key or square foot when those are known, shown on the prospect as **Based on …**. Money only for those who may see it. From a prospect, its notes and files only when checked. Never carried: orders, invoices, approvals, client access, time, private files, a prospect's stage history or lost reason. The prospect says **Started from …**, to anyone who may see both. On a prospect, the header's **Prospect** menu → **Use as a template…** opens **New prospect** started from it. #### Lost, archived or deleted - **Mark as lost** (the **Outcome** card) asks why, and keeps the reason with the prospect; **Undo** takes it back for a few seconds. A lost prospect stays private, is listed under **Show** → Lost on the Prospects page, and can be brought back to **New** with **Bring it back to New**. - **Archive** (the **Prospect** menu) sets a prospect aside when the client pauses — not a loss. Everything is kept, its stage too; it leaves the pipeline and Home and is listed under **Show** → Archived on the Prospects page. **Bring back** (on the prospect, or the **Prospect** menu) puts it back at the stage it had, as it was. It stays private, and can still be used as a template. - **Delete prospect…** (the **Prospect** menu) removes it for good, with its brief, files and notes. Owners, administrators and whoever started it may; you type its name to confirm, and are offered **Archive** instead. A prospect made a project is deleted like any project. [Screenshot: A prospect: its stage and details, the Next step, and the Outcome card with Won? Make it a project.] #### Make it a project 1. On the prospect, press **Won? Make it a project** in the **Outcome** card (or the **Prospect** menu → **Make it a project…**); it opens in a dialog. 2. Give the project number (the firm's next is offered), who manages it, and its team. 3. If it was started from a past project, check **Bring in the specifications from …** to start from that list: quantities kept, statuses back to Added, no order, billing or approval history. 4. Press **Make it a project**. It becomes a project where it stands: the brief, files, contacts and notes stay, Activity says it was won, and from then on the normal project rules decide who sees it. It stays on the pipeline's **Won** column for a year. Tip: Prospects do not count toward your plan's projects (the Free plan's three); a prospect made a project does. Their files count toward storage. See also: /manual/projects#working-a-prospect, /manual/projects#the-project-list, /manual/projects#the-brief, /manual/administration#people-and-roles ## Working a prospect Link: /manual/projects#working-a-prospect A prospect's page: telling it what happened, moving it along, and what it keeps in view. The left column holds the stage, the prospect's own details in a compact grid you edit, and its brief and files; each fact appears once on the page. The right column, beside it, holds the **Next step** (with days at this stage), the **Outcome** (**Won? Make it a project**, or **Mark as lost**), **Client and people** (an existing client's past projects, other contacts, colleagues), **Similar past projects** and **History**: the latest five, then **Show all**. #### What's happened? One box for updates At the top of a prospect, type or dictate what happened in your own words — "Met Dana at the site Tuesday, they want to open in March, budget's closer to 2M, send the proposal by Friday." Press Enter or **Send**. Use your computer's or phone's own dictation if you like. - One AI action reads it against the prospect as it stands and lists the changes it found — a stage, an expected start, a rough budget, a new task, a new contact — each with the words it came from. Uncheck any you do not want and press **Apply**. - Nothing is guessed: a day that could mean two dates, or a figure that might be a total or a part, comes back as one question. Answer it in the same box (one AI action per reply, four replies at most). - Your words are always kept as a dated note, even when nothing changes, and every change applied is a line in the prospect's history. Out of AI actions, the note is still kept and the box says why nothing was proposed. - Earlier updates stay under the box, folded, so the story of the pursuit reads later. [Screenshot: What's happened? on a prospect: type or dictate an update; the changes it finds come back to check and apply.] #### Moving it along On a prospect, **Stage:** says where it stands, with a track of New, Meeting and Proposal out: the steps behind it filled, the current one marked. The track only shows; changing the stage is on purpose: **Move to …** for the next step, or **Change stage…** for any other. Each change says what it did, with **Undo** for a few seconds, and is a line in the prospect's history; an Undo takes its line back out rather than adding one. Won and lost are in the **Outcome** card in the other column, apart from the track. See also: /manual/projects#prospects ## Duplicating a project Link: /manual/projects#duplicating-a-project Start the next phase, tower or floor from this one. Where to find it: The project header's **Project** menu → **Duplicate project…** **Duplicate project…** makes a new project with a new job number and name. The job number offered is the firm's next. - Always copied: the details and areas. - Copied if you choose: the specifications (linked to the same library products, reset to Added with no revisions, or with statuses kept), the room types with the quantity takeoff, and the links. - Never copied — they stay with the original: tasks, meetings, files, photos, boards, money, approvals and history. The copy's Activity says what it was duplicated from. Tip: An **archived** project can be duplicated too — last year's job, started again this year — and the copy is a live project, not another archived one. ## Project templates Link: /manual/projects#project-templates Save a project as a template and start the next job from it. Where to find it: [Library → Project templates](/project-templates) 1. On the project, the header's **Project** menu → **Save as template…** parks a copy of it under [Library → Project templates](/project-templates) (status Template, out of the active lists). 2. To start a job from it, press **New project from this template** on its row. 3. Give the new job number, name and client. Each template is one row: its name (click it to look inside), its counts of areas, room types and specifications, and one button. **New project from this template** makes a fresh active project with the template's areas, room types, specifications and links. The template itself never changes. [Screenshot: Project templates: each with its counts and New project from this template.] ## The brief Link: /manual/projects#the-brief Where a project begins: everything the client sent, read into areas and rules. Where to find it: A project → **Brief** **Brief**, the first tab on a project, is where it begins, before anything is specified. It comes in two layers: **the project's brief** — the pile of everything the client sent, and what holds for the whole project — and **a brief for each area**: the Lobby, the Guestrooms, the Restaurant. It has four tabs, in the order the work happens: - **What they sent** — what the client said and sent, and the read. - **Areas** — each area and its brief. You land here once there is something to land on; a project with nothing read opens on What they sent. - **Whole project** — what the read found for every area. - **Concept** — the presentation the client chose. It closes the brief: see [Concept](/manual/projects#concept). It is the firm's side of the table — the designer's notes, the questions to ask, priced drafts — so only people who can edit specifications work in it. Clients see it only where the firm chooses to share it; see [What the client sees of the brief](/manual/projects#what-the-client-sees-of-the-brief). [Screenshot: What they sent: the client's words, links and pictures, with meetings already held under the notes.] #### What goes in - Paste what the client said and sent as it came — emails, meeting notes, a wish list, a transcript. - Add the product links they pasted, with what they said about each. - Drop in pictures — several at once onto the Pictures card, or paste a screenshot — inspiration and photos of the existing space alike. #### Pointing at what the firm already has Type **@** in the notes to point at a meeting that was held, a library item, a specification on another project, or a project. The pick is kept beside the text — a *Pointed at* chip under the notes, with a link to the record — and goes to the assistant as material: - a library item or a specification in full; - a project only as its areas, room types and the direction of its own brief, never its item list; - a meeting as its takeaway, summary, decisions and open questions — never its transcript. So a mention costs a few lines and not the AI allowance. #### Meetings in the brief Under the notes, **Meetings on this project** lists what has been held with its takeaway and what it settled. **Add to the brief** on any of them writes the same @ mention a designer would have typed. What was decided in a meeting is read as a requirement with that meeting as its source. A later meeting overrides an earlier one. A question the meeting left open stays under the questions to ask unless the rest of the material answers it. #### Reading the brief **Read the brief** sends it to the assistant, which sorts the pile by area and answers in the portal's own vocabulary. - For **the whole project**: a summary, the rules every area inherits ("no brass anywhere", the opening date), what the client does not want anywhere, a palette and materials, and the questions about the project as a whole. - For **each area**: what it is and must do, its own requirements with their sources ("client notes", "image 2", a link), its dislikes, palette, materials, share of the budget, its repeated rooms with counts, and the questions to ask about it. It never invents a product, a price or a count. Each product link becomes a draft entry in the library — the page's details and picture, a note saying which brief it came from and what the client said — reused if the firm already has that page. Each picture keeps a one-line description ("Existing space: …", "Inspiration: …") under it. Tip: A read spends AI actions — one for the brief and one for each link — and says so before it starts. [Screenshot: Whole project: the summary, the rules every area inherits, palette and materials, and the questions to ask.] #### Correcting the read **Edit the brief…** (or **Edit** beside any one section: the whole project's rules, *Not this, anywhere*, **Palette and materials**, the questions) lets the designer fix what the assistant got wrong before anything is built on it — strike a rule, reword the summary, add a question. **Save the brief** keeps the edits as theirs (the reading says *corrected … by …*). **Palette and materials** is always shown, with **Add colors and materials** while it is empty. A color is set by its swatch, by typing its code any way (#B8634A, B8634A, #abc) or a color name (navy), or with **Pick from a picture**: it opens the brief's pictures — click where the color is, and each click adds one. Careful: Reading the brief again replaces the reading, edits included, and says so first. #### Writing it by hand **Write the brief by hand** is the other way in, for a firm that prefers to or has no AI key: the project's summary, its rules for every area, what the client does not want anywhere, palette and materials, and the questions to ask. Reading it with the assistant later replaces it, with a warning first. Administrators switch the Brief section off under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules). See also: /manual/projects#spaces, /manual/projects#concepts, /manual/projects#concept, /manual/projects#what-the-client-sees-of-the-brief ## Areas Link: /manual/projects#spaces Each area of the project, with a brief of its own: the same list Specify files specifications under. Where to find it: A project → **Brief** → **Areas** The brief's areas **are the project's areas** — the same list Specify files specifications under, in the same word, never a second one. The **Areas** tab shows each area with where it stands (*No brief yet*, *Briefed*, *Concepts drafted*, *Being specified*), the start of its summary, its colors and its counts. An area with pictures leads with its first one, large on the left of its card, and any others as small tiles under it; the whole summary and every picture are on the area's own page. [Screenshot: The Areas tab: each area with its first picture, its stage, the start of its summary and its counts.] #### Adding areas - **Add an area** by name and it is on the project at once: Specify has it, empty and waiting, before the first item exists. - An area made first in Specify — an imported job, a firm that skips the brief — simply has an empty brief here. - When a read names an area the project does not have yet, it waits on the Areas tab as a proposal with **Add this area** (or **Add all**). Adding it makes the area and gives its brief what the read found — its requirements, its repeated rooms (which become the project's room types, for the takeoff) and its pictures. - Areas the project already has take what the read says about them straight away. #### An area's own brief An area's brief opens from its card, with three tabs of its own: **Brief**, **Concepts** and **Sent for** the area. **Brief** shows the project's rules grayed, as **From the whole project** — the area inherits them, and they are changed on the Whole project tab. Then what the area asks for, its repeated rooms, what it rules out, its palette, materials and budget, and **To ask about** it. - **Read** an area reads just that area, inside the project's rules — one AI action and one per new link, instead of the whole pile again. - Or **Write it by hand** / **Edit the brief…** (or **Edit** beside a section). The palette's **Pick from a picture** offers the area's own pictures, or the project's when it has none. **Concepts** holds the area's directions (see [Concepts](/manual/projects#concepts)). **Sent for** holds notes, links and pictures that arrived for this area alone — the restaurant package in month three — with the project's pictures to borrow from. #### Internal requirements A requirement can be marked **internal**, to keep it off what a client sees. A read marks the firm's own logistics internal by itself — ordering, lead times, delivery and install phasing, vendors, prices and budget ("the lobby package is ordered first") — because they are how the studio will do it, not what the client asked for. Uncheck the mark where one really is the client's wish. #### Renaming and removing **Rename** or **Remove** an area from its brief exactly as in Specify: a rename carries its specifications with it, and an area holding specifications cannot be removed until they are moved. Each area's heading on the project page carries a **Brief** link back to what the client asked of it. ## Concepts Link: /manual/projects#concepts Two or three directions for an area, drafted from its brief and the firm's library. Where to find it: A project → **Brief** → an area → **Concepts** **Concepts** are drafted for one area at a time, on its brief. **Draft two or three concepts** (one AI action) gives directions that genuinely differ inside the project's rules: a name, a paragraph, a palette, materials, and ten to twenty items, each saying why it answers the area's brief. A project whose concepts were drafted across every area at once, before areas had briefs of their own, keeps them under *Concepts across the project*. #### Where the items come from Items come library-first: what the client's links became (*From the client's link*), what the firm has specified on past projects (*Specified before*, with which projects), then the rest of the library. Prices are the firm's own — the product's sell price, or cost through the markup rules, or list price marked as such — never the assistant's. Tip: Check **Allow ideas beyond the library** and a concept may add generic, unpriced items the library lacks, marked *Idea — unvetted*. #### Taking one into the project 1. Trim a draft: change a quantity, drop an item. 2. Press **Take this into the project**. Every item becomes a specification under that area, with an item number in the area's habit, its product, quantity and price. Repeated-room items get their takeoff rows; the pictured ones become a swatch board for the area, named for the concept. 3. The other drafts stay for reference. #### Proposing it The taken concept's card then offers **Propose these items to the client…**. It opens a draft of the same priced, illustrated proposal the project page makes from checked specifications, drafted from the concept's items for the client to sign online — the step from a direction to an order book. From there the project runs as any other: approvals, orders, invoices. ## Concept Link: /manual/projects#concept The presentation you send the client, and the one they choose. Where to find it: A project → **Brief** → **Concept** **Concept** is the last page of the Brief: the presentation you send the client once you have heard them, and the one they choose — Brief, then Concept, then Specify. Before you start: - Make the deck in your own tools from the firm's template. Keep the template under [Library → Fonts and resources](/resources) as a Template and it shows here. - **Open “What we heard”** gives you the brief as pages to drop into the deck: the summary, the direction and palette, what the client asked for and ruled out, each area and their pictures — without the budget, the questions still to ask, anything marked internal or the firm's own logistics. [Screenshot: Concept: the decks sent, filed for the whole project or one area, with the client's answer on each.] #### Filing and deciding 1. File each deck you send under **The presentation**, for the whole project or one area (**For**). 2. The client is told when a deck shown to them is filed, and **accepts it or asks for changes on the deck's own page**. You are told either way. 3. Or record what they said yourself: **The client accepted this**, or **Sent back…** with what they asked to change. A client can choose one direction for the lobby and another for the restaurant: one accepted concept stands per area. - Accepting one asks first when it would replace another accepted for the same area. A replaced deck keeps **Back to sent** and **The client accepted this**, so nothing is lost by a wrong click. - A new version of the accepted deck stays accepted. A new version of one sent back carries the client's note as what it answers. The deck is an ordinary project file, so it is also on Files. The client sees it there unless you uncheck *The client sees it in their portal*, and a new version is filed from its page like any other file ([Files](/manual/project-work#files)). #### Where the accepted concept shows The accepted concept shows at the top of Specify ("Working to…"), on the Overview's *Where the job stands*, and on the Brief's row of tabs as *Concept accepted*. [Ask the project AI](/manual/ai#ask-the-project-ai) reads it, words and all, as the direction. ## What the client sees of the brief Link: /manual/projects#what-the-client-sees-of-the-brief Nothing, unless the firm chooses — and never the firm's own workings. Where to find it: [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules) → **Clients see the brief** **Clients see the brief** under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules) is off to begin with. Switched on, a client gets a **What we heard** tab on their project, once something has been written: the project's summary and rules, then each area's summary, requirements with their sources, palette, materials and the questions still to settle. It is read-only, so they can say "yes, that" or "not that" before anything is specified. Careful: A client never sees the notes the firm pasted, the links, the concepts or their prices, the budget, a requirement marked internal, or anything that reads as the firm's own logistics — ordering, lead times, delivery, vendors, money — marked or not. #### Makers Beside it, **Clients see makers** (on to begin with) decides whether a client sees each item's maker and model on their item list, item pages, proposals and spec book. Off, they read the description, size and finish, and an owner's rep cannot ring the maker for list price. ## The example project Link: /manual/projects#the-example-project Fremont Street Hotel (job 0000): an invented job to try things on. Every portal starts with an example: **Fremont Street Hotel** (job 0000), with a brief sorted into areas, specifications, a proposal, orders, invoices, meetings and pictures — all invented. - It carries an **Example** badge wherever its name appears. - Its item pictures are catalog-style photographs of invented products, and its lobby comes with a swatch board shown to the client, a traced room with two cameras and two concept pictures, and a presentation shared with the example client. - It is on everyone's list of their own projects from their first day — a Restricted colleague sees it too; clients and contractors do not — so a new person always has something to open and try things on. #### Removing it When the firm is ready, **Remove it for the whole firm** on its page (for anyone who can manage projects) takes it away in one step, for everyone in the portal: its items and papers, its brief and areas, its pictures and files, and the library entries and address-book contacts that were made for it. Only in this portal — no other firm's copy, and not the shared demo, is touched. Nothing of the firm's own is touched, and the firm's numbers are its own from then on. #### Its clock The example hotel (job 0000) is seeded as a job going well, with dates around the day it was made: its invoices paid or not yet due, the rug on the truck and landing in two days (the one thing in amber), a site visit and a client meeting later that week, and one small task a day late (the only red). Then it waits. Nobody is alerted about it until the first person from the firm signs in for real (by emailed link or code, Google or Microsoft, a welcome link or an invitation). At that moment every date on it moves forward by the days that have passed, so the project looks exactly as it did the day it was seeded, and the calendar and the bell start from that morning. The shared developer password does not start it. Once the firm has seen everything, the checklist's **Retire the example project** archives or deletes it. ## Areas and rooms Link: /manual/projects#areas-and-rooms The project's structure: areas, codes, printed numbers, room types, its icon and categories. Where to find it: A project → **Specify → Areas and rooms** (for those who can edit specifications) **Specify → Areas and rooms** holds the project's structure, and also its icon and its **color**: the tile color everyone sees for the project in lists and on their home page. Pick a preset or any color; unset, the portal chooses one from the job number so tiles stay distinct. Its lead links to **Edit project**, the **managers** and the project's own **markup**, so the project's own settings are reachable from one place. [Screenshot: Areas and rooms: the areas with their codes, the room types with their counts, the icon and the color.] #### Areas **Areas** are the parts of the building specifications are grouped by (Lobby, Guestrooms, Pool…). Add, rename (every specification follows), reorder, remove when empty. A new area can also be typed straight onto a specification, made with **+ New area** beside *+ New specification* on the specifications list (it opens the new area's page with the form ready), or created from the brief's reading. #### Area codes and headings **Code…** on an area gives it a short **code** (GR, LB), a **heading** it is grouped under (*Public spaces*, *Guest floors*) and **Public / Guest** — the project-first layout's area fields, in every style. - The code prints in front of the area's item numbers where the firm's rule says so. - The heading groups the areas in the spec book's index, and the code leads each area there. - Public / Guest is a filter on the list (**Public / Guest → Public** or **Guest**), which the spec book and an issue set made from the list carry. #### Printed item numbers The number an item prints with is the firm's choice under [Settings → Specification fields](/settings?tab=work#spec-fields), and a project can keep its own under *Printed item numbers* here: - **as typed** (the default); - **area code + item number** (GR-101); - **item type + item number** (WC-01, the category's leading code); - **the project-first way** (furnishings by area code, finishes and OFCI items by item type). With a rule, the list gains a **Printed #** column (*Full Item #* in the Project-first layout, last). The item page shows the printed number by its title; the typed one stays what you edit. The spec book, issue sets, and purchase orders, proposals, invoices and pick lists made from items carry it. A number already written with its code (GR-101 typed in GR) is not doubled. Clients and contractors read the printed number as the item number. #### Room types **Room types** (King, Double Queen, Suite…) with how many rooms of each. These drive the quantity takeoff. **Room numbers…** lists a type's rooms, typed as ranges (*1201-1240, 1301*). A number already under another type is refused, and the line says how many are numbered of the count. The takeoff's column headings name each type's rooms. #### Project icon **Project icon** is the tile shown beside the project in lists. Set the letters (e.g. VAI instead of the initials; up to eight, and they shrink to fit the tile), or choose a picture (or drop one on the card) and crop it square right on the page — drag to place, slide to zoom. *Use the whole picture on the Overview too* makes the uncropped picture the Overview's picture as well (checked already when the project has none). The icon and the Overview's picture are kept apart afterwards: changing or removing one leaves the other. #### Categories on this project **Categories** on this project can be renamed here, merging into an existing one if you pick it. The category list itself lives under [Library → Categories](/categories). ## The finish schedule Link: /manual/projects#the-finish-schedule Rooms down, surfaces across, each cell the finish used there — plus OFCI quantities and LEED. Where to find it: A project → [Specify → **Finish schedule**](/manual/projects#the-finish-schedule) The finish schedule lists the project's rooms, one row each, with every surface stacked inside the row — Floor, Base, Walls, Ceiling, Millwork, Doors to start with. **Surfaces** changes them (*Wall N, Wall S…*). It fits the page at any width (on a phone, a card per room); each finish shows as its code, with its name on hover or tap and in the **Finish legend** below. [Screenshot: The finish schedule: a row per room, its surfaces inside, each naming its finish by code.] 1. Add a room by number and name — or **Add the areas** (each of the project's areas a row, its code as the number) or **Add the room numbers** (every room number under the room types). 2. Click a cell to name the finish item used there (finishes first in the list), a note, or both. The item's printed number shows in the cell; the legend gives its name and leads to it. 3. **PDF** and **Excel** print it grouped by area with a **finish legend** — each finish once, with the rooms it is in. **Shared with the client** lets the project's client and contractors open it, read only, from their project tabs. Until then it is the firm's. #### Quantity by area **Quantity by area** (OFCI quantities): an item can carry how many are **budgeted** and how many **installed** in each area. It is offered on the item's page for OFCI items and shown on any item that has them (in the **Quantities** tab; under *Distribution* in the tabbed layout's tabs). The list's OFCI view (**Categ / F/I → OFCI**) adds a *Budgeted / installed* column. **Columns** offers it, the takeoff's *Room qty* and the day an item was first *Ordered* (*Rm Qty* and *Purch Subm* in the project-first layout, on by default there). #### LEED **LEED** (the *LEED Certified or Green Product* checkbox), in every style: 1. Check **LEED** on the item's **On the spec sheet** card. 2. If you like, add a **LEED note** (the credit it counts toward, the certificate). - A checked item shows a green **LEED** mark by its title (a LEED box on the project-first form's band, beside the Flag). - **Columns → LEED** adds a ☑ column to the list. - The spec sheet prints a *LEED* line with the note. - A change to it is logged as a revision and shaded on the next sheet. ## Takeoff Link: /manual/projects#takeoff Per-room quantities against the room types, multiplied out. Where to find it: A project → **Specify → Takeoff** (shown once the project has room types) Per-room quantities for each specification against the room types, multiplied out by the room counts. The takeoff reads the quantities; each item's are set on its **Quantity by room type** card in the item's **Quantities** tab (**Distribute by room type**) by anyone who can edit specifications, and the total writes back to the specification's quantity. [Screenshot: The takeoff: each specification's quantity per room, multiplied by the room counts.] See also: /manual/projects#areas-and-rooms # Specify The list and its menus, adding and editing specifications, the Flag, your own fields, pictures by item number and importing a schedule. ## The specification list Link: /manual/specifications#specify-list Specify: every specification of the project, area by area, with its search, filters, documents and bulk changes. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** **Specify** is the specification list, at its own address (*/projects/…/specify*); links to the old project page with a filter or a search still reach it. Its heading says how many specifications there are in how many areas and, for those who see prices, what they come to against the budget. The project's details and notes are on the Overview. [Screenshot: Specify on the example hotel: one table per area, with subtotals, the filters and the Actions menu.] #### One table per area The list is one table per area, all sharing the same columns so the eye runs straight down the page: picture, item number, description, manufacturer, category, status, **F/I** (furnish and install — hover the heading: CFCI is contractor-furnished, contractor-installed), quantity and, for those who see prices, the price. Beside each description, two small tags say where the item really stands: - its stage with the vendor from [Expediting](/manual/purchasing#expediting): *Acknowledged*, *Shipped*, *Installed*; *Installed, 1 to come* while part of it is still owed, and *claim open* while a damaged or short delivery is being chased; - the client's latest word from [Approvals](/manual/project-work#approvals): *Approved*, *Revise*, *Awaiting client*. The area headings stay pinned under the bar as you scroll through a long list. An area's heading is the link to its own page (numbers, swatch boards, specifications) and says how many swatch boards it has. Each area's table ends in a quiet subtotal and the page in one total, both following whatever filter is on. The header line says the same in one breath — *$1,437,740 specified of a $1,950,000 budget*, or *$38,180 shown* under a filter. On a phone each item is a row of a list rather than a table: its picture, the number and price on the first line, the name with its status chips and the quantity under them; each area's total sits on a line under its list. Checking items brings the quick-edit bar up across the foot of the screen, folded to one line until **Actions** opens it. #### Working to a concept Once the client has accepted a concept (see [Concept](/manual/projects#concept)), a line above the list names it — *Working to Concept presentation v2, accepted …* — with a link to the deck, so everyone specifying knows which direction the client chose. #### Sorting, totals and filters - **Sort by** orders each area's items: *Item #*, *Item Name*, *Vendor*, *Type*, *Category* or *Issue Date*. - **Financial Summary** (for those who see project money) sets the items shown beside all the project's — how many, what they come to (the budget, where the firm prices nothing), and for those who see margin their cost and profit — against the project's budget. - The list has a search box, **+ New specification**, **+ New area**, [**Ask the project AI**](/manual/ai#ask-the-project-ai) and an **Actions** menu. - A folding **Filters** panel by Area, Category, Status and Show opens itself whenever a filter is set and remembers that you opened it; the closed line shows what is in force. ## The Actions menu Link: /manual/specifications#specify-actions The list's documents: Excel, the spec book, an issue set, pictures, imports and reports. **Actions** holds the list's documents, each following the filter in force: - **Download Excel** (for those who see prices). - **Spec book PDF…** opens the spec book page — see below. - **Issue a set…** opens the New issue set page with the filter's items chosen, to check before the book is made; see [Issue sets](/manual/issuing#issue-sets). - **Pictures by item number…** takes a folder of pictures at once; see [Pictures by item number](/manual/specifications#pictures-by-item-number). - **Import a schedule…** brings in a spreadsheet of items (your FF&E or finish schedule, a project directory), with a preview of every change first; see [Importing a schedule](/manual/specifications#importing-a-schedule). - **Schedules…** — the project's schedules: the FF&E schedule by area and by trade, the room schedule, the finish schedule by area, the finish legend by material, the lead-time schedule and, for those who see prices, budget against actual by area — each as a page and a spreadsheet. [Screenshot: The Actions menu on Specify: every document follows the filter in force.] #### Dialling in the spec book **Spec book PDF…** opens the spec book page, where you dial the book in before it is built: - the accent color (presets or any color), a solid band or type-only cover; - the cover title, subtitle, extra line and issue date; - what goes in — cover, index, furnish/install, pictures, text, standard requirements, general conditions appendix, maker and supplier, their contacts, web links, prices for those who may see them — and the order. The filters set on the project page carry through, a rough cover shows as you go, and your choices are remembered on that computer. Then **Open PDF** or **Download**. [Screenshot: The spec book page: cover, contents and order chosen before the PDF is built.] ## Changing several at once Link: /manual/specifications#changing-several-at-once Check specifications and a bar appears for changes to all of them, with Undo. 1. Check specifications, or the box in an area's header for all of them. 2. Choose a change from the bar that appears. 3. Read the result line: it names anything that needs a second look, and offers **Undo** where it can. [Screenshot: Checked specifications and the bar of changes for all of them.] #### What the bar does - **Status…**, **Area…**, **Category…**, **Quantity…** and **Supplier…** for all of them. - **Copy to area…** — the same item again in another area, numbered in that area's habit, with nothing ordered or billed carried across. - **Copy to project…** — the same items in another of your projects (a finished job's included), each in its own area there, matched by name or made, keeping its number unless that area has it. Room quantities stay behind, and the result links to the project. - **⚑ Flag** and **Clear flag** — what prints and goes to purchasing when *flagged only* is asked. - **Mark revised…** across them with one note (it raises their revision numbers; it makes no set). - **Issue a set…** — opens a new issue set with these items chosen, to check before the spec book is made. - **Omit**. - **Delete…** — anything on an order, an invoice or a proposal the client has seen is kept, and the result says to omit those instead. - **Send for approval…**, **Propose to client…**, **Request quote…** from a vendor, **Raise purchase order…**, or **Build pick list…** for a delivery — each only where your role and the firm's modules allow it. #### Logged, and undone Every change is logged on each item. A quantity changed on items already ordered, accepted or invoiced is named in the result, so nothing is left short. After a status, area, category, quantity, supplier or Omit change, the result line offers **Undo** for ten minutes: each item goes back to what it held, unless it has been changed again since. Tip: What you check stays checked if you open an item and come back. ## List or Grid Link: /manual/specifications#list-or-grid The same specifications as rows, or as picture cards. Above the specifications, a pair of icons — *List view* and *Grid view* — switch how they are laid out. Grid shows each item as a picture card, area by area: its number and name, maker and category, its status and where it is with the vendor, its quantity and, for those who see prices, its price. Two across on a phone and five on a wide screen. An item with no picture shows its initials on a short band, so the card stays small. [Screenshot: Grid view: each specification as a picture card, area by area.] - The checkbox at a card's corner works the bar above exactly as in the list, and an area's heading keeps its box for all of them. - An area's own page has the same pair of icons, with the same cards and bar. - The choice is yours alone, kept on your account for each of Specify, an area's page and the library, and List until you change it. Clients and trades always see the list. - Viewing as someone else, the icons switch the page for you without saving anything to their account. ## A big job Link: /manual/specifications#a-big-job Past 250 items, the rest of the areas wait to be brought in. Specify draws the first 250 items at once. The areas after that show their heading, how many items they hold and their subtotal, with **Show the … items in** *area* to bring them in place. - Checking such an area's box brings its items in and checks them all, so the bar still reaches every item. - The totals always count every item, and search and the filters look through the whole job. - A room's own page does the same past 250 items, with **Show all … items**. #### Areas Specifications are grouped by area. The area name opens the **area page** with its numbers, swatch boards, a filtered list and its own **Spec book PDF**; **Swatch board** beside it lays the area's pictures out on a new board. See also: /manual/projects#areas-and-rooms, /manual/project-work#swatch-boards ## Adding a specification Link: /manual/specifications#adding-one Three ways to start one, adding straight to a room, and what happens when a number is already used. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **+ New specification** [Screenshot: Specify on the example hotel: every specification of the project in one list, with Actions and the filters above it.] #### Three ways to start **+ New specification** on Specify offers three ways: - **From the product library** — search the library, then either link the existing product (images and all) or *copy it as a starting point* for the same item in another color or model. The pick fills the description, category, unit and price on screen, each marked *from the product* and still yours to change. The price is the firm's markup rule for the category applied to the product's cost when a rule covers it; otherwise the product's own sell price. - **Start from a template** — the firm's standard text for a product type ([Library → Specification templates](/templates)). - From nothing — item number, description, area, category, quantity, unit, price, web link and images. A quantity left blank is saved as 1, as it counts everywhere. [Screenshot: The new specification form: from the library, from a template, or from nothing.] #### When a maker's site blocks reading **Read the page** beside the web link fills the item from the maker's page and saves the page as the item's library product. Some makers' sites check for automated visitors (a **Press & Hold** box) and show the server only the check: the form says so and opens **Add screenshots instead**. - Paste screenshots of the page (⌘V or Ctrl+V), drop them in, or choose them — on a phone, from your photos or the camera. Up to five; a spec sheet PDF and the page's text are optional. - **Read the screenshots · 1 AI action** fills the description, category and unit, and lists the maker, model, dimensions, materials, lead time and price it read, each marked *from your screenshot*. A detail not shown stays empty. - **Crop as picture** under a screenshot makes the product's picture. - On **Create**, the item gets its library product with those details, the web link as its source, and the screenshots attached as the source of its details. With no AI actions left the screenshots are still attached, for you to type from. - On the clip page the same panel works with **Update an item**: the item's empty details fill from the screenshots and the screenshots go onto its product. The full account, with a picture, is in the library chapter: [When a maker's site blocks reading](/manual/library#when-a-site-blocks-reading). A library product can also be pushed onto a project from its own page with **Add to a project**, which offers the project's real areas and prices the item the same way. #### Components An item can be a component of another — a sofa's fabric, a lamp's shade, a bench's strap. On Specify (list or grid) and on a room's grid, components sit right under their primary item, marked ↳. The primary item's page lists its **Components**, and a component's page says what it is **Part of**, each a link. #### Adding to a room Click the area's name on the list: the area's page opens with *+ New specification in Lobby*. The area is set, and the item number is offered in that area's habit — after G-201…G-206 comes G-207; an empty area is offered its first (L-101). Type over it if the room numbers differently. On the project list the same form takes the area from the area filter when one is on. An area set up from the brief or under Areas and rooms shows on the list before it holds anything, with the way in; its own page opens with the form ready. Several at once 1. On the area's page, choose **Several from the library**. 2. Give a first number and a quantity each. 3. Pick from the library as many products as the room needs; each becomes a specification in the area, numbered on in sequence. 4. Press *Add N to Lobby* to write them all. #### One number, one item An item number belongs to one item on the project, however it is typed (*f-3513 a* is F-3513A). Give a new item a number the project already has — on the form, from the library, from **Add to a project**, or by changing the number in **Edit this item** — and a panel names the item that has it (*AA-9004-MR is already used in this project by ‘Digital Artwork File @ Headboard WC’*, with *(omitted)* when that item is omitted: its number is still on past sets). It offers: - **Update that item with these details** — its empty fields are filled from what you entered, and where both have a value a small side-by-side lets you choose, field by field. The item keeps its history, links and approvals. - **Use the next number** — AA-9005-MR, or AA-9004.2-MR where the project already numbers that item's variants with a point; F-3513A → F-3513B. - **Cancel**. Several from the library stops at the first number in use, asks, and carries on from there. Copies in another area or another project never take a number the project has anywhere. Numbers that were already doubled when they came in (from another spec system or a database; some may be alternates on purpose) are left as they are. Specify says *3 numbers are used more than once — review*, which lists just those items, and [Settings → Specification fields → Duplicate item numbers](/settings?tab=work#spec-fields) lists them project by project. An import matches a row to the item with its number, spacing and case aside, and brings it up to date rather than adding a second. #### Taking one out Two ways, both on the specification's page and on the list's bulk bar: - **Omit** keeps the row with the status Omitted: it drops off the counts, hides under *Hide omitted* (Filters → Show), wears an *Omitted* badge on its page, and every document that carries its line keeps it. **Put back** reverses it, with the status it had before. - **Delete…** removes a specification made by mistake for good. The page says first what goes with it (approvals, vendor documents, revisions, tracking; the product stays in the library) and asks again. Careful: Once an item is on a purchase order, an invoice or a proposal the client has seen, deleting is refused and the same panel offers **Omit instead**. See also: /manual/specifications#editing-one, /manual/specifications#importing-a-schedule, /manual/library#clip-from-a-website ## Editing a specification Link: /manual/specifications#editing-one The item is the project's; the library product behind it is the firm's. What each holds and how to change it. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → click a row [Screenshot: A specification's page: on the left the specification, then its source and what the spec sheet prints; on the right the picture and the order's facts.] #### Items and library products Every specification is two things: - The **item** is this project's: its number, area, quantity, finishes and size where they differ, price, supplier, notes and status. - The **library product** behind it is the firm's, shared by every item that uses it on any project: the maker, model, the library's notes and details, pictures and the library price. Under the item's edit buttons a line says which is which and how many items share the product. Under the item's name, **On 2 boards (…) · 1 layout (…) · 3 renderings** says where it is used in the design work, each a link: the swatch boards it has a swatch on, the layouts it is placed on, and the concept pictures that show it. Each reader sees only what they may open — a client the boards and pictures shown to them. An item on none has no line. **Edit the library product →** opens the product with *Changes here apply to every item using this product: N items in M projects* (**Show them** lists each, with its project). Where other items use it, choose before saving: - **Change the library product for all N items**, or - **Make a copy for this item only** — the item gets its own copy of the product, pictures and all, with your changes, and the other items keep the original as it was. Both histories say so. Tip: A finish or a size chosen for one client belongs on the item (*Finish and fabric, this project*, *Dimensions, this project*), not the product. #### What the page shows The page opens on the **Specification**: the item's own notes, then the library product's notes and details in template order and its size, with the standard compliance clauses folded under **Standard requirements**. Headings written as "DESCRIPTION:" read as bold run-in headings. Under it, the **Source** card — the maker, the **model / product code** (what a reorder needs), the supplier and the web link — and **On the spec sheet** (ship to, drawing #, approvals, LEED). Beside them: the picture and the **Order** card, the item's key facts side by side (quantity, price, status, where it is, category, furnish / install). Where the item was received, **Kept at** says where it is. The two columns end close together; everything longer is in the tabs below, which run the page's full width. #### The tabs under the specification Everything else about the item is in one row of tabs across the page under the specification and the picture, each with its count or where it stands: [Screenshot: The lounge chair's tabs under its specification, History open: the revision with Compare, then the running log.] | Tab | Holds | | **3D** | The product's 3D model: turn it, download it, make one or **Upload a model**, and its versions; the layouts and renderings the item is in. The number is its versions; *Making* while one is made. | | **Files** | Vendor documents (or *Attachments* with ordering off), the library product's attachments and the drawings the item is tagged on. | | **Approvals & comments** | The submittal history and the firm's own comments on the item. It reads *Waiting* while the client is asked, then the last decision (*Approved*, *Revise*). | | **Budget** | For those who see project money: **Budget and actual** with the budget's add-on charges (freight, installation, sales tax…), and the orders, proposals and invoices that hold the item. *Orders & billing* for someone who sees those but not the budget. | | **Quantities** | **Quantity by room type** (**Distribute by room type**) and, for OFCI items, **Quantity by area**. It reads the item's quantity. | | **History** | The revisions with **Compare**, the field changes, Δ, and the running log of notes. It reads the item's revision (*Rev 2*). | | **Tasks** | With Team tasks on, the item's tasks and **+ Add Task**. It reads how many are open. | | **Time** | Your timer on the item and the hours logged on it. It reads the hours, or *Running* while your timer is on the item. | - A tab with nothing in it for you, and nothing you could add, is not shown: a client sees 3D only when there is a model, Files only with documents shared with them, Approvals only once something was asked of them, and never Budget, Tasks, Time or the firm's comments. - The open tab is in the address (*?tab=files*), so a link — an alert, the approvals list, the expediting page's document chips, a project's Time — opens on its tab (the tabbed layout's *Pricing* and *Distribution* open Budget and Quantities), and Back steps through the tabs you chose. - Files opens unless the address says otherwise; the 3D viewer loads only when its tab is opened. The small **3D** picture on the corner of the main picture opens it. - **Comments** beside the title opens **Approvals & comments**. Above the title, *Item 3 of 18* with its arrows (first, previous, next, last; or the [ and ] keys) steps through the project's list in its order, area by area, without going back to it. **Specifications** beside them returns to the list. - With ordering on, the delivery dates sit under *Where it is*. - With ordering off, files still go on the item, under **Files → Attachments**. #### The two edit buttons | Button | Changes | Covers | | **Edit this item** | This project's item only | The order side: item number, description, area, category, status, item status, spec type, supplier, furnish/install, quantity, unit, prices, date issued. | | **Edit the library product →** | The product record, shared by every item that uses it | Manufacturer, product code, dimensions, fabrication and general text, pricing, web link and images. | Drop images onto the page to add them. #### Typing amounts Prices and quantities are typed the way your firm writes numbers: *1,234.50* in dollars, *1.234,50* in euros. The box keeps what you type and tidies it when you leave it, and the extended price follows as you type. An amount no single line can hold (over $20,000,000) is refused in words rather than saved wrong. #### Changing a quantity that is already moving If the item is already on an order, an accepted proposal or an invoice, saving a new quantity says so first — *2 more to order; a change order records the difference* — so the extra units are ordered (Raise purchase order offers them) and billed rather than forgotten. #### Orders and billing A card on the specification page gathers where the item has gone: its purchase orders with what was ordered and received, any open claim, the proposals it is on and whether accepted, the invoices that billed it, quotes and change orders — each a link. #### A 3D model Where the firm has 3D models on, the specification page's **3D** tab has the product's **3D model** card: make one (Standard or Detailed, each at its price in AI actions), follow it being made, turn it and download it — see [A 3D model of a product](/manual/library#a-3d-model-of-a-product). The model belongs to the product, so it is on every specification that uses it. See also: /manual/issuing#vendor-documents, /manual/issuing#revisions-and-history, /manual/specifications#the-flag ## The Flag Link: /manual/specifications#the-flag A mark kept on each item that says what to print and what to buy next. Every item carries a **Flag** (⚑): a mark kept on it that says what to print and what to buy next — the project-first layout's flag, in every style. #### Flagging items - On the item: **⚑ Flag** beside *Issue revision*; it reads **Flagged** once on. - In the list: check items and press **⚑ Flag** or **Clear flag** in the bar at the bottom. - **Columns → Flag** adds a checkbox column to the list (the Project-first layout shows it first); checking one there saves at once. - The list's menu (**Actions → Flag**, or **Flag** beside *Columns* in the familiar layouts) has **Flag the items shown** — every item the list shows with its filters — and **Clear every flag**. [Screenshot: The list's Flag menu: flag every item the list shows, or clear every flag.] #### Using the flagged items **Show → Flagged** narrows the list to them, and then the spec book and *Issue a set…* carry only them. *Flagged only* is offered where a desktop spec database offered it: - the spec book (*only the N flagged*); - a new issue set (*Start from the N flagged items*); - **Raise purchase order** (*Check the N flagged items not yet ordered*; in the project-first layout, *Build P.O.s from Flagged* under Spec Items). A flag goes in the item's history but is not a revision. Readers see the ⚑ mark; clients and contractors never see flags. #### Furnish / install codes An item's furnish / install (*OFOI/OFCI* in the tabbed layout, *Categ* in the project-first layout) is one of these. The spec book spells each out. | Code | Means | | **OFOI** | Owner furnished, owner installed | | **OFCI** | Owner furnished, contractor installed | | **CFCI** | Contractor furnished, contractor installed | | **CFOI** | Contractor furnished, owner installed | | **SPSI** | Specifier purchased, specifier installed: the studio buys and installs it itself, as art often is | ## Your own fields Link: /manual/specifications#your-own-fields The firm's own columns on every specification. Where to find it: Firm → [Settings → Work → **Specification fields**](/settings?tab=work#spec-fields) [Settings → Work → **Specification fields**](/settings?tab=work#spec-fields) adds the firm's own columns to every specification. Each has a name, a kind (text, number, date, a choice from a list, yes/no) and whether the spec book prints it. [Screenshot: Specification fields in Settings: each field's name, kind and where it shows.] They appear: - in the *Specification* document on the specification page; - in Edit this item; - in the project's Excel export; - when checked, in the spec book; - with **list column** checked, as a column on the project's specification list too, where a choice or yes/no field also becomes a filter and the search box matches its values. On import, a column named like the field (or mapped to it, listed as *your field*) fills it in. Changes to them are logged like any other edit. ## Pictures by item number Link: /manual/specifications#pictures-by-item-number A whole folder of pictures, each filed on the specification its name matches. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → Actions → **Pictures by item number…** 1. Actions → **Pictures by item number…**, and drop a whole folder of pictures. 2. Each file is matched to a specification from its name: G-201.jpg, G-201-2.jpg, G-201 detail.png all mean G-201. The match is shown before anything is sent. 3. Type in any the name does not settle, then send. They land on the item like pictures added one at a time. [Screenshot: Pictures by item number: drop a folder; each file is matched by its name.] #### Which files are kept Pictures take JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, TIFF or AVIF (and PDF, Word, Excel, DWG, DXF or ZIP as an attachment), up to 50 MB. A file of another kind, or one whose contents are not what its name says (a program renamed *photo.jpg*), is listed with the reason and not kept. Receipts and meeting files are checked the same way. ## Importing a schedule Link: /manual/specifications#importing-a-schedule A spreadsheet onto the project — nothing is written until you have seen what would change. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → Actions → **Import a schedule…** Actions → **Import a schedule…** brings a spreadsheet onto the project: an FF&E schedule, a finish schedule, a project directory, or several tabs of one workbook. Nothing is written until you have seen what would change. [Screenshot: Import a schedule: upload a file, paste a link to a Google Sheet or an Excel workbook, or paste cells; then check how it will be read and preview every change.] 1. **Bring in the schedule** one of three ways: **Upload a file** (.xlsx or .csv, up to 95 MB with its pictures), **Paste a link** to a Google Sheet or an Excel workbook on OneDrive or SharePoint, or **Paste cells** copied from any spreadsheet (see below). The page says how it will read it: which tab holds the items, which row holds the headings, and what each column is (*ITEM # → item number; NAME → name, its first line the area; MFR → maker and its contact…*). Change any of it: a tab's kind, its heading row, a column's field, whether a name's first line is its area, whether a location column makes new areas. 2. **Check the reading.** A file made from the template, or laid out like one you imported before, is read straight away for nothing. Any other layout is read from its headings — or press **Read it with AI** to read it properly (see below). 3. **Preview** every row before anything is written (see below). 4. **Import.** The file wins for what it says. 5. Optionally, check **Also look up the links** in the preview to fill what the file left empty from each item's product page. #### From a link, or pasted cells **Paste a link** reads a sheet kept online, as it stands now, with all its tabs, and goes through the same reading and preview as a file. It takes a Google Sheets link (a link to one tab, with *#gid=* in it, still brings the whole workbook) and an Excel link from OneDrive or SharePoint. The sheet must be shared so that anyone with the link can view it: - In Google Sheets: **Share** → *General access* → **Anyone with the link** → *Viewer*, then **Copy link**. - In Excel or OneDrive: **Share** → **Anyone with the link** → *Can view*, then **Copy link**. - A work or school SharePoint link often opens only to people in your organization. The page says so when the link asks for a sign-in; download the file and upload it, or paste the cells. The import keeps the link, and *Imports on this project* shows where each one came from. **Import again from the link** there fetches the latest and shows what changed since, row by row, before anything is written: useful when the schedule lives in a shared sheet. **Paste cells** needs no sharing, so it suits a private sheet. Select the cells in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers, headings included, copy them, paste them in the box and press **Read the cells**. Cells with line breaks come across whole. Pictures in cells come across a paste from Google Sheets in the browser: each picture's web address goes in its cell, and the picture is fetched when you import. From desktop Excel or Numbers they don't (those apps keep them as files on your computer, and the page says so); upload the file to bring them. #### Pictures Every picture in the file comes with the import, whichever way the file came in. The preview counts each row's pictures, and each tab says how many it has and of which kind, before anything is written. These come through: - pictures over the cells (*Insert → Pictures*, or pasted onto the sheet), on the row their top-left corner is in; - pictures placed in a cell (Excel's *Insert → Pictures → Place in Cell*, and cell pictures from WPS Office); - *=IMAGE("https://…")* in a cell, from Excel or Google Sheets: the picture is fetched from its address; - a web address in a picture column (*Image*, *Picture*, *Photo*, *Image URL*…, or any column of pictures' addresses): fetched the same way. A row's pictures all go on the item's library product, first, in the row's order (up to 12 a row); the same picture is never added twice, so importing again adds nothing it already has. An import fetches up to 300 addresses; one past that, or one that does not load, is kept on the product with **Try again** there. These don't, and the preview says so: a picture *linked to a file* on the computer the workbook was made on (Excel's *Link to File*), which is not in the workbook at all; and any picture in a CSV, which holds only text. From a link: an Excel workbook on OneDrive or SharePoint comes as the file itself, so its pictures come as an upload's do. A Google Sheet comes as Google's own download of it, which keeps pictures over the cells and *=IMAGE()*. Pictures placed in cells of a Google Sheet don't always survive that download; if a picture column comes through empty, the preview says so. Then put each picture's web address, or *=IMAGE("https://…")*, in its cell and read the link again, or paste the cells from Google Sheets in the browser. #### Other layouts and the AI A file made from the template is read straight away, for nothing. A file laid out like one you imported before is read the way you confirmed then, also for nothing. Any other layout is read from its headings. **Read it with AI** reads the layout properly — which tab, which rows, what each column holds, how cells are written (a maker's card, "TBD", "OMITTED") and any "200's: Lobby" list of areas by number. It costs the AI actions shown on the button (usually 1 per file, given back if the read fails). The AI reads the layout once; every row is then taken apart the same way, so what the preview shows is exactly what is imported. Where the AI is unsure it asks, under the reading. #### What the preview lists - new items; - items the file changes (each change, before → after); - numbers that now name something else — the item gets its own new library product; the old product, and any other project using it, is left as it was; - items the file omits, and rows with nothing to make; - the project's items the file does not mention (left as they are); - the people it brings; - any problems — a number used twice in the file comes in under the next free number, and says so. #### What the import does - The file wins for what it says; a library product another item shares is copied for this item before it changes. - Pictures in the file go on each item's library product at full size, first (see [Pictures](/manual/specifications#import-pictures)). - A row with no number under an item (the stone of a credenza's top) is part of that item. - Notes columns are kept on the item's history for the firm only; a Notes column in the template goes into the item's specification. - Makers' reps and the directory's people go into your address book (people already there are matched, never duplicated, and only their empty details filled); the directory's people join the project team; your own firm's people are left out. - Money is read only from someone who may set it, and with Pricing off only as a budget. #### Also look up the links **Also look up the links** (a checkbox in the preview, off at first) reads each item's product page after the import, the same way *Look it up from a link* does, for what the file left empty: the model, the maker, dimensions, materials and finish, a list price as the MSRP, a picture where the row had none. It never changes what the file said, and reads a custom piece's link as the design reference it is (nothing filled). A page behind a sign-in, a vendor's home page or a page about something else fills nothing and is listed with the reason. Each page read is an AI action. #### Undo **Undo this import**, on the same page for 30 days, takes the whole import back — or just its look-ups. Values the import wrote go back to what they were; the items, products, areas and cards it made are removed; anything a person has changed since is kept. #### The template **Download the template (.xlsx)** on the page gives a workbook laid out the way the import reads without being told: - an *Items* tab with the importer's own headings — Item # and Name needed, one item per row, pictures pasted into the Picture cell, OMITTED in the Name to omit an item, drop-downs for the unit and furnish/install; - a *Contacts* tab for the project team; - an *Instructions* tab. Its money columns follow what you may set: none without project money, *Budget each* when the firm budgets, cost and markup for those who see margins. Importing a filled template needs no AI. Tip: Starting fresh? Fill the template rather than adapting an old spreadsheet: it imports straight away, for nothing. # Issue specs Spec books, issue sets, revisions, presentation copies, vendor documents and transmittals. ## Issuing specifications Link: /manual/issuing#issuing-specifications The short way to hand a batch of specifications to the contractor as one PDF, with nobody emailed. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **Issue a set…** Issue a set 1. On **Specify**, check the items, or set the filters (area, category, status, a search) to the ones you want. 2. Press **Issue a set…** on the bar (checked items), or Actions → **Issue a set…** (the filter's items). 3. Check the list on **New issue set**: add or take out items, and look at anything flagged. 4. Give it a title and press **Make the spec book**. 5. The PDF downloads by itself, named for the set (*25-113MR.00 Spec Book — Issue 1 — 2026-09-27.pdf*); **Download the PDF** is there too. The page says **No one has been emailed**. 6. Upload the PDF to Procore or Autodesk Forma as you would any document. Email it only if you want to: **Send it to…** on the set's page takes the addresses, shows the email first and sends only to them. Every past set keeps its PDF, frozen as it was issued, with **Download the PDF** beside it on the Issue sets tab and on its own page. #### What the issued book carries - A cover with the project, job number, client (on a priced set), the issue and its date, the number of items and your firm, and the furnish/install codes the book uses spelled out. - An index by area: item number, description, furnish/install (OFOI, OFCI, CFCI…), quantity and page. - A page per item: its number and name with the designation boxed at the top right, its area, category and quantity; its picture; the maker, product code, supplier, dimensions, quantity, furnish/install and status (said once); the maker's and supplier's contact cards from the address book (name, contact, phone, email, address); the product's details in its template's order; the specification and description, with the standard requirements under their own heading. - Along each item page's foot: the issue and its date, when the item was first issued and its revision (*Rev 2 · Sep 20, 2026*). A long specification carries on to a second page rather than being cut short. Nothing internal is printed: no *Last modified*, and no screen labels copied in from an old system. Under *In the book* on New issue set you can leave out **Furnish / install (OFOI, OFCI…)**, **Standard requirements**, **Maker and supplier** or **Show maker and supplier contacts** (on to begin with). A priced set leaves the maker and contacts out when your firm keeps makers from clients. #### Pictures in the book Each item prints the product's first picture at print resolution. If that picture is too small to print sharply and the product has a larger one, the larger one is used. Some imported pictures exist only as small previews, such as the 100-pixel thumbnails some spec systems keep. The book prints those small, smoothed rather than blocky, with *Low-resolution picture* under them. An item with no picture has a small *No picture* box. Tip: Upload the original picture on the product to print it sharp. See also: /manual/issuing#issue-sets, /manual/issuing#presentation-copies-of-the-book, /manual/issuing#transmittals ## Issue sets Link: /manual/issuing#issue-sets Numbered, dated sets of the specifications, each with its spec book and what changed since the last. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **Issue sets** An issue is a numbered, dated set with its own spec book PDF, for the contractor or vendor building from it. [Screenshot: The Issue sets tab: every set issued, with its spec book and what changed since the one before.] #### Building a set A set is chosen and seen before its spec book is made, on the **New issue set** page. Three ways lead there: - **New issue set** on the Issue sets tab — empty, or where you left off; - **Issue a set…** on Specify's bar with items checked — they arrive chosen; - Actions → **Issue a set…** with Specify's filters set — the items the filter shows arrive chosen. [Screenshot: New issue set: add items, check what is in the set and what changed, then make the spec book.] 1. **Add items** narrows by area, category and status or a search, with **Add all matching** and a checkbox on each item. 2. **In this set** lists what's chosen with its picture, number, area and status, counts by area, and flags what's worth a second look: *No picture*, *Not approved* (by the client), and *New* or *Changed since Issue n* against the last set of the same kind, with the totals (added, taken out, changed) above the list. 3. Under **The spec book**, set the title, a note and what goes in the book: cover, index, furnish/install, pictures, specification text, standard requirements, general conditions, maker and supplier, their contacts, links to the maker — and, for those who see prices, **With prices**. 4. **Make the spec book** freezes exactly the chosen items as the next numbered issue and downloads its PDF. It emails no one. What you choose is kept for you while you build, so a refresh or a return picks up where you were. Tip: **Mark revised…** on Specify's bar (it used to say *Issue revision…*) is different: it raises the checked items' revision numbers with a note, and makes no set. #### Sending a set **Send it to…** on its page, if you choose to, emails the people you type there a link that opens without signing in: the PDF and the **addendum**, which lists what was added, removed or changed since the previous issue. [Screenshot: An issue set's own page: its spec book, its addendum and Send it to….] Every issue stays under the project's Specify → **Issue sets** tab and its PDF on Files, kept to the firm until someone shows it. #### Priced sets A set issued **with prices** opens only for people who may see prices. A contractor, a Restricted colleague or a client never gets it; it cannot go on a transmittal from someone who may not open it; and a new version of it stays priced. Contractors see the unpriced sets under **Spec sets** on their strip. See also: /manual/issuing#revisions-and-history, /manual/issuing#transmittals ## Revisions and history Link: /manual/issuing#revisions-and-history An item's revisions, the project's numbered revisions (Δ), and the running log. #### On an item - **Issue revision** raises the revision number, stamps the date, sets the status to Revised and records why. - On the item's **History** tab, the **Revisions** card lists the issued revisions, with every field edit folded underneath as *N field changes*. Once there are any, it carries **Compare revisions**: two points in the item's history side by side (the original, any issued revision, or now) with the fields that differ. - **Notes & history** under it is the running log, where anyone can also leave a note. A vendor document named in an entry ("shop drawing received: …") is a link to that document while it is on the item. #### Numbered revisions (Δ) A project keeps numbered revisions of three kinds — **Specs**, **Budget** and **Finish schedule** — each numbered on its own (Δ1, Δ2…; *Budget Δ1*, *Finish Δ1*), dated and described. These are the project-first layout's revision lists, in every style. Where to find it: A project → [Specify → Issue sets → **Revisions (Δ)**](/manual/issuing#issue-sets) They are listed on [Specify → Issue sets → **Revisions (Δ)**](/manual/issuing#issue-sets) (*Revisions / Addenda* on the project-first Main Menu), where **New revision** makes one. [Screenshot: The project's numbered revisions: Specs, Budget and Finish schedule, each with its own Δ numbers.] Putting an item in a numbered revision 1. On the item, press **Issue revision**. Besides why, it asks which revision it is part of — one of the project's, or *the next Specs / Budget / Finish schedule revision*, made there and then — and whether it is a **Revision** or an **Addendum**. 2. For several at once, check them and use **Mark revised…** (*Set Revision on Flagged* in the project-first layout), which does the same for them all. The item's own counter still goes up (*Rev 3*, *Δ 3* on the project-first form), and the revision keeps the fields its edits changed since the last one (*Changed: finish and fabric, quantity* on the Revisions card). The spec book prints those fields **shaded**, the Specification or Instructions heading marked *revised*, and the revision line reads *Rev 3 · date · Delta 2 · Addendum* (the PDF writes Δ as the word). An issue set can be a numbered revision too: *Numbered revision* on New issue set (the next Specs Δ, or one already made), its book's cover carrying it. #### The index **Reports → Revision / Addendum index** lists every item revision under the Δ it belongs to — date, item, Revision or Addendum, the reason and the fields changed — on the page, as Excel and as a **PDF** (every report now prints as a PDF too). Staff only: a client reads an item's revision lines without money fields. ## Presentation copies of the book Link: /manual/issuing#presentation-copies-of-the-book Where the finished, designed PDF of the spec book lives. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → Actions → **Spec book PDF…** → *Presentation copies* The spec book the portal makes is a working document; many firms take the PDF into InDesign and come back with a presentation. On the project's **Spec book** page (Actions → **Spec book PDF…**), *Presentation copies* is where that finished PDF lives. Upload it with a title, and the whole team (and the client, through Files) works from the same one. [Screenshot: Presentation copies on the Spec book page: the finished PDF, made in InDesign or wherever, kept for the whole team.] Tip: A newer edition goes on as a new version from the document's page, so the history stays. ## Vendor documents Link: /manual/issuing#vendor-documents The quote, cut sheet, sample, shop drawing or certificate that arrives per item, approved or rejected. **Vendor documents** hold the quote, cut sheet, finish sample, shop drawing or certificate that arrives per item. They are under the specification page's **Files** tab, with the drawings the item is tagged on; in the tabbed layout, under **Attachments**. In the project-first layout the card is Vendor documents, below the form. [Screenshot: Vendor documents on the lounge chair: its cut sheet, finish sample and test report, each approved.] 1. Choose the kind, then add the file or drop it on the card. 2. Anyone who may edit specifications marks it **Approve** or **Reject** (with what must change). Approving a new version of a document (the same kind and title) supersedes the earlier one, and only that one: the chair's cut sheet and its fabric data sheet stand side by side. #### Warranty and care **Warranty** and **Care and maintenance** are kinds of their own for what the owner keeps after hand-over. They reach the client as soon as they are filed, with no approval. #### Following them up Expediting shows, per item, what is still awaiting a yes or rejected and due back, and a **Documents pending** pill lists them (not on an installer's Deliveries). #### What the client sees A client sees the card, as *Documents*, only when it holds approved cut sheets, samples or drawings or a warranty or care sheet — never a quote, and not while it is empty. ## Transmittals Link: /manual/issuing#transmittals A dated cover sheet for drawings and documents going out, with a link to fetch them. Where to find it: A project → **Files** → **Transmittals** **Files → Transmittals** on a project is the cover sheet for drawings and documents going out: who it is to, the purpose (for review, approval, construction, record, as requested), a note, and the documents checked from the project's files. Photos are included, under their own heading, for site photos to a contractor. [Screenshot: Transmittals on a project: each numbered, with who it went to and when.] 1. **Create transmittal** starts one: choose who it is to, the purpose, a note, and check the documents. 2. The list is frozen on the transmittal (T-001, T-002…), and the cover is a PDF. 3. **Send** emails it. The recipients get a link that opens those files and nothing else. You can only put on a transmittal what you may open yourself — a Restricted colleague is not offered an issue set printed with prices. [Screenshot: A transmittal: its cover, its documents and its log.] The log shows when it went to whom, and *Send again* adds addresses. The recipient's page has **Acknowledge receipt**: their name and an optional note are recorded on the transmittal, shown in its log, and the person who issued it gets an alert. # The library Products and clipping them from a website, makers and vendors, price lists, templates, the instruction library, categories and 3D models. ## The product library Link: /manual/library#the-library Everything the firm has ever specified, across every project, ready for the next one. Where to find it: Library → [**Product library**](/products) The [**Product library**](/products) holds everything the firm has ever specified, across every project, two abreast on a wide screen. [Screenshot: The product library: search, sort, category chips and the products themselves.] #### Finding a product - A search by name, maker, type or model code. - A sort, by *Vendor*, *Type* and *Model #* too. - The five biggest categories as chips, and the rest in *More categories*. - **With images** / **Without images** — only the products that have a picture, or only those still missing one. The search box in the bar, and the picker that adds from the library to a project, find a product by its model code however it is written — *CH-2041*, *ch2041* and *CH 2041* are the same code. #### List or grid The two icons beside the sort, *List view* and *Grid view*, switch the layout. Grid shows each product as a picture card: its name, maker and model, its color or finish and size when its details give them, how often it has been specified and, for those who see prices, its price. It is two across on a phone and five on a wide screen. The choice is yours alone, kept on your account, and List until you change it. #### Clipped and expiring - A **Clipped** chip, with its count, lists products clipped from websites that no item uses yet. They stay out of the main list until one does. - A **Prices expiring** pill shows products whose price has expired or expires within 30 days (set *Price valid until* on the product), and each shows a badge. The foot of the list says which page you are on of how many and how many products there are (*Page 2 of 23 · 1,380 products*), with *First*, *Previous*, *Next* and *Last*. The other long lists — projects, orders, invoices, quotes, meetings, makers, vendors — say the same. #### A product's page A product page shows where it has been specified, its images, its **Details**, pricing and notes, and lets you add it to a project or edit it. **Details** are the lines the firm's old system kept on it, in their order — *Color/Finish*, *Dimensions*, *Content*, *Width*, *Pattern*, *Repeat* and so on. Where the firm keeps makers from its clients, a client doesn't see the lines that name the maker's product. Beside the maker's name at the top of its **Source** card (which lists that maker's other products here), a small arrow opens the product's own page on the maker's site in a new tab, when the product has a web link. The link is also under **Web page**. Where makers are kept from clients, a client sees neither the maker, the model nor the link. [Screenshot: A product's page: where it is specified, its pictures, details, pricing and source.] See also: /manual/library#library-adding, /manual/library#makers-and-vendors, /manual/library#product-templates, /manual/library#a-3d-model-of-a-product ## Adding products Link: /manual/library#library-adding From a web page, a spreadsheet, the web clipper, or by hand. #### From a web page 1. On **New product**, paste the product page's address. 2. Press **Read the page · 1 AI action**. It uses one of the month's AI actions (on a demo, one of the visitor's). 3. The name, maker, model, type, dimensions, materials and finish, a plain description, the unit, the list price when the page shows one, and the picture fill themselves in. Check them before saving. The page's own declarations come first and the AI key reads the rest. Without the key only the title, description and picture come across. A page that needs a login, a link that lands on the site's home page, or a page with nothing about any one product fills nothing and says why. The vendor's own name and blurb never go in as the product's. Use the web clipper while signed in to the vendor's site, or type the details. #### When a maker's site blocks reading Some makers' sites check for automated visitors — a **Press & Hold** box, an *I'm not a robot* check, a *Just a moment…* page — and show the server only the check. **Read the page** then says so in words (*This maker's site checks for automated visitors…*), fills nothing, and opens **Add screenshots instead**. 1. Open the product page in your own browser and finish its check if it shows one. 2. Take screenshots of the page: the name, price, dimensions, materials and lead time, wherever they are. 3. Under the address box, use **Add screenshots instead**: paste them (⌘V or Ctrl+V), drop them in, or choose them — on a phone, a photo from your library or one you take. Up to five, PNG, JPG, HEIC or WebP. A spec sheet PDF and the page's text, if you can copy it, help too. 4. Press **Read the screenshots · 1 AI action**. The name, maker, model, type, dimensions, materials and finish, lead time, and the price and currency where shown fill in, each marked *from your screenshot*. Nothing is guessed: a detail the screenshots don't show stays empty. 5. To make the product's picture, press **Crop as picture** under a screenshot and drag a box around the product. 6. Check the details and save. The address you gave stays as the product's web page, and the screenshots (and spec sheet) are kept as its documents, marked as the source of its details. - Prices follow what you may see: someone who doesn't see costs gets no cost filled, and someone who doesn't see prices, no price. - With the month's AI actions used up, it says so and keeps the screenshots: they are attached when you save, for you to type the details from. - On the demo the screenshots are read by pattern from the page's text pasted with them, and spend nothing. - It is there for whoever adds products or specifications — never for a client or a contractor. [Screenshot: Add screenshots instead: paste, drop or choose screenshots of the product page, then read them.] Tip: The **web clipper** bookmark reads the page inside your own browser, so once you are past a site's check it usually brings the page across. Clip before finishing the check and it says *Finish the site's check (e.g. Press & Hold), then clip again*. The page's address is saved with the product as its **Web page**, editable on the product itself. [Screenshot: New product: paste a product page's address and read it, or type the details.] #### The web clipper **Clip from a website** is a bookmarklet: on any vendor page, one click brings the title, description, picture and address into a new product for you to finish. See [Clip from a website](/manual/library#clip-from-a-website). #### From a spreadsheet **Import spreadsheet** on the library takes a CSV or Excel price list or schedule. Columns are matched by name, you correct the match, and products with the same manufacturer and model are updated rather than duplicated. [**Import products**](/products/import) brings a CSV or Excel price list or catalog into the library (uploaded, from a Google Sheets or Excel link, or as cells pasted from any spreadsheet): columns are guessed and yours to correct, a title row and a totals line at the foot are passed over, Markup % and Lead time are read, and a second import updates the same products rather than doubling them. The full account is under [Importing what you already have](/manual/your-portal#importing-what-you-already-have). ## Clip from a website Link: /manual/library#clip-from-a-website Bring a vendor's product page across in one click. Where to find it: Library → [**Clip from a website**](/products/clip) Before you start: - Drag the button on [Library → **Clip from a website**](/products/clip) to your bookmarks bar, once. [Screenshot: Clip from a website: the button to drag to your bookmarks bar.] 1. On any vendor's product page, click the bookmark. The page comes across: its details are read, and its pictures are shown with the best one chosen (the page's own product picture, the largest of its gallery). 2. Click another picture to use it instead, or paste an address. The one you choose is kept at full size. 3. Say where it goes: **Add to a project as a new item**, **Update an item**, or **Just the library**. - **Add to a project as a new item** — choose the project and area. The item number is offered in the area's habit and checked, so a number the project already uses is asked about: update that item, use the next number, or cancel. - **Update an item** — choose the item. Its product's empty details are filled from the page, and where both have a value you choose which to keep, side by side. - **Just the library** — the clip waits under **Clipped** in the Product library, out of the main list, until an item uses it. #### Pages that need care - A vendor site that needs a login: sign in there first, then open the product and clip it — the clipper reads the page in your own browser. - A sign-in page, or a page about the vendor rather than a product, is said and nothing is filled. - A price is filled in as your cost only where the page names it a trade or net price; a public or sale price goes under MSRP. - A picture that does not load is said, and its address kept on the product with **Try again**. When the maker's site blocked it, crop one from a screenshot instead: **Add screenshots instead** on the clip page. - A site that checks for automated visitors (a **Press & Hold** box) shows its check first. Finish it, wait for the product, then clip; clipped on the check itself, the clip says *Finish the site's check (e.g. Press & Hold), then clip again*. Where a page still won't come across, **Add screenshots instead** reads screenshots of it — see [When a maker's site blocks reading](/manual/library#when-a-site-blocks-reading). - The bookmark carries the page itself across — its words, its declared details and its pictures, the main one as your browser has it when the site allows — so nothing is fetched from the maker again. A bookmark from before October 2026 can arrive with only the address and title (browsers no longer carry the page with it); the clip page says so. Drag the button from [Clip from a website](/products/clip) onto the bar in its place. #### On a phone Paste the page's address into *Have the product's web page?* on New product, or into *Web link* on a new specification, and press **Read the page**. The details fill themselves in, and a specification made that way gets the page as its library product, picture and all. ## Makers, vendors and contacts Link: /manual/library#makers-and-vendors Who you buy from, their people and their history — merged, never deleted. Where to find it: Library → [**Makers**](/manufacturers) or [**Vendors and contacts**](/vendors) #### Makers [**Makers**](/manufacturers) lists who you buy from, three abreast on a wide screen, ninety a page with the most-used first and the page count at the foot. Each shows its specification and project counts, and a search narrows the list. Click one for its products. **Merge two spellings…** joins two spellings of one maker across the library ("ARTERIORS" into "Arteriors"). The old spelling is kept so later imports read it as the new name. When the merge leaves the same model in the library twice under one maker (the same model code), it offers **Combine N duplicate products**. For each code the product most specifications use is kept; the others' specifications move to it (their pictures too if it has none), and the others are set inactive with a note saying where they went. [Screenshot: Makers: most used first, each with its specification and project counts.] #### Vendors and contacts [**Vendors and contacts**](/vendors) opens on a **Recent** row of the contacts touched lately, then manufacturers, reps, suppliers and clients, most specified first, sixty a page with the page count at the foot. Filter by role (a contact can be several) or find one by search. Each contact shows its main contact's name, position, email, phone, mobile and fax, the projects they were specified on, and its **history**: every edit with before and after, rep changes called out, comments anyone leaves for the record, and status changes. [Screenshot: Vendors and contacts: recent contacts first, then everyone by role.] #### Never deleted, only merged or marked - Contacts are never deleted. **Mark out of business** or **Mark inactive** keeps the name on old orders and specifications and shows a badge. - **Merge into…** on a card folds a second spelling of the same company into it, with its orders, bills, quotes, products and history; the specifications that named it follow. An email, phone or contact the two cards disagree on is kept in the notes and the history, not lost. - Adding a card whose name reads like one already there ("Ashgrove Seating Inc" beside "Ashgrove Seating") asks first and offers the existing card. A maker typed on a new product that reads like one in the library offers that spelling. #### Look them up On a contact's page, **Look them up** searches the web for the company's public details from what the card holds (the company, a name, the domain of their email): website, a published phone, the address, a line on what they make, and their own LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, X and YouTube pages. - Nothing is written until you check what to keep. A value that would replace something already there starts unchecked. - Each kept field shows on the card as *filled in from the web*, with the page it was read from, so nobody mistakes it for a checked fact. - Money — bank details, terms, prices — is never asked for. - One AI action per search on PortSpace's AI; none on your own AI key. Some AI accounts can't search the web from here: on a portal whose own key is one of them, the card says so in place of the button. #### Shared directory Beside the list, **Shared directory** is PortSpace's own list of the trade's manufacturers, fabric houses, lighting companies and workrooms, read-only. **Add to our vendors and contacts** copies a company in as your own card, yours to edit from then on. The demo does not show it. ## Which sources carry which makers Link: /manual/library#which-sources-carry-which-makers Link a maker to the sources that sell it, so an item shows who to buy from. A contact card can say which makers a source sells and which sources sell a maker (*Sources* and *Manufacturers* in the project-first layout). Where to find it: Library → Vendors and contacts → a card → **Makers and vendors** On a card under Vendors and contacts, **Makers and vendors** (the tabbed layout: *Manufacturers and Vendors*; the project-first layout: *Manufacturers / Sources*) lists **Makers they sell** and **Vendors who sell them**, each a link to that card. 1. Open the card (you need to be someone who edits contacts). 2. Type a company's name and pick it from the list. 3. Press **Add**. × takes one off (asking first). An item whose maker has sources shows them under its source details (**Vendors who sell them**), so you can see who to buy from. Both companies need a card; a card cannot carry itself, and a pair is listed once. Tip: The example hotel's lighting rep carries its two lighting makers, and its textile rep the two floor-covering mills. [Screenshot: A contact card with the makers it sells and the sources that sell it.] ## Vendor price lists Link: /manual/library#vendor-price-lists A vendor uploads a price list at a link; nothing reaches the library until you accept it. Where to find it: Library → [**Price lists to review**](/products/pending) #### Asking a vendor for a list 1. Open the vendor's page under Vendors and contacts. 2. Press **Price list from the vendor**. It makes a link, and emails it — shown to you first with **Preview and send…**. 3. The vendor uses the link, without signing in, to upload a CSV or Excel price list. They check the column meanings and send it. #### Reviewing what came in Nothing reaches the library yet. Administrators are alerted, and so is whoever raised the open purchase orders with that vendor, since their prices are the ones about to move. The list waits under [Library → **Price lists to review**](/products/pending) (also on the dashboard) until someone accepts or rejects it. Each upload is one card with: - an eight-row preview; - what accepting would add and change — a product listed twice counted once, and any price that cannot be read, such as “$395.00 / LF”, named, not dropped; - the two decisions beside it, with earlier decisions folded at the foot. Accepting brings the products in under the vendor's name, matched by manufacturer and model so a new list updates the old one. The vendor's history notes who sent and who accepted it. [Screenshot: Price lists to review: each upload with its preview and what accepting would change.] ## Templates and resources Link: /manual/library#templates-and-resources What new specifications start from, the details each kind of product records, and the firm's shelf of fonts and standards. #### Specification templates Where to find it: Library → [**Specification templates**](/templates) [**Specification templates**](/templates) are the pre-filled text new specifications start from, grouped by category in two columns. Each card is just the name and how many specifications use it; click one to see and edit what it pre-fills. Searching opens the matching template and lights it up so the eye lands on it. For owners and administrators, a line at the top leads to and from *Item templates*. [Screenshot: Specification templates, grouped by category, each with how many specifications use it.] #### Product templates **Product templates** — *templates and pick lists*, under Library → Templates — say, for each kind of product, the details it records, in order, and the lists that make them drop-downs. Some spec systems call it the *Template Type*. Only those who manage settings see the page (Settings → *Specification fields* links to it too). Open one to rename it, say which product types it is suggested for, and edit its fields: - a label, and the kind (*Text*, *Drop-down*, *Yes / No*, *Number*); - the list, one value per line in the order it is offered; - **Allow "Other…"**, so a value outside the list can be typed; - a **default** filled in when a product takes the template; - whether it was printed **on purchase orders** or **on proposals** in the system it came from. **↑** and **↓** reorder, **✕** removes, **+ Add a field** adds; **+ New template** starts one. Removing a template products use archives it: they keep it and their values, and it is no longer offered. #### Giving a product a template 1. On a product, choose **Edit product** → **Details** → **Template type**. A product whose type a template is suggested for offers **Use … · suggested**. 2. Its fields follow in order. Each list is a drop-down you can type into to jump; **Other…** opens a box (Esc goes back). A product's values live on the product. Change a list and a value no longer in it stays, marked **not in the list**; a detail the template has no field for is kept after the template's own. *Default (free text)* is no template. The product page and the specification's **Details** show the lines in the template's order. Every change to a product's details is in its history, label by label. #### Fonts and resources Where to find it: Library → [**Fonts and resources**](/resources) [**Fonts and resources**](/resources) holds what the firm uses on every job rather than on one: its **fonts**, the **templates** a job starts from, its own **marks**, and the **standards** it works to. Each entry is a link or a file, whichever suits, with a note saying what it is for. A foundry's license rarely allows the font file itself to be handed round, and a template that lives in Dropbox goes stale the moment it is copied. A font also carries **where it is licensed**, **how many seats** in the license's own words, and **what to use instead** when somebody has not got it. Search finds them by name, by note, by foundry or by substitute, so "which font, and how many seats have we got" is answered from the search box. Everyone inside the firm may read the shelf; whoever edits specifications keeps it; nobody outside the firm sees it at all. [Screenshot: Fonts and resources: the firm's fonts, templates, marks and standards.] ## The instruction library Link: /manual/library#the-instruction-library The firm's standard instruction lines, kept in one place and copied onto each new item. Where to find it: Library → Specification templates → [**Instruction library**](/templates/instructions) The firm keeps its standard instruction lines in one place — the master *Instructions*, in every style: [Library → Specification templates → **Instruction library**](/templates/instructions) (*Spec Instructions* on the project-first layout's Main Menu and in its menu). Staff working across the firm read it; those who edit specifications change it. [Screenshot: The instruction library: lines by item type, in order, with the kinds of project they are kept to.] #### What a line is for Each line is for **every item**, an **item type** (a category, matched in any case) or a **product template**. It may be kept to one **project category** — the kind of job (*HSP Hospitality*, *RES Residential*…), kept on the same page and chosen per project under [Areas and rooms](/manual/projects#areas-and-rooms) → *Project category*. Lines keep their order within their item type (↑ ↓), and can be edited or removed (items that took a line keep their copy). #### Importing lines **Import from a CSV** reads a file with these headings, adding after what the library has or in its place: - *item_type* — *ALL* or blank for every item; - *order* — 01, 02, 02a… as people read them; - *instruction*; - *project_category* — a code; new ones are made. #### On each item A new item takes the lines for it, in order: every-item lines, then its item type's and its template's; those kept to another kind of project are left out. From then on the lines are the item's own. Its **Instructions** card (a block on the project-first form; under *Specifications* on the tabbed layout's Details tab) lists them numbered: - **Edit instructions** changes, adds, moves and removes them. - **Insert standard instructions** adds the library's lines it lacks (never a line twice). - **+ library** beside a line of its own adds it to the library under the item's type. Copies of items (to an area, to a project, a duplicated project) carry their lines. The spec book prints them, numbered, under the specification, and the list's **Instructs** column (Columns → Instructions; on by default in the project-first layout) counts them. Clients and contractors read an item's lines as written; only the firm's people see the library. ## Categories Link: /manual/library#categories The firm's list of categories, offered on every specification and template. Where to find it: Library → [**Categories**](/categories) [Library → **Categories**](/categories) is the firm's list: what the category picker offers on every specification and template, each with how many specifications, projects and templates use it (a zero is left blank). In the project-first layout they are called Categories. [Screenshot: Categories: each with how many specifications, projects and templates use it.] - Add one. - Point at a row for **Rename** and **Remove**. - Rename: every specification and template follows, and renaming onto an existing name merges the two. - Remove one and choose where its specifications go. A new name typed on a specification joins the list by itself. Someone kept to listed projects (a Restricted seat) does not see Categories, Specification templates or Price lists to review: they are the firm's housekeeping, not their projects'. ## A 3D model of a product Link: /manual/library#a-3d-model-of-a-product A model made from a product's photo and dimensions, for layouts and presentations. Where the firm has **3D models** switched on (PortSpace switches it on per firm), a product with a photo and its dimensions — at least two of width, depth and height — has a **3D model** card, on the product and on every specification that uses it (under its **3D** tab). #### Making one 1. On the **3D model** card, choose **Standard** (clean shapes at the right size, usually 1–2 minutes) or **Detailed** (more finish — bevels, tufting, materials — usually 3–5 minutes). Each shows its price in AI actions, set aside when you ask and given back if the model cannot be made. 2. Leave the page if you like: it is made in the background. An alert (by email too, if you take alerts by email — a link, never the file) says when it is ready. The AI is given the photos and the dimensions exactly as the specification writes them. A missing one is judged from the photo, and the card says so first. The model is kept on the product, so every project that uses the product has it without paying again. **Make again** makes a new one. #### Its size against the specification - Within 5% of every dimension the specification gives, a model is scaled to the exact size (and turned a quarter first if its width and depth came out swapped). The card says so — *30 × 32 × 31 in (spec 30 × 32 × 31) · fitted from 2.8% off*. - Further off, it is kept as it was made, because stretching it would hide a misreading (a seat height taken for the back, say). The card names the dimension: *height 12% over the spec — make an alternative*. - A dimension the specification doesn't give is never scaled. The card says *depth not in the spec*, with the size the model came out at. **Make an alternative** (shown on a finished model, at its price — half of Standard to start) has it made afresh, a different take on the same piece. It adds a new version rather than replacing the old. #### Versions Every version is kept for good — a new model never replaces an old one. Under the model, **Versions** lists every one, newest first and numbered by its tier and the day it was made (*Version 2 · Detailed · 27 Sep 2026*, *Version 3 · Alternative · 27 Sep 2026*), each still downloadable years later. Each has a thumbnail, its size check in a few words, and a **Download** in your usual format. The product's model is marked **Current**, and **Use this version** on any other makes it the product's model. Click a version's thumbnail to show it above. #### Looking at it and downloading **Turn it ↻** shows the model itself: drag to turn it, scroll or pinch to zoom. The Download button offers your usual format first — OBJ with its materials in a zip (Revit, SketchUp through its importer, most programs) until you choose another. **Other formats** has FBX (Revit, 3ds Max), DAE (SketchUp), GLB (Blender, the web) and USDZ (iPhone and iPad AR). The one you choose becomes your usual. Some models — the example hotel's among them — keep only their GLB until someone asks for another format. The first download of that format is made there and then: the card says *Preparing your OBJ… a few seconds.* and the file downloads by itself when it is ready. From then on that format downloads at once, for everyone. Careful: Every model says so on its card, and in its alert: *an approximation made from the photos and dimensions; for exact geometry use the maker's own model where there is one* — good for layouts and presentations. It counts toward the firm's storage. Clients and installers see a product's model only where they would see the product. ## Your own 3D model Link: /manual/library#your-own-3d-model Bring in a model of a product — the portal's download edited in your own program, or the maker's own file — as a new version, with no AI actions. A product's **3D model** card takes a model of your own as well as making one. Two ways it is used: download the model, change it in your own program and bring it back; or bring in the maker's own file (many makers publish theirs), which is exact where a made model is an approximation. Either way it costs no AI actions. #### Bringing one in 1. On the product (or any item that uses it), on the **3D model** card, choose **Upload a model** and pick the file: **GLB** or **glTF**; **OBJ** on its own, or a **zip** with the OBJ, its MTL and its textures (or a glTF with its files); **FBX** (binary); **DAE**. Up to 80 MB. 2. It is checked at once — a file that isn't what its name says is refused in words, and nothing is kept — then read into a GLB on the server, which takes a few seconds. Nothing in the file is ever run. 3. It shows in the viewer with its size against the specification: *31.1 × 32 × 31 in as uploaded — 1.1 in wider than the spec*. Choose **Fit to spec** (each dimension the specification gives scaled to it, turned a quarter first if width and depth came out swapped) or **Keep as is**. Fit to spec is offered only within 25% on every dimension; further off usually means other units or another piece, and the card says so. 4. Leave **Make it the product's current model** checked to make it the model every project uses, or uncheck it to keep the one there is. Then **Save as a new version**. **Don't keep it** gives the file up. An OBJ has no units of its own and programs disagree about which way is up: left to the portal, it takes the units and the up that bring the model closest to the specification's dimensions (with none, the ones that make it furniture-sized), and the card says what it read it in. Choose them yourself when you upload if you know. Its picture on the card and its view from above for layouts are made a few seconds after it is saved; the other download formats are made the first time someone asks for them, as for any model. #### Its versions - Under **Versions** an uploaded version reads *Uploaded by* and the person's name; one an AI made reads its tier and *AI-made*. - **Use this version** makes any version the product's model, uploaded or made. - **Remove** takes an uploaded version away, files and all; the one chosen before it becomes the model again. A version an AI made is never removed — every one is kept for good. Bringing in a model, choosing the current one and removing an uploaded one are for staff who edit the library — wherever the card shows: where the firm has 3D models switched on, or on a product that already has a model. Clients and contractors see the product's model where they would see the product, and never upload. ## CAD drawings of a product Link: /manual/library#cad-drawings-of-a-product Front, side and top elevations of a product's 3D model with its overall dimensions and a title block, as DXF and PDF. Under a product's 3D model, **Drawings** makes its CAD drawings: the plan (top view), front and side elevations — the back too if you check **Add the back view** — in the third-angle layout American drawings use, visible lines solid and hidden lines dashed, the overall width, depth and height dimensioned, and a title block with the product, maker, model number, scale, date and your firm. #### Making them 1. Open the product (or an item that uses it) and its **3D** tab. Under the model, choose **Make drawings**. The product's current model is drawn; choose another version under **Versions** first to draw that one. 2. They are drawn on PortSpace's server from the model itself, in under a minute, and the card shows the sheet when they are ready. No AI actions are used. 3. If the model has a part floating apart from the body, the card says so first: **Draw it anyway**, or put the model right first (a new version, or your own model). #### The files - **DXF**: the views at full size, in inches, on layers VIEW-FRONT, VIEW-SIDE, VIEW-TOP (VIEW-BACK), HIDDEN (a dashed line type), DIMENSIONS and TITLE. AutoCAD, Revit (Insert → Import CAD), SketchUp Pro, Rhino, Vectorworks and ArchiCAD open it; AutoCAD saves it as DWG. - **PDF**: one letter sheet on your letterhead (your logo, typeface and color) at a standard scale it states — 3/4" = 1'-0" for a chair, say. - **SVG** and **PNG**: the same sheet as vector lines and as a picture. #### In spec sheets and spec books Check **Elevations (CAD drawing)** on the spec book page and each item whose product has drawings gets an **Elevations** page right after its sheet; each spec sheet made from the same page (the zip of sheets) takes them as its page 2. Off by default; never in a client's book. Careful: Every drawing says it, on the sheet and in the DXF: *Approximate drawing from a 3D model fitted to the listed size, not the manufacturer's shop drawing. Check before fabrication.* The overall dimensions are exact; joinery, hardware, tufting and profiles are approximate. Making drawings is for staff who edit specifications; any of the firm's staff can look at and download them. Clients and contractors never see them. Drawings come with 3D models: where those are not switched on, the card says to ask us. # Work on a project Tasks, the calendar, comments, email in, meetings, files, photos, swatch boards, layouts, presentations, approvals and internal review, activity, and archiving the finished job. ## Team & tasks Link: /manual/project-work#team-tasks Who works on the job, who outside the firm can see it, and the tasks to get it done. Where to find it: A project → **Team** → **Team & tasks** The project's **Team** tab holds four: **Team & tasks**, [Meetings](/manual/project-work#meetings), **Time** (hours logged on the job, where the time module is on) and [Activity](/manual/project-work#activity). [Screenshot: A project's Team & tasks: the people on the project, who is given access, the outside contacts and the tasks.] #### Tasks on a project **Team & tasks** has the tasks, each with a state, assignees, due date and priority. Add one with **+ Add task**, and view them **By person** or as a **Board**. #### Every task, firm-wide Tasks also live under [Projects → Tasks](/tasks) across all projects. **+ New task** adds one on any project or none. They are grouped by when they are due: **Overdue**, **This week**, **Later**, **No date**. - A task past its date is red, with *overdue* and the day; one due within three days is amber with a small triangle and *due Mon* (the same on the Board). - The *Everyone* / *Mine & unassigned* switch, the counts and the List/Board buttons sit on one line. - A task without a project can be **attached to a project**. - A long note shows one line, with the rest on the task's page. - *completed* folds open at the foot. [Screenshot: Tasks across every project, grouped by when they are due.] #### People on this project **People on this project** (on the Team page, and beside **Managed by** on the Overview) are the firm's own people who work on the job without managing it: a designer, a draftsperson, the accountant who invoices it. The project's managers, and the owners and administrators, put someone on with **+ add someone** and take them off with **×**. Adding someone tells them. Being on a project makes it theirs, as managing it does: - it is with their projects on Home and under Projects → **Yours** (marked *on the project*), and in their calendar's *projects I am on*; - they are offered first in the @-mention suggestions and the approval and meeting lists; - the project's alerts reach them — late items, a note left on it, email in, a file from site — and their own alert settings still decide whether any of it is emailed. **My projects at a glance** names who is on each project beside who manages it. Taking someone off with **×** removes their unread alerts and waiting approvals on that project, as taking away access does. Each change is kept in the project's Activity. Someone on the Restricted role (or kept to listed projects) is given the project by being put on it, and loses it when taken off: for them the two are one list. The star stays a private bookmark, and it all works the same with Tasks switched off. #### Who is given access **Who is given access** (on the Team page, for an administrator or the project's manager) lists the clients and contractors put on this project. **Add someone…** puts one on. Taking someone off with **×** cuts their access at once. When links on this project were emailed to them (a proposal still waiting on them, an issue set, a transmittal), it lists them with **Revoke these too** checked: a waiting proposal is withdrawn, while an accepted one stays as the record of what was signed. #### Outside contacts **Outside contacts** (on the Team page) are the people on the job outside the firm: the architect of record, the owner's representative, the general contractor, the MEP engineer, the hotel's general manager, the purchasing agent. Each is a card from [Vendors and contacts](/vendors) with the part they play on this project. They are contacts, not portal users: they don't sign in, and nothing reaches them unless someone sends it. The project's managers, and the owners and administrators, look after the list: - **+ Add a contact** → **From the address book**: search by name, company, kind or email and choose the card (one already on the project is grayed out). - **A new card** (for those who may add to the address book): their name or company, position, email and phone. The card goes into Vendors and contacts, where the rest of their details can be added; when a card already has that email, that card is used instead of a second one. - **Role on this project**: architect of record, owner's representative, general contractor, MEP engineer, general manager, purchasing agent, or **Other…** in your own words. The same person can play a different part on another project. - **Edit** changes the role (a contact with no card, brought in by an import, also takes a name and company); their email and phone are changed on their card. - **Take off** removes them from this project. Their card stays in Vendors and contacts. Everyone else on the firm's side reads the list here and under **Project details** on the Overview; clients and contractors never see it. Each change is kept in the project's Activity, and an archived project's list can't be changed. Contacts brought in by an import (the address book's project team, or a schedule's contact list) are on the same list and are changed the same way. See also: /manual/project-work#calendar, /manual/project-work#meetings, /manual/project-work#activity ## Calendar Link: /manual/project-work#calendar Every dated thing on your projects, in one month — and in your own calendar app. Where to find it: Projects → [**Calendar**](/calendar) [Projects → **Calendar**](/calendar) shows every dated thing — tasks due, meetings, ships and deliveries, site visits, pick lists, prices expiring, invoices due — each labeled with its project. The calendar is its own switch, apart from Team tasks. With Team tasks off it shows everything else — meetings, deliveries, site visits, pick lists and due dates — and no tasks; see [*Modules*](/manual/your-portal#modules-what-your-firm-does). All of those are there because something else has a date on it: a task is due, an order ships, a proposal's prices expire. **+ New meeting** is the one thing you put on the calendar directly — see [*Meetings*](/manual/project-work#meetings) for putting one in the diary at an hour, with the people expected at it, including people who have no sign-in here. A meeting given a time shows at that time, here and in the feed; everything else is a whole day. [Screenshot: The calendar: the month, the kinds that occur in it as chips, and the project picker.] #### Make it yours *Change what your calendar shows…* picks the projects and the kinds. The projects can be the ones you are on (managed, starred, listed for you, or holding a task of yours), every project, or a chosen set. Administrators start on everything, everyone else on their own projects. *Projects I am on* follows you: a project you are added to, star, or hold an open task on appears on its own, and one you leave drops out. Only *Projects I choose* is a fixed list. #### Reading the month - The month sits high on the page: the title and the month arrows on one line, then what you are seeing (with *Change* and the feed link beside it). - Then the kinds that actually occur this month, as chips — a kind with nothing in it stays out of the way. - The project picker is at the right: type a few letters of the name or job number and choose, or clear it for every project. - The line above the month says plainly when the view is narrowed — **Filtered · showing …** — with *Change* and **Show all** beside it. Unfiltered, it says *Showing everything you can see*. #### In Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar 1. Open **See this in Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar** — it folds open right there. 2. Make the feed address once. 3. Copy it or open it in your calendar app. Your calendar app then keeps itself up to date with exactly what the page shows. The same control sits on your profile — see [Your calendar and your time zone](/manual/your-settings#your-calendar-and-your-time-zone). #### In Slack and Teams A Slack or Teams channel can be sent a **morning digest** of today on the calendar — meetings, deliveries, site visits and installation, deadlines, tasks with Team tasks on, and invoices only where money may be read — and **reminders** before each meeting. Set them per channel under [Settings → Integrations → **Slack and Teams**](/settings?tab=integrations#chat), or for yourself on your profile; see [*The calendar in Slack and Teams*](/manual/your-portal#slack-teams-calendar). ## Comments: the firm's own conversation Link: /manual/project-work#comments-the-firm-s-own-conversation A thread down the side of a brief, a specification, an order or an invoice — never seen outside the firm. A **Comments** button sits with the title on a **brief**, a **specification**, a **purchase order** and an **invoice**, carrying the number of comments on it. It opens a panel down the right-hand side: who said what, when, and a box to answer. On a specification it opens the page's **Approvals & comments** tab, where the thread sits beside the submittal history (in the tabbed and project-first layouts, the panel). [Screenshot: The comments on a specification, under its Approvals & comments tab: the thread, replies one level deep, and the box to answer.] - A reply hangs under the comment it answers, one level deep, so a thread cannot stair-step off the side of the panel. - Writing one tells the project's managers and everybody who has already spoken in that thread, and the panel says how many people were told. - Ctrl/Cmd+Enter sends; Escape closes. #### Taking a comment back A comment is its author's to **take back** and nobody else's, and it asks first. One nobody has answered goes altogether. One with replies stays as *(taken back by its author)*, so the answers under it still make sense, and the replies stay. The number on the button counts what was said, not those placeholders. #### Nobody outside the firm sees any of it A client or a contractor is offered no button. If they ask for the thread by its address, they are answered not-found — including on the pages they legitimately open, like a specification on their own project, and on a vendor's order link, which is reached by a token rather than a sign-in. A thread is reachable only by somebody who may open the thing it is about: if you may open it you may talk about it, and if you may not, the thread does not exist for you. Tip: The client-facing conversations are elsewhere and unchanged: questions and notes at a proposal's link, comments on the photos of a project, and the thread under a swatch board (which is the firm's own). ## Mentions and replies Link: /manual/project-work#mentions-and-replies Type @ and a name to bring someone in. Type **@** and a name in any comment or note — on a board, a photo, a task, a project note, a specification — and that person gets an alert with a link back. The picker offers names as you type, in the plain boxes and in the formatted editor alike. Comments on boards and photos take **replies**, threaded under the comment they answer; the author of the comment is told. Mentions have their own line under [*Which alerts*](/manual/your-settings#which-alerts) on your profile. ## Email in Link: /manual/project-work#email-in Every project has an email address: forward mail there and it lands on the project. Where to find it: A project's Overview (under Project details) or its **Communications** page Every project has an address: the job number at the portal's own address, such as *22-208.00@meridian.portspace.io*. - Forward a vendor quote or a client reply there and it lands under the project's **Communications**. - Attachments go on **Files**. - The project managers are alerted. [Screenshot: A project's Communications: the mail forwarded to its own address.] An owner or administrator switches it on under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules); the site administrator wires the receiving provider underneath. ## Meetings Link: /manual/project-work#meetings Put a meeting in everyone's diary, record what happened, and turn what is left open into tasks or questions. Where to find it: Projects → [**Meetings**](/meetings); on a project, **Team → Meetings** [Projects → **Meetings**](/meetings) lists every meeting newest first, under month headings once they span more than one month. A search looks across titles, notes, transcripts and summaries, and chips show the kinds that occur. A project's own meetings are under its **Team → Meetings**, with **+ New meeting** there too. The list pills narrow by kind or to meetings with open action items, and each row says what a meeting settled and what it left open. [Screenshot: Every meeting, newest first, with the key takeaway beside each.] #### Putting one in the diary 1. Choose **+ New meeting** — on the meetings list, a project's Team → Meetings, or the [Calendar](/manual/project-work#calendar) (the quick way in). 2. Give it a **start** and an **end**: it becomes an appointment, sitting on the calendar at that hour. 3. Fill in **Where**: a room or a link to join. 4. Under *Expect these people*, pick anybody in the portal and add anybody else by name and email — an architect, a general contractor, a rep. Nobody needs a sign-in to be at a meeting. Each of them gets an email carrying a calendar invitation, so Outlook, Apple Calendar and the rest offer Accept and Decline and put it in their diary. People in the portal also get an alert. The replies go to whoever sent it: the portal does not collect them, and does not pretend to. #### The hour is the hour where you are Type a start time and the form says what that hour is on every clock involved — yours, the firm's, and each portal attendee who has set their own — with *Also show another zone…* for the architect you know is in New York. A meeting is kept as an instant, so every calendar agrees about it, and the invitation says the time in the zone it was put in the diary in. See [The firm's day](/manual/administration#the-firm-s-day) for where the firm keeps its days, and your own zone on [your profile](/manual/getting-started#your-profile). #### Recording one Record a meeting with its date, project, **kind** (client, site visit, vendor, design review, internal), who was there and notes (with formatting). Leave the times empty and it is a meeting on a day, as one written up afterwards is. - Give it a **key takeaway** — one line on where things landed — and it shows beside the meeting in every list. Leave it empty and the summarizer writes one. - If the notes live elsewhere (Google Docs, OneNote, Otter, Notion…), paste the **link** and it sits next to the takeaway. [Screenshot: A meeting: kind, who was there, the key takeaway, notes, and what it left open.] #### Writing it up Paste or upload a transcript or recording and **Summarize with AI** writes the summary, decisions, action items and open questions, when the AI key is set. Action items become tasks. #### What is left open Each **open question** has somewhere to go too: - *Make it a task* puts it on somebody's list, on the meeting's project, in the meeting's own words. - *Ask it with the brief's questions* adds it to the brief's list of questions for that client — the one a designer copies and sends in one go. Both at once is allowed — somebody chasing it and the client being asked are not the same thing — and each says where it went. A meeting a brief points at says so under its title, and links there. ## Files Link: /manual/project-work#files The project's documents and links, who sees each, drawings with tags, versions and expiry dates. Where to find it: A project → **Files** → **Files** The project's **Files** tab holds three: **Files**, [Photos](/manual/project-work#photos) and [Transmittals](/manual/issuing#transmittals). [Screenshot: A project's Files: each file marked Firm only or Client sees it, with links to wherever else the project lives.] #### Adding files **+ Add documents** files PDFs, Bluebeam sets, CAD, Revit, SketchUp, Office documents, images and archives up to 95 MB each. Drop several files on the box, or click it to choose them. Each one is listed with a title taken from its file name and a type guessed from the name (*A-101 Floor Plan.pdf* a drawing, *IMG_2041.jpg* a site photo), both changeable, with **Client sees it** beside it; **More details** adds the company it is from, a date, a description, keywords, or that it is a new version of a file already on the shelf. **Save** files them all, with a progress bar. A file the shelf cannot take stays in the list with the reason, and the others are filed; fix or remove it and save again. View, download or remove each file once it is on the shelf. Careful: A file of another kind, or one whose contents are not what its name says (a program renamed *plan.pdf*), is turned away, and the message names the kinds the shelf takes. **Download all (zip)** takes every current file you may open in one download (up to 500 MB), under clean names. Files open whatever their name — an en dash or a name in another script included. #### Links **Links** are wherever else the project lives: the Dropbox or server folder, a Bluebeam session, the client's portal, a supplier's page. Links also appear as chips under Project details on the Overview. A link is the firm's unless marked **Visible to the client** (a box when adding it, or **Show to client** on its row). A client or a contractor sees only the marked ones, here and on the project page, and only staff add or change links. #### Who sees a file A file is the firm's until it is shown. Each one carries **Firm only** or **Client sees it** on the shelf (click it to switch), and each file in the upload list has *Client sees it*. - What the firm keeps — a vendor's net-price quote, mail that came in, an issue set — is not listed to a client or a contractor and does not open for them by its address. - Their browser keeps no copy, so a file hidden again is gone for them at once. - A photo or a presentation starts shown; a new version keeps the choice of the one it replaces. - A client's or contractor's own upload is theirs to rename, hide or remove; the firm's files are not. #### Drawings 1. Upload a PDF plan on Files and check *This is a drawing* (or mark a PDF on the shelf). 2. Open the plan: it draws page by page in the browser. 3. Choose **Add tags**, click where an item sits and pick the specification. A tag with its number is pinned there. Click a tag to open the item, drag it to move it, remove it from its card. Each specification lists the drawings it is on, and each drawing lists its tags by page, so the plan and the schedule agree. #### Versions On a file's page, **New version…** files the reissued document as the next version (a note on what changed goes with it). The upload box has *This is a revision of…* for the same thing without finding the old file first. - The next version takes the same title and place; the earlier ones stay underneath, and the file page links back to them. - The shelf shows the latest, and the files list shows a **Revised** chip for a week. - Tags on a drawing carry across. - Everyone on the project hears in the bell (email only if their own preferences say so). - The file's page lists every version with who and what changed, each openable, and **Compare** puts two versions side by side. #### Expiry dates Give a quote, certificate or permit an **Expires** date (on the file page, or when a vendor document is added) and the project's managers are reminded a week before it runs out. ## Photos Link: /manual/project-work#photos The project's gallery, from a computer, a phone or the site. Where to find it: A project → **Files** → **Photos** **Files → Photos** is the gallery. **Add photos** from a computer or a phone's library, or **Take a photo** on site. Each batch gets a caption, a date, and a **kind** — site visit, model room, installation, delivery, previsualization, AI generated. Filter the gallery by kind. [Screenshot: The project's photos, filtered by kind.] Click a photo for the viewer: previous/next, the original, relabel, remove, and **comments** from anyone on the project. #### Any size, any phone Upload photos straight from the camera or the phone, however large. The portal keeps the original for downloads and PDFs, and makes the smaller copies each page shows, so a gallery, a library list or a project's picture opens quickly on a phone. An iPhone's photos (HEIC) are kept as JPEGs, turned the way they were taken and without the phone's location, so every browser shows them. The viewer's **Original (HEIC)** downloads the photo as the phone took it. Careful: One that can't be read — damaged, or a Live Photo or burst with no still in it — is turned away with a word to export it from Photos as a JPEG. ## Swatch boards Link: /manual/project-work#swatch-boards The project's pictures laid out together, saved, printed or sent as a PDF; your team's own unless you show one to the client. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **Swatch boards**, or an area's own page A board lays the project's pictures out together. There are two ways to start one: - On an area's own page (each area's heading on **Specify** is its link, with the area's board count beside it), **New swatch board** makes one from that area's pictures. - **+ New board** on **Specify → Swatch boards** starts empty, and you add specifications from the picker. The picker down the side lists the project's specifications with pictures. Under it, for whoever can add items, **From the library** finds any product in the firm's library: **Add** makes it an item of the board's room (or the room you choose, for a board of no one room) through the same path as adding from the library, and places its swatch. Save the board to keep it there. [Screenshot: A swatch board: pictures arranged on the canvas, with Save board, PDF and Print.] #### Showing a board to the client Boards stay with your team. A client sees a board only when someone who can edit boards switches **Show to the client** on, on the board's own page beside *labels*; it saves at once, and switching it off takes the board out of the client's portal again. The boards list marks the ones that are *Shown to client*. - The client sees the board to look at, not to change, and never the comments under it: those stay inside the firm. - A board that is not shown is not there for the client at all — not in their Boards tab, an area's page, a link someone forwards, or its PDF. With none shown, their project has no Boards tab. - To have every new board start shown, switch on **Settings → Work → Modules → New boards are shown to clients**. It is off unless you choose it; each board's own switch still decides. #### Working on a board - Drag to arrange, drag a corner to resize, zoom and **Fit**. - Set the canvas size, hide and show swatches, turn labels on or off. - **Save board** keeps it; **PDF** downloads it as a one-page sheet; **Print** prints it. - Comments sit under the board, for your team only. ## Layouts Link: /manual/project-work#layouts A room's specified furniture on its floor plan at true size, with clearances, groups, notes and exports. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **Layouts**, or a room's own page A layout puts a room's specified furniture on its floor plan at true size — quick thinking about how the pieces sit, not a drawing to build from. **Specify → Layouts** lists them by room; a room's own page counts its layouts and links to them. Whoever can edit swatch boards can edit layouts. [Screenshot: The layout editor: the plan at scale, the room's pieces beside it, and the clearance check under it.] #### Starting a layout 1. **New layout** takes a name, the room and a plan. 2. For the plan, use one of the project's own files — **From the project's Files** shows its PDFs and pictures as thumbnails, and a PDF of several pages asks which page — or upload a PDF or picture there and then (a PDF's first page is drawn large on the server). 3. Set the **Scale**: two points on the plan — a wall you know — and the distance between them, typed as you would write it (*40 ft*, *14′ 6″*, *4.2 m*, *420 cm*). A plan from Files remembers which file it came from; the link beside *plan:* above the editor opens it. Setting the scale again later resizes the pieces where they stand. Everything saves as you go. #### Placing pieces Beside the plan, **Pieces** lists the room's specifications with their size and how many are placed of how many specified. **Place** drops the next one in the middle. A piece takes its width and depth from the specification's dimensions (a round one its diameter, a rug its feet, *14′ x 20′*). One without them says what's missing and can't be placed, so nothing sits at a guessed size. A piece with a 3D model shows the model seen from above; one without shows a plan symbol (see [Plan symbols](/manual/project-work#layout-plan-symbols)); anything else a plain outline, with a line along the front. #### Moving, turning and the keys | To | Do this | | Move a piece | Drag it | | Turn it | Drag the orange handle (15° steps; hold Shift to turn freely), or **R** (15°; 90° with Shift) | | Nudge it | Arrow keys: an inch (a foot with Shift) | | Mirror it | **F** | | Duplicate it | **D** | | Remove it | **Delete** | | Zoom | **+**, **−** and **Fit**, or Ctrl/Cmd with the scroll wheel or a trackpad pinch (the wheel alone scrolls the page, never the plan) | | Move the view | Hold **Space** and drag, drag with the middle button, turn on **✋ Hand** and drag, or two fingers on a touch screen | | Undo | **Undo** (Ctrl/Cmd+Z): the last change — a move, a turn, a group, a removal — up to 40 steps | A plain drag on an empty part of the plan never moves it — it chooses pieces — and dragging a piece only ever moves the piece. **🔓 Lock view** stops all zooming and panning, so nothing shifts the plan by accident; this browser remembers it. #### Options, exports and the client - **Another option** copies the layout as *Option B*, *C* and so on, to try another arrangement beside it. - **PNG** and **PDF** download the plan with the pieces, a legend (item, name, how many placed, size) and a scale bar. - **Add to Files** keeps the PDF among the project's files, from where it goes into a meeting or a transmittal like any other file. - Check **The client can see it** and the client finds it under their project's Layouts, to look at but not change. ## Layout tools Link: /manual/project-work#layout-tools Selecting several pieces, groups, clearances, hiding and locking, measuring, notes, trying a piece and exports. Where to find it: A layout → the toolbar above the plan #### Several at once - **Shift**-click (or Ctrl/Cmd-click) adds a piece to the ones chosen. - Dragging on an empty part of the plan draws a box that chooses every piece wholly inside it (hold **Alt** to take any it touches). - On a touch screen, press and hold a piece to start choosing, then tap others; **Done choosing** ends it. - Ctrl/Cmd+A chooses them all. Whatever is chosen moves together — drag any of them, or the arrow keys — and the orange handle turns the whole selection about its center, so a table and its chairs turn as a set. **D** duplicates them as a set, **Delete** removes them, **Esc** lets go. With two or more chosen, **Line up** sets them by their left, center, right, top, middle or bottom edges. With three or more, **Space evenly** spreads them across or down with equal gaps (the outer two stay put). #### Groups **Group** (Ctrl/Cmd+G) keeps the chosen pieces together. From then on a click on any of them chooses the whole group, a faint dashed outline shows it, and the **Groups** list beside the plan names it (*Dining setting*) and lists its pieces. - Double-click a piece — or **Move just this one** — to move it inside its group; click outside to leave. - **Ungroup** (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+G) sets them free. - Duplicating a group makes a new group, and **Another option** keeps the groups. - Two pieces of one group are never a tight walkway to each other (they still show red if they overlap), while the group as a whole is checked against everything else. - A named group appears in the exported legend, with no marks on the drawing. Tip: The example hotel's lobby comes with its seating sets grouped. #### Clearances With **Clearances** checked (it is, to start), each piece carries a faint band at half the firm's walkway clearance, so where two bands meet there is exactly the clearance between the pieces. - Two pieces overlapping are outlined in red. - Two with a gap narrower than the clearance but wider than 18″ — room someone might try to pass through — get an amber line with the gap's width. - A piece running off the plan is outlined in amber. - Pieces closer than 18″, like a chair drawn up to a table, are a group, not a walkway, and aren't marked. - A rug is floor, not furniture, so it never overlaps or crowds anything. Under the plan the check says what it found in words (*2 overlaps · 1 tight walkway*), and each finding is a button that picks out its piece. With Clearances checked, **PNG** and **PDF** carry the same layer and the finding in the legend. The clearance itself is the firm's: **Settings → Layouts**, 30″, 36″ (to start), 42″ or 48″ (76, 91, 107 or 122 cm). #### Hide, lock, show all Under the list of pieces, **On the plan** lists every piece placed, each with an eye (👁 hide or show) and a padlock (🔒 lock). A chosen piece, a chosen set and a group in **Groups** have the same. - A hidden piece leaves the plan and the clearance check but never the list: it is grayed there and still counts as placed. A badge above the plan says how many things are hidden, with **Show all** to bring every one back. - A locked piece stays exactly where it is — a drag, the arrow keys, turning, mirroring and Remove all pass it by, and a box drawn round it doesn't take it up — until you unlock it. A small padlock marks it on the plan. #### Measure, notes and access | Tool | What it does | | **📏 Measure** | Two clicks show the distance between them at the plan's scale (hold **Shift** to keep the second point level or plumb with the first). **Keep as a measurement** leaves it on the plan as a dimension line. | | **📝 Note** | A line of text where you click. | | **↗ Arrow** | Takes where it starts and where it points. | | **♿ Turning circle** | A 60″ wheelchair turning circle. | | **▭ Clear floor** | A 30″ × 48″ clear floor space. | | **🚪 Door** | A door hinged where you click, 36″ unless you say otherwise. Choose it to turn it, set its width, put the hinge on the other side and swing it in or out. | The clearance check keeps a door's swing, a turning circle and a clear floor space clear of furniture (a rug may lie in them), says so under the plan (*1 door swing blocked*), and outlines the space and the piece in red. Click any mark to choose it (drag to move it): its panel edits the text, hides it, locks it or removes it. Esc leaves a tool. Anyone who can see the layout can measure; only those who edit it keep measurements or add marks. **Ctrl/Cmd+Z** undoes all of it — hiding, locking and marks as well as moves. #### Plan symbols Pieces without a 3D model are drawn as clean plan symbols, the kind a CAD block library has: a sofa with its back, arms and seat cushions, a bed with its pillows, a round or oval table, a dresser with its drawer fronts, a rug with its border, a planter, a lamp. Each is chosen from the item's name and type and stretched to its width and depth, free. A piece the portal can't place in a kind keeps its outline. The order is always the model's view from above, then the plan symbol, then the outline — on the plan, in the PNG and PDF, and in the DXF, where the symbol's lines are drawn inside the piece's outline on its layer. #### Trying a piece 1. **Try a piece** finds any product in the firm's library (type its name, maker or model) — or, above it, an item already specified in the project's other rooms (**Search the project's other rooms**). 2. **Try** puts it on the plan at its size from the library (a product without one asks for its width and depth). Or **Or a shape** tries a plain rectangle or circle at a size you type, with a name if you like. 3. Choose the trial and pick **Add to Specify** to keep it, or **Remove the trial**. A trial piece is dashed and marked *trial*. It moves, turns, groups, hides and locks like any other and counts in the clearance check, but it isn't an item and isn't counted as specified. **Add to Specify** adds it to the room as a new item (through the same path as adding from the library, so it is priced by the firm's rules) and turns the trial's pieces into that item's where they stand. Exports mark trials *(trial)* in the legend and draw them dashed, the DXF on a **TRIAL** layer; uncheck **Include trial pieces** to leave them out. Another option copies the trials with the rest. #### Full screen **⛶ Full screen** (or **Shift+F**) gives the plan the whole window — the whole screen, where the browser allows it. The tools float in a compact bar over the plan, and **☰ Panel** slides the side panel in as a drawer, for the pieces, the chosen piece and the exports. **Esc** or **✕ Leave full screen** comes back. Tip: It suits a tablet: the buttons are larger to the touch there, and two fingers still move and zoom the plan. #### Labels, exports and compare - **Labels** shows item numbers (to start), names, or nothing on the pieces; this browser remembers it, and **PNG** and **PDF** follow it. - Exports leave out hidden pieces and marks unless you check **Include hidden pieces and marks**, and carry the notes, measurements, doors and access spaces. - **DXF** (once the scale is set) downloads a drawing for AutoCAD, Revit and other CAD programs: every piece's outline at its true size and place, in inches, on a layer per category (*FURN-SEATING*…), with its item number; a group as a block; notes on *NOTES*, measurements on *DIMENSIONS*, doors and access spaces on *ACCESS*. It lines up with the plan at its scale but doesn't include the plan picture itself. Who may download the DXF is who may download the PDF. - **Compare options** (when the room has another option) shows two options side by side, or one at a time with **Flip**, each with how much is placed and what its clearance check says. ## Room, 3D and visualizations Link: /manual/project-work#visualize-a-room Trace a layout's room, place cameras, see it in 3D and make photoreal concept pictures, kept per layout and in Renderings. Where to find it: A layout → **Plan** → **🧱 Room & cameras**, and its **3D** and **Visualize** tabs; a project's **Renderings** A layout's plan is a picture, so the portal first learns the room from you: its walls, doors, windows and columns, traced over the plan at its scale. From that and the pieces placed on it, **3D** shows the room with its furniture, and **Visualize** makes a photoreal concept picture from a camera you place — an impression of the room for a meeting or a presentation, not a drawing or a promise of the finished space. #### Tracing the room 1. On the layout's **Plan**, set the scale first, then choose **🧱 Room & cameras**. 2. **▬ Walls**: click each corner in turn along the middle of the wall; double-click, Enter or Esc ends a run, and clicking its first corner closes the room. Hold **Shift** to keep a wall level or plumb; ends snap to each other. 3. **🚪 Door**, **🪟 Window** and **▭ Opening**: click on a wall where one is, then set its width (and a window's sill and head) beside the plan; drag it along its wall to move it. 4. **■ Column**: click where one stands; set its size, or make it round. 5. Beside the plan, set the **Ceiling height**, and say the floor and the walls in words (*honed limestone*, *warm white plaster*) — the pictures use them. Choose a wall to set its thickness (or every wall's at once), drag its ends, or remove it. **✨ AI first draft** (one AI action) reads the walls, doors, windows and columns off the plan for you to check and correct; if nothing can be read, nothing is charged. Everything saves as you go, and Ctrl/Cmd+Z undoes. #### The room as a 3D model Beside the plan, **Room model** takes the room further than the tracing. **Make the download** prepares the traced room as **GLB**, **OBJ**, **FBX** and **DAE** files in one zip, with a readme; edit it in the program you use and upload it again, and it lands where it was. - Every file shares one origin and orientation with the plan: the plan picture's top-left corner at floor level, X to the right of the plan, the floor at 0. The OBJ is in inches and Z up; the FBX and DAE are at real size with their units in the file, Z up; the GLB is in meters, Y up, as that format requires. The readme says it all. - **Upload a room model** — the traced room as you edited it, or the architect's own model — as GLB, glTF (one file), OBJ, FBX (binary) or DAE, up to 80 MB. For an OBJ say its units and which way is up. The file is checked as it arrives and then read; one that can't be read is refused, and nothing in it is ever run. - **Check over the plan** draws the model from above over the plan: move it (1″ to 5′ a step), turn it (1° or 90°), scale it (× 12 for a model drawn in feet read as inches), then **Save alignment**. - Under **The 3D view and the pictures use**, choose the traced room or any uploaded version; every version is kept and can be chosen again. The furniture always comes from the layout. - Uploading and choosing is for whoever can edit specifications and layouts; any of the firm's staff can download. Clients never see the files. #### Cameras **📷 Camera**: click where the camera stands, then where it looks. Choose it to name it (*From reception*), set its eye height (5′ to start), its lens (wide 24 mm to start; very wide 16 mm, wide 20 mm, normal 35 mm or close 50 mm) and how it looks (level to start, or a little up, slightly down, down or well down); drag it to move it and its round handle to turn it. A layout keeps up to twelve. Beside the plan, **In frame** lists the placed pieces the camera sees, counted by item, before anything is spent — a camera at the entrance may see none of the lounge. Pieces that are specified for the room but not placed (or only mentioned in a note on the plan) are listed too: a picture shows only what is placed, so place them to include them. #### The 3D view The layout's **3D** tab builds the traced room — walls cut by their doors and windows, the columns, floor and ceiling — with every placed piece at its true size: as its product's 3D model where it has one, else a box. Drag to turn, scroll or pinch to zoom; **Overview** looks down into the room and each camera's button shows its view. Without a traced room the pieces stand on an open floor. #### Making a picture 1. On the layout's **Visualize** tab, choose a camera; what it has in frame is listed under the plan. 2. Choose what the picture is made from: **From the plan** (the traced room and placed pieces), or **From photos of the room** — add photos of the room as it is (**Add photos…**; a layout keeps up to six), check up to three for the picture, and star (★) the one taken from where the picture should be; its walls, windows and doors are kept as photographed and the finishes and furniture redone (with a camera chosen, the pieces are placed as the plan has them). 3. Choose **Daylight** or **Evening**, **Warm** or **Cool**, and **Draft** or **Final**; add a few words if you like (*walnut slat wall behind reception*). 4. **Make the picture** says what it costs first. It is made in the background, usually in about a minute, and you get an alert when it is ready. | Picture | AI actions | | Final, from the plan | 5 | | Draft (either way) | 2 | | Final, from photos of the room | 5 | | AI first draft of the walls | 1 | The actions are reserved when you ask and given back if the picture can't be made. Each picture uses the products' own photos, so the pieces look like what you specified; the more of the room's pieces have a picture and dimensions, the closer it comes. #### Versions, downloads and the client - Every picture is kept on its layout's Visualize tab, newest first, with when, the camera and the settings — and in the project's **Renderings**, every layout's together. - In **Renderings**, **Open in Visualize →** on a picture (and in its enlarged view) goes back to the layout it was made on, with its camera, light, warmth, draft or final and your words already set: change anything and make it again. On the Visualize tab itself, **Use its settings** does the same for an older version. A picture whose layout was deleted says so instead. - Click a picture to see it full size, with its details, the way back to its layout and everything said on it beside it (below it on a phone). - Every picture says **Concept visualization** — on screen, and burned into the **PNG** and **JPEG** you download. - **Add to a board** puts it on one of the project's swatch boards, or a new one. - Pictures stay with your team. **Show to the client** (for whoever can edit swatch boards) puts one in the client's Renderings; switching it off takes it back. A client sees only those, never the settings or notes; contractors see none. - Who can make pictures: staff who edit specifications and layouts. They are part of Layouts and can be switched off as their own module, **Visualizations**, under **Settings → Work → Modules**. Tip: The example hotel's lobby is traced already, with two cameras and two pictures made for the example — one shown to the client, and approved by her. ## Every view, variations and compare Link: /manual/project-work#visualize-more All of a layout's cameras at once, the same view in another finish or product, two versions side by side, and the client's approval on a picture. These live on a layout's **Visualize** tab (*Make all views*) and under each finished picture there and in the project's **Renderings** (*Try a variation*, *Compare*, *Use this on the spec*); see [Room, 3D and visualizations](/manual/project-work#visualize-a-room) for making a picture. #### Every camera at once With two or more cameras on the plan, **Make all views** beside *Make the picture* lists every camera with the pieces it has in frame; uncheck any you don't want. The light, warmth, draft or final and your words chosen on the tab go for all of them, and the dialog says the whole price before anything is spent (three finals: 3 × 5 = 15 AI actions). - Each picture is reserved on its own and, if it can't be made, given back on its own; if there aren't enough AI actions for all of them, none is started and nothing is spent. - They arrive together in the gallery under **All views**, with how many are made and how many are still to come; **Cancel the waiting ones** gives back those not started yet. - One batch of a layout at a time. #### Variations On a finished picture, **Try a variation** shows "this view in another fabric": check a piece in the picture and choose a different finish — its product's other finishes, or type one (*green velvet*) — or another product, from this project or searched in the library. It is made again from the same camera and light, priced like any picture, and kept as a new version beside it: *Variation of From reception, toward the lounge — Lounge chair in green velvet*. Nothing on the specification changes. If the client likes it, **Use this on the spec** under the variation puts that piece's finish (the project's own *Finish and fabric*) or product on the item, after asking; it is logged in the item's history and revision log like any edit. It is refused when the item has changed since the variation was made, and a different product once the item is on a purchase order that went out (that is a change order). For whoever can edit specifications. #### Comparing versions Check **Compare** on two versions from the same camera, then **Compare the two**: **Wipe** puts the older on the left and the newer on the right — drag the line, or the slider under it — and **Side by side** shows them next to each other (stacked on a phone). Each is labeled with its day and settings, or what its variation swapped. #### The client's approval The client can **Approve** a picture shown to them, or **Comment** on it, under the picture in their Renderings (or on its page of a presentation). Whoever showed it (else whoever made it, else the project's managers) gets an alert; what was said shows under the picture and in the project's **Approvals**, under *On renderings* (a presentation's under *From presentations*). A picture is a concept, so approving one changes no item. [Screenshot: A picture opened from its comments: the client's comment waiting for your reply, and the box to send one.] The count under the picture (*1 comment*) opens the picture with its comments, as do the alert and the comment's line in Approvals. While the client's last comment has no answer, the picture says **Waiting for your reply**: write it in the comments and **Send reply** (for whoever can edit swatch boards). The client who commented gets an alert and reads it under the picture in their Renderings. A picture kept with your team (one commented on in a presentation) offers to be shown to the client with the reply, so they can read it. Tip: In the example hotel, the client has approved the view from reception, and her comment on the evening view from the presentation shows under that picture, waiting for your reply. ## Presentations Link: /manual/project-work#client-presentations The project's boards, renderings, plans and items put to the client as one deck: full screen at a link in your brand, as a PDF, approved page by page. Where to find it: A project → **Specify** → **Presentations** (beside the boards, layouts and renderings); **Add to a presentation** on a swatch board or a rendering A presentation is the pages you pick, in the order you want: a cover, swatch boards, renderings, layout plans, pages of items and pages of words. It stays with your team until you share it; then the client opens it full screen on a computer, tablet or phone, in your logo, colors and typeface, and approves or comments on each page as they go. #### Making one 1. On **Presentations**, give it a title and choose **+ New presentation** (or use **Add to a presentation** on a board or a rendering, which starts one with that page). It begins with a cover. 2. Under **Add a page**, add a **Swatch board**, **Rendering** or **Layout plan** (pick which), a page of **Items** (up to six, each with its picture, finish and size) or a page of **Words**. 3. Choose a page to give it a title and a short note beside it. Drag the pages into order, or move one with ↑ and ↓ (the way to do it from the keyboard or on a phone); **Take out** removes a page, never the board or the items themselves. 4. **Preview full screen** shows it as the client will see it, and **Download PDF deck** makes the PDF: landscape, one page per slide, on your letterhead. - Every change saves itself a moment later. - Prices never show unless someone who sees prices checks **Show the budget**; then each item on a page of items shows its budget price. - Renderings carry their **Concept visualization** label on every page and in the PDF. A rendering kept with your team in Renderings can still go in a presentation: sharing the presentation shows it there, without changing its own switch. - The cover shows your logo and color, the project, the client, the date it was shared and the presentation's first rendering. - Who makes and changes presentations: staff who edit swatch boards. Everyone on the firm's side of the project can open and preview them. - Presentations are their own module, on unless you switch it off under **Settings → Work → Modules**; switched off, the section and the links go and every presentation is kept for when it comes back. - On an archived project a presentation can no longer be changed, and its link says the project is closed. #### Sharing it with the client 1. Under **Sharing**, choose **Share with the client**, with a last day the link opens if you like (*Last day the link opens*). 2. **Copy link** to send it yourself, or **Send to the client**: the email is shown first, and where your firm holds email to people outside it for approval, it waits under Waiting to go out until a manager or an owner sends it. 3. **Turn the link off** stops it opening at once, for anyone who has it. Sharing it again makes a new link. While it is shared, a client with a seat on the project also finds it under **Presentations** in their portal. Contractors never see presentations. #### What the client sees and does - The whole window is the presentation: the arrows, the keyboard (← →, Home, End) or a swipe move between pages, and **Pages** shows them all. Nothing of the portal shows but a quiet line at the foot (it names PortSpace only while your brand keeps the attribution on). - **Approve this page**, or **Comment** to ask a question or say what to change; at the link they give their name once. **Approve all** in **Pages** approves every page left. - Approving a page of items records each item as approved by the client, as accepting a proposal does, so Specify and the Approvals tab say so. - Whoever shared it is told at once (or the project's managers), and the Approvals tab lists it under **From presentations**; the presentation shows what the client said beside each page. - With the client portal switched off, the link still shows the presentation, without the buttons to approve or comment. Tip: The example hotel has a presentation of its lobby, shared with the example client, who has approved the board and asked about the evening view. See also: /manual/project-work#swatch-boards, /manual/project-work#visualize-a-room, /manual/project-work#approvals ## Approvals Link: /manual/project-work#approvals Ask the client or a colleague to decide on an item, and see every decision still open. Where to find it: Projects → [**Waiting on a decision**](/approvals); on a project, **Propose → Approvals** Across every project, [Projects → **Waiting on a decision**](/approvals) lists the decisions still open — what the client or a colleague has been asked and not yet answered, and what is waiting on you — so nothing has to be found project by project. [Screenshot: Waiting on a decision: every approval still open, firm-wide.] #### Asking for a decision Before you start: - The project needs someone to ask. A project with no client on it yet says so, on the Approvals tab and in the bar for checked specifications, with the way to invite one under [Firm → People and roles → Invite and sign-in](/people#invite). 1. Choose **Send for approval** on a specification (or on checked items in Specify's bar), or use the **Ask for approval** box for a whole area on **Propose → Approvals**. 2. Pick a person on the portal. The project's client contacts come first in the list, marked *client*, with their email beside a name that appears twice. 3. Give a *Needed by* date if you like, and send. They are told, with a link: by email at once, or in their daily digest if that is how they take alerts (clients start on the digest). The confirmation says which. #### Deciding On the Approvals tab they see **Waiting on you**, with each item's picture and details, and choose **Approve**, **Approve with notes**, **Revise & resubmit** or **Not approved**, with a note. The tab shows how many are waiting on you. [Screenshot: A project's Approvals: what waits on you, what waits on others, and the latest decision on each item.] - The person who asked is emailed the decision (or, if they have left or cannot sign in, the project's managers are). - The item's history records it, and an approved item's status becomes Approved. - **Approve all** decides every item waiting on you in one go on the server, so leaving the page cannot stop it halfway. - Whoever decided can **Change** their decision until the item is on an order that went out (the firm reopens it after that), and the person who asked is told. - A client's *Revise & resubmit* stays showing on the item even after they accept a proposal that carries it, until the revision is sent back to them. Everyone sees what is waiting on others and the latest decision on each item (an item asked again shows its newest; the earlier ones are counted), including the submittal history from the design database. When someone is taken off a project, their unread alerts and undecided approvals on it go with it. ## Internal review Link: /manual/project-work#internal-review A colleague checks an item before the client sees it. Sending for approval — on an item, or **Send for approval…** on checked items — has an **Internal review** checkbox: a colleague, not the client, checks the item. - With it checked, the list offers colleagues only, and an internal review is never sent to a client or contractor. - The colleague approves it or asks for a revision from the [Approvals](/manual/project-work#approvals) tab, like any other request. - The item shows *Internal review: Approved · who · when*. #### Making it a gate [Settings → Work → Modules → **Internal review before the client**](/settings?tab=work#modules) makes it a gate. An item with no approved internal review cannot be sent for client approval, put on a proposal or issued in a set, and the message says which items are waiting. ## Activity Link: /manual/project-work#activity The project's timeline: who changed what, and when. Where to find it: A project → **Team** → **Activity** **Team → Activity** on the project is the timeline, newest first, with who did each. Filter by kind or by the last 7, 30 or 90 days. [Screenshot: A project's Activity: every change, newest first, filtered by kind or date.] #### What it records - specification edits and revisions (the fields named in words), notes and comments; - tasks added and done, task notes and a task passed to someone else; - meetings, files and photos, boards, approvals, expediting updates; - under **Team**, the managers changing and a colleague's work handed over when they left; - for those who see money, the orders, invoices and price requests, what went to vendors and clients (sent, chased, accepted), and the client's questions on a proposal with the replies. So someone taking a job over reads who ran it and what was promised. #### Lately, on the Overview The Overview's *Lately* shows the newest eight, each saying what changed — *G-201 · Headboard · status changed* — with *All activity →* below. - A run of changes to one item by one person is folded into one line, *3 changes*. - A change you may not see, such as a cost for those who don't see margins, is left out. ## Archiving a project Link: /manual/project-work#archiving-a-project When the job is finished: read-only, out of every list, its outside links closed — and nothing deleted. Where to find it: A project's header → **Project** menu → **Archive project…** (for those who can manage projects) When the job is done, the header's **Project** menu → **Archive project…** closes it. The project leaves every list and picker and becomes read-only. Its outside links — proposals, vendor purchase orders and price requests, issue links — answer that the firm has closed it. #### Before you archive **Archive project…** asks first, naming what is still open: invoices not paid, draft invoices, open damage claims and open tasks. - Record the last payments and send or void the draft invoices first — see [Invoices](/manual/money#invoices) and [Payments and pay online](/manual/money#payments-and-pay-online). Once archived the project is read-only, and its unpaid invoices stay on [Aging](/manual/money#aging) until they are paid or voided. - Open tasks are canceled with the archive; reopen any still needed from Tasks. - Its money stays in the firm's records: [Profitability](/manual/money#profitability) lists it under *Every project* rather than *Active*. #### An archived project An archived project's Overview offers no editing, managers or new notes. Its Specify keeps the checkboxes for one thing only, **Copy to project…**, so last year's job can seed this one. Nothing is deleted: **Bring the project back**, in the same menu, restores the status it had before. *Inactive* is different: on hold, still open. Careful: Deleting for good is the **Project** menu → *Delete project…*, which works on an archived project too — see [The Project menu](/manual/projects#project-menu). See also: /manual/projects#project-menu, /manual/money#invoices, /manual/money#statement # Purchasing Price requests, purchase orders, vendors at their links, expediting, receiving, pick lists and installation. ## Price requests (RFQs) Link: /manual/purchasing#rfqs Ask vendors for prices, compare their quotes and apply the winner. Where to find it: **Finance** → [Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs), or a project's **Order → Price requests (RFQs)** tab 1. Check specifications on Specify and choose **Request quote…**. 2. Pick the vendor from Vendors and contacts (or type an email). The request opens with its email ready. 3. **Preview and send…** shows it before it goes: the items with their size, never another maker's name or model. #### What the vendor does The vendor gets a **vendor link**: a page of their own, no sign-in, where they type a unit price, lead time and note against each item, send a quote or cut sheet against any of them, and press Send prices. The answers land on the RFQ and you are told, with any price changed since their last answer said as was → now. The vendor's notes show in full under each line, and a quote they sent is listed against its item. #### Comparing and applying quotes Under [Finance → Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs) (or a project's own, on its **Order → Price requests (RFQs)** tab), open the RFQ and type what came back — unit price, lead time, a note. Each line shows what other vendors quoted for the same item (*Also quoted: …*), so two quotes are compared side by side. [Screenshot: A price request: each vendor's answer line by line, with what others quoted for the same item.] **Apply** writes the prices onto the specifications as unit cost, with the vendor as supplier and the quoted lead time, logged on each item — the lines you check, or all of them with none checked. - **Apply the lines not yet awarded** takes only those no other quote holds, so one vendor wins the King pieces and another the Queen. - A request sent to an address alone gets a vendor card when applied, so the supplier reads as a company. - Apply asks first if another quote was already applied to them, and it is for people who may see cost and margin. - The sell price follows the new cost by the item's markup (for a price typed by hand, the markup that price had over the old cost), and any item that would now sell below the quoted cost is named. See also: /manual/money#markup-and-cost, /manual/purchasing#purchase-orders ## Price requests on a project Link: /manual/purchasing#price-requests-on-a-project What this project has asked vendors to price, and what came back. Where to find it: A project → **Order** → **Price requests (RFQs)**; firm-wide: Finance → [Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs) **Order → Price requests (RFQs)** lists what this project has asked vendors to price, and what came back. The tab says how many are waiting and how many have been answered. To ask for prices 1. On the specification list, check the items to be priced. 2. Choose **Request quote…** in the bar that appears. 3. Follow the answers here, or on the firm-wide list, [Finance → Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs). The vendor answers at a link of their own, with no sign-in — see [Vendors at their links](/manual/purchasing#vendors-at-their-links). [Screenshot: A project's price requests: how many are waiting, and how many have come back.] ## Purchase orders Link: /manual/purchasing#purchase-orders Raising orders, sending them to the vendor, and changing them after. Where to find it: **Finance** → [Purchase orders](/purchase-orders), or a project's **Order** tab #### Raising an order 1. On the project's **Order** tab choose **Raise purchase order** — or check items on Specify and use **Raise purchase order…** on its bar, which opens it with the checked items. 2. Narrow by **area** as well as by text, and check the items going to one vendor. 3. Each line copies the specification as it reads at that moment; later edits never rewrite what was ordered (see [Raising from items](/manual/money#raising-from-items)). An item with no cost goes on an order with its cost left blank — never the client's price — and the order says how many lines still need one; the paper says *to confirm* against them. [Screenshot: Raise purchase order: the items for one vendor, narrowed by area, each with what is already ordered.] #### Sending orders **Send orders not sent yet…** on the project's purchase orders lists every order still to go, checked, each with the address beside it and the first one's email shown, and sends them together. A ship-to set on the project later reaches the drafts that have none. [Screenshot: A project's purchase orders, with Send orders not sent yet… and the exports.] **Send to vendor**, on a purchase order, emails it with the order's total, the vendor's link and a line saying to reply with questions. A warning shows first if the order has no ship-to. #### Download PDF **Download PDF** on a purchase order gives the order as a document: the firm's letterhead and color, the vendor and ship-to, the terms, and every line with its maker, model, finish and size beneath it. It carries the **cost**, never the sell price, because it is the vendor's copy. The vendor gets the same PDF at their own link, without signing in. [Screenshot: A purchase order: its lines at cost, charges, bills, the approval chain and Send to vendor.] #### At the vendor's link - They acknowledge it with their name and expected ship date. The order and its expediting lines move to Acknowledged, and you are told. - They send shop drawings or cut sheets against the lines, which wait for your approval under [Vendor documents](/manual/issuing#vendor-documents) on each item. - Beside **Acknowledge**, they can send **A question or a problem** without acknowledging; the order stays as it is and you are told. - Once acknowledged, or when you have asked for an update, they give **ship dates and tracking** line by line. A promised date later than the order's ship-by is said in the alert. The vendor's page carries the firm's address and who sent the order, with their email. #### Changing an order The lines of a purchase order stay editable after it is issued: quantity, unit cost, description, note; add a line from a specification or typed in; remove a line. Every change is logged, and once the order has been issued the changes gather into a banner: - **Issue revision … and send** shows the change notice first (the changes with dates in words, the order's new total, who to ask), numbers them, keeps the list on the order and emails it. - **Issue revision … without emailing** does the rest without the email. - An acknowledged order goes back to Issued until the vendor acknowledges the revision. #### Canceling and moving back A canceled order tells the vendor not to ship, shows the reason you gave, and asks for nothing more. When the vendor has the order (emailed, issued with its link, or acknowledged), canceling it, or putting it back on, brings up **Tell the vendor…** on the order with the email to preview and send, or **I told them myself**. Back on, the vendor is asked to acknowledge it again. A failed email can be sent again at once. Moving an order back a step (to Draft, say) or to Closed asks first, as canceling does. Tip: [Purchase orders](/purchase-orders) come a page at a time when the list is long, newest first, with the filters kept as you page. See also: /manual/purchasing#vendor-bills, /manual/money#add-on-charges-and-budget-against-actual, /manual/money#client-fund-requests-the-approval-chain-and-the-accounting-exports ## Vendor bills Link: /manual/purchasing#vendor-bills Recording what vendors bill on each order, paying it, and using their credits. Where to find it: A purchase order → **Record a bill**; all of them under **Finance** → [**Vendor bills**](/vendor-bills) Before you start: - The purchase order the bill is for. 1. On a purchase order, **Record a bill** as the vendor sends them: deposit, progress bill, balance or credit. 2. Give the vendor's number, dates and anything already paid (and the day it was paid — the bill's own date unless you say). 3. Fill in *Of which VAT/tax* when you reclaim the tax the vendor charged: cost and margin then count the bill less it, and the bills file puts it on a line of its own. 4. **Record payment** as checks and ACH go out. #### Vendor credits A vendor's credit is used up with **Apply to a bill** on the credit: pick one of the order's open bills and the amount, and the bill and the credit both close by as much, without money moving. A credit the vendor paid back instead is **Record refund**. #### The list [Finance → **Vendor bills**](/vendor-bills) lists them, each in its order's currency, with what is owed totaled per currency. [**Aging**](/manual/money#aging) shows payables by vendor, less the vendor's open credits. **Budget and margin** shows vendor bills, what is owed, and the actual margin (invoiced less vendor bills). [Screenshot: Finance → Vendor bills: every bill in its order's currency, with what is owed.] See also: /manual/money#accounting-sync, /manual/money#month-end ## Vendors at their links Link: /manual/purchasing#vendors-at-their-links A vendor never signs in: each email carries a link to one record. A vendor never signs in. Each email carries a link to one record, and the page there shows that record only. It never shows the firm's sell prices, another maker's name or model (unless it is the vendor's own), or the client's details beyond the ship-to. #### A purchase order The vendor sees the order at cost, with the firm's address, ship-to and terms. - **Acknowledge this order** takes their name, an expected ship date and a note. - **A question or a problem** — a wrong quantity, a date they cannot make — reaches the firm without acknowledging, and the order stays as it is. - Once acknowledged, or when the firm has asked for an update (see [Expediting](/manual/purchasing#expediting)), **Ship dates and tracking** takes a date and tracking per line. Only the lines they fill in move. - A canceled order says *Do not ship* with the reason. One put back on asks them to acknowledge it again. #### A price request Each item comes with its quantity. They give a price, a lead time and a note per line, **Send a document…** (a quote or cut sheet) and **Send prices**. They can come back to change them until the firm closes the request; the firm sees what changed, was → now (see [Price requests on a project](/manual/purchasing#price-requests-on-a-project)). #### An issue set, a transmittal, a price list - An issue set: the spec book as issued, with the addendum of what changed since the last set. A set printed with prices goes only to people on the portal who may see prices. - A transmittal: the cover sheet and its documents, and **Acknowledge receipt**. - A price list: see [Vendor price lists](/manual/library#vendor-price-lists). #### Which makers a source sells A contact card can say which makers a source sells and which sources sell a maker (*Sources* and *Manufacturers* in the project-first layout). On a card under Vendors and contacts, **Makers and vendors** (the tabbed layout: *Manufacturers and Vendors*; the project-first layout: *Manufacturers / Sources*) lists **Makers they sell** and **Vendors who sell them**, each a link to that card. 1. Open the company's card under Vendors and contacts (you need to be able to edit contacts). 2. Under **Makers and vendors**, type the other company's name and pick it from the list. 3. Press **Add**. × takes one off again (it asks first). An item whose maker has sources shows them under its source details (**Vendors who sell them**), so you can see who to buy from. Both companies need a card; a card cannot carry itself, and a pair is listed once. Tip: The example hotel's lighting rep carries its two lighting makers, and its textile rep the two floor-covering mills. See also: /manual/library#which-sources-carry-which-makers, /manual/purchasing#expediting ## Expediting Link: /manual/purchasing#expediting Where every ordered item is, from Ordered to Installed, and what is late. Where to find it: A project → **Order** → **Expediting** The project's **Order** tab holds [Price requests (RFQs)](/manual/purchasing#price-requests-on-a-project), purchase orders, Expediting, [Receiving](/manual/purchasing#receiving-and-claims) and [Installation](/manual/purchasing#installation-schedule). Once an item is on a purchase order it appears under **Order → Expediting**: where it is, expected ship and delivery dates, the actual dates, carrier, tracking and notes. The stages run Ordered → Acknowledged → In production → Shipped → Delivered → Received → Installed. [Screenshot: Expediting: each ordered item's stage, dates and tracking, late rows in red and coming-up rows in amber.] #### Moving items along - Change the stage in the row. Moving to Shipped, Delivered, Received or Installed stamps today's date if none is set. - **Dates & tracking** opens the rest of the row's details. - To move several: check rows, choose a stage in *Move the checked items to* above the list and press **Move**. Dates are stamped where empty. - A tracking number counts as shipped only once its ship date has come. #### Late and coming up Late means past the expected ship date and not shipped, or past the expected delivery and not delivered. The tab shows the late count, and the specification page shows where the item is. - A late row is red, with *shipping 2 days late* or *arrival 2 days late* under it. - One coming up is amber with a small triangle and *ships tomorrow* or *arrives Sun*, so the color is never the only sign. - The heading counts both (*18 ordered items · 1 late · 2 coming up*). Filter by Late, **Coming up** (due to ship or arrive within three days and not there yet; shown only when there is something in it), Not acknowledged, In transit, Delivered, Installed or Documents pending, or by area. #### Asking the vendor A late row has **Ask for an update…**, which writes to the vendor (you see the email first) and asks for a date and tracking line by line. The row then says when the vendor was last asked, and a second ask within the day is asked about first. Tip: **Download Excel** takes the list — orders, vendors, stages, dates and tracking, no prices — to a vendor call. See also: /manual/getting-started#amber-before-red, /manual/purchasing#receiving-and-claims ## Receiving and claims Link: /manual/purchasing#receiving-and-claims Booking goods in, line by line or a whole truck at once, and chasing what came damaged or short. Where to find it: A project → **Order** → **Receiving**; firm-wide: Projects → [Receiving](/receiving) The **Receiving** tab (beside [Expediting](/manual/purchasing#expediting)) is where goods are booked in. [Screenshot: A project's arrivals: what came, in what condition and where it was put, with a damaged frame's claim settled.] #### A whole truck at once 1. Press **Receive a whole order**. 2. Choose the order. Each line shows what is still to come, with its condition. 3. Set one date and one place for them all, and save. #### One line at a time Or log an arrival against one purchase-order line. The lines are grouped by order; a line's **receive** link fills in what is still to come. Record: - how many came, and the date; - the condition: good, damaged, short, wrong item; - where you put them: warehouse, bay, shelf, the site; - photos from your phone. The line's received count and the item's expediting stage follow on their own: part in → Delivered, all in → Received. More than was ordered is asked about before it is saved. A short delivery says how many are still missing. #### Photos and papers An arrival takes up to ten photos or papers: pictures (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, TIFF or AVIF) or documents such as a signed delivery note (PDF, Word, Excel, text, DWG, DXF, ZIP). A file of another kind, or one whose contents are not what its name says, is turned away with the kinds named — and the arrival is still booked. #### Claims Anything not in good order opens a claim and alerts the project's managers and the portal's accountants, who chase the credit. Follow it on the arrival — filed, credited, replacement coming, kept as they are, closed — with the vendor's or carrier's reference. Careful: Damaged or wrong goods never count as received; a replacement arrives as an arrival of its own. The exception is *kept as they are*, when the firm keeps them after all. #### The lists The tab lists every open claim and the latest 100 arrivals, newest first; a long job's whole log is one click away under *Show all*. [Projects → **Receiving**](/receiving) lists every open claim across your projects, then the latest arrivals that are not already up there as claims. An arrival is in good order unless it says otherwise. [Screenshot: Receiving across your projects: open claims first, then the latest arrivals.] Tip: **Build pick list** on the tab turns what has arrived into a [pick list](/manual/purchasing#pick-lists), item by item or a whole area at once. ## Pick lists Link: /manual/purchasing#pick-lists What to pull from the warehouse for one delivery. Where to find it: Built on a project; firm-wide: Projects → [Pick lists](/pick-lists) A pick list is what to pull from the warehouse for one delivery, and it is **built on its project**, two ways: - In **Specify**, check the items and choose **Build pick list…** in the bar, with where it goes and for when. - On **Order → [Receiving](/manual/purchasing#receiving-and-claims)**, under *Build a pick list from what has arrived*, check what goes out together or take a whole area. Each line is to ship what was received. Either opens the new list on its own page. #### Working a list 1. Type what was pulled per line (or **All**). Each line shows where the item was last put. The first pick moves a draft to **Picking**. 2. Mark it **Picked** when every line is complete. 3. Mark it **Shipped** when it leaves (or **Cancel list**). **Print / PDF** gives the warehouse a sheet. Marking a list shipped clears those places, so the warehouse view shows only what is still there. [Screenshot: A pick list: what to pull per line, where each item was put, and its status.] #### Every pick list [Projects → **Pick lists**](/pick-lists) is the firm-wide table: reference, project, scheduled date, what is picked of what is to ship (with the line count), and the status. Its **New pick list** says where to start and lists your live projects with both ways in. Pick lists show on the [Calendar](/manual/project-work#calendar) on their day. [Screenshot: Every pick list across the firm, with its date, progress and status.] ## Installation schedule Link: /manual/purchasing#installation-schedule The plan of site visits, with each item's readiness. Where to find it: A project → **Order** → **Installation** **Order → Installation** is the plan of site visits. Each visit has a date (or a span), the area, what goes in, who installs, notes on access and protection, and the items on that visit. Each item carries a dot for readiness — received, delivered but not booked in, shipped, not shipped — taken from [Expediting](/manual/purchasing#expediting) and Receiving. So a visit whose items have not arrived shows before anyone drives out. [Screenshot: The installation schedule: site visits with each item's readiness dot.] #### Planning visits - **Add a site visit** plans one. - *Received, not yet scheduled* lists what is sitting in the warehouse with no visit; **Schedule** it in one click. - Typing *All areas* in a visit's Area keeps every item on offer. - Visits appear on the calendar as Installation. #### After the visit **Mark done** on a visit asks which items went in and stamps those Installed. The ones left unchecked are named on the visit, and the project's managers get an alert saying what went in and what is left. A visit dated after today asks before it is marked done. **Reopen** puts the items it stamped back where they were and takes its *Not installed* line away. #### Who else sees it | Who | What they get | | Clients | The plan, read-only, on their project once a visit exists — and still after the last one is done. | | An installer signed in as a contractor | The plan too, and they can mark a visit done (and nothing else). | See also: /manual/purchasing#site-visits ## Site visits and punch lists Link: /manual/purchasing#site-visits Walking the site with a phone: photos, what is wrong pinned on a plan or photo, assigned and dated, fixed with an after photo and verified; the punch list as a PDF. Where to find it: A project → **Order** → **Punch list** A site visit is a visit on the project's [Installation](/manual/purchasing#installation-schedule) schedule, worked from a phone. **Start a site visit** at the top of the project (or on the Installation tab) makes today's visit and opens it; an existing visit opens from its **on site** link. What is found goes on the project's **punch list**, where it is tracked until it has been fixed and checked. #### On the visit - Fill in the **area or room** and **who is there**; **Notes for the visit** save as you type. - Choose an **Area** and an **Item** for the next photos, then press **Photo** at the foot of the screen and take as many as you like, one after another. **From the phone** adds ones already taken. - Press **Something to fix** for each problem: what is wrong, a photo (take one, or pick one of the visit's), the area and item, how bad (Low, Medium, High), who fixes it and by when. - To show exactly where, choose **On a plan** (one of the project's layouts or PDF drawings, any page) or **On the photo**, and tap the spot: a numbered pin goes there. **2×** and **3×** enlarge the picture for a finger-sized aim. [Screenshot: A site visit on a phone: the area and who is there, notes, the photos, and Photo and Something to fix along the foot.] Tip: No signal on site? Photos and items are kept on the phone and go up on their own when the connection is back; they show as *Waiting* until then. Notes are kept too. Nothing needs to be offline-ready; a dropped connection just never loses a photo. #### The punch list **Order → Punch list** has every item by area, each with its number, status, who has it, when it is due, its photo, where it is on the plan, and the after photo once fixed. Filter by status (*Not verified* to start), by person and by area. [Screenshot: The punch list: items by area, each with its photo, its pin on the plan and the after photo once fixed.] | Status | Means | | Open | Found; nobody has started on it. | | In progress | Whoever has it is on it. | | Fixed | They say it is done, usually with an after photo. The firm is told. | | Verified | The firm has checked the fix. Only the firm verifies, and only an item marked fixed. | - **Edit** changes anything on an item; **Reopen** sends a fixed or verified item back, and its assignee is told. - **PDF** prints the list as filtered, on your letterhead: the items by area with their photos as thumbnails and the plan cropped around each pin. - **Email to assignees** sends each person a PDF of their own open items only, with a link to them. Your firm's email settings apply as to everything else: paused email waits in the outbox, mail held for approval waits for it, and the example project never emails anyone. [Screenshot: An item opened: its photo, and where it is on the A-101 plan, the numbered pin dropped with a tap.] #### The person who fixes it Items are assigned to the firm's people or to a contractor with access to the project. Whoever has one is told, and sees it on their phone with its photo and pin. A contractor sees only the items assigned to them (under **Your punch list** on the project, and on their Home); they press **Start**, then **Mark fixed**, take an **after photo** and add a word. The firm then verifies it. #### Who sees it | Who | What they get | | Those who update expediting (designers, managers, owners) | Start visits, add and assign items, verify, reopen, print and email the list. | | Accountants and viewers | The list, read-only. | | A contractor | Only what is assigned to them, on projects they are on; they mark it fixed with an after photo. | | The client | Nothing, unless the firm turns on **Show to the client** on the punch list; then the list, read-only. | The whole of it sits under the Installation module (**Settings → Work → Modules**). See also: /manual/purchasing#installation-schedule, /manual/purchasing#receiving-and-claims # Money Proposals, change orders, invoices, payments, fund requests, reports and month-end. ## Money at a glance Link: /manual/money#money-at-a-glance Where proposals, invoices, change orders, price requests and vendor bills live. Where to find it: The **Finance** menu, and a project's **Propose**, **Order** and **Invoice** tabs Money follows the job. The client accepts a priced **proposal** before anything is ordered; you buy from vendors on **purchase orders**; you bill the client on **invoices** and record what they pay; and anything that changes after the client agreed goes on a **change order**. - **Proposals** — [Finance → Proposals](/proposals), or a project's **Propose** tab. See [Proposals](/manual/money#proposals). - **Invoices** — [Finance → Invoices](/invoices), or a project's **Invoice** tab. See [Invoices](/manual/money#invoices) and [Payments and pay online](/manual/money#payments-and-pay-online). - **Change orders** — [Finance → Change orders](/change-orders), or a project's **Propose → Change orders** tab. See [Change orders](/manual/money#change-orders). - **Price requests (RFQs)** — [Finance → Price requests (RFQs)](/rfqs). See [Price requests (RFQs)](/manual/purchasing#rfqs). - **Purchase orders** — [Finance → Purchase orders](/purchase-orders), or a project's **Order** tab. See [Purchase orders](/manual/purchasing#purchase-orders). - **Vendor bills** — [Finance → Vendor bills](/vendor-bills). See [Vendor bills](/manual/purchasing#vendor-bills). Quotes, change orders and pick lists have their own pages under Finance. A proposal, purchase order or invoice opened from a project keeps the project's header and tabs at the top with its phase lit; the Finance menu's firm-wide lists reach the same pages. Who can see and raise these is set per role by an administrator — see [Who sees money](/manual/money#who-sees-money). When a job is finished, settle its invoices before archiving it — see [Archiving a project](/manual/project-work#archiving-a-project). Tip: **Amounts in your own style.** Every amount box (payments, retainers, vendor bills, rates, freight, budgets, prices) reads numbers the way the money's currency writes them, so *1000,00* on a euro invoice is a thousand euros. Imports read a comma-decimal file the same way and name any row they skip. ## Who sees money Link: /manual/money#who-sees-money Four grants decide who sees prices, cost and the firm's figures; one more lets them change invoices. Where to find it: **Firm** → [People and roles → **Roles**](/people#roles) Four grants under [Firm → People and roles → **Roles**](/people#roles) decide it, and the plain-words reading under the grid changes as you change it. | Grant | By default | What it shows | | **See project money** | employees and up | costs, prices, **Invoice → Budget and margin** and the statement, orders and invoices on the projects the person is on: managed, starred, listed for them, or holding a task of theirs. | | **See cost, markup and margin** | accountants and up | what the firm pays and makes: cost and markup on items, the margin cards on a project, the budget report's cost columns, profitability. | | **See the firm's money** | accountants and up | every project's paperwork, the dashboard, profitability, aging, sales tax and commissions. | | **See and set billable rates** | accountants and up | each person's billable hourly rate and commission on [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles). | Without *See cost, markup and margin* a person sees prices and invoices but not the firm's take — except that whoever may raise orders sees what each item costs from its vendor, on its orders and vendor bills and their file, since an order is written at cost. #### Changing money One grant changes money rather than showing it: **Record payments and change invoices** (accountants and up) — an invoice's status, payments and pay links, vendor bills, and sending records to QuickBooks or Xero. Changing what an invoice bills (its lines, tax rate and freight) also needs *Raise POs, invoices, quotes and RFQs*. Without it a person may still raise invoices and orders but not take payments on them. On an invoice, cost, markup and margin show only to those who may see them; everyone else sees the prices the client sees. #### The accountant The **Accountant** keeps the books: payments, vendor bills and credits, aging, tax, [Month-end](/manual/money#month-end) and the exports, and the expense queue. By default an accountant does not edit specifications, prices, projects or boards, ask for approvals, raise orders or invoices, or update expediting; an administrator can give any of it back on the grid. Settings shows an accountant the firm's tax, currency and invoice layout, read only. Three things an accountant does as staff, by the firm's choice: reads a project's private notes and internal reviews like any colleague; can show a project file to the client (the eye on a file, as anyone who uploads files can); and sets where expense reports are emailed, which may be an outside bookkeeper's address. Tip: *View as* shows you the result of any change. ## Proposals Link: /manual/money#proposals The priced, illustrated document the client accepts before anything is ordered. Where to find it: **Finance** → [Proposals](/proposals), or a project's **Propose** tab [Finance → Proposals](/proposals) lists them all, filtered by **client or bill-to**, **project** and **year** as well as by status (so is [Finance → Invoices](/invoices)): last year's proposal to the same client is two choices away. The project's **Propose** tab lists every proposal on the job. [Screenshot: Finance → Proposals: every proposal, filtered by client, project, year and status.] #### Making one 1. Check specifications on Specify and choose **Propose to client…** (or open the project's **Propose** tab). 2. The draft opens. Adjust a price or quantity, drop a line, or switch a line's tax off. 3. **Add a line** for anything that is not a specification: a design fee, software, freight, a miscellaneous cost — priced and taxed like any other line. 4. Put the client's name and address under *Prepared for*, on as many lines as it needs. Write an introduction and terms. 5. Set a deposit (percent or amount), a tax rate, and how long the prices hold. 6. **Preview and send…**, then **Send to the client**, which emails it to the client. - A **discount** is a line written with a minus, like *−250*, and may not take the proposal below nothing. An invoice takes the same line. - The standard terms promise no deposit or price hold you have not set. - A draft never sent can be removed with **Delete draft**. A proposal is drafted from checked items in the same way as an order or invoice (see [Raising from items](/manual/money#raising-from-items)), and its prices can be adjusted on the draft before it is sent. [Screenshot: A proposal on the example hotel: pictures, prices, the deposit and the terms.] #### What the client does They get a link that opens without signing in, with pictures and prices. They **Sign and accept** by typing their name, or decline with a note; the name, date and time are recorded. The client's page and PDF mark the lines that carry no tax and say what the tax is on. On acceptance every item shows as client-approved on the [Approvals](/manual/project-work#approvals) tab, and a **deposit invoice** is drafted for you to review and send. The invoices raised later keep the accepted proposal's tax choices line by line. You are alerted either way. Any approval request still open on the proposal's items closes as *Approved with the proposal*, and any internal review still open closes as *Closed: the client accepted proposal …*, which never says the colleague approved it. A note on either is kept as a comment on the item, and each person who sent or was asked for one gets a single alert listing them. Requests and reviews on items not on the proposal stay open. Each proposal has a PDF and a Client view. See also: /manual/money#deposits-and-retainers, /manual/money#invoices, /manual/money#change-orders ## Raising from items Link: /manual/money#raising-from-items Orders, invoices and proposals are built from checked items, and show what is already done. Check the items (an order goes to one vendor). Each line copies the specification as it reads at that moment, so later edits to the specification never rewrite what was ordered or billed. - Where an item has no sell price, it is worked out as cost × markup. - An item that would go to the client at cost (a cost and no markup rule) is flagged *at cost*, so the firm's cost is not billed by accident. - **Raise purchase order** and **Raise invoice**, on the project's **Order** and **Invoice** tabs, pick specifications and build the document. #### What is already done shows on the picker Raise purchase order, Raise invoice and Raise proposal show each item's standing — *6 on PO4, 2 to order*, *invoiced on INV1 (6)*, *accepted on PR1* — and the client's word on it. - An order carries only the part not yet ordered. - An invoice bills only what is not yet billed, asking before billing an item again in full. - A proposal asks before offering the client items they have already accepted. - An item the client has not agreed to is marked on the order picker, with a warning if you pick it. The invoice picker warns the same way for an item the client sent back or turned down. See also: /manual/purchasing#purchase-orders, /manual/money#invoices, /manual/money#proposals ## Invoices Link: /manual/money#invoices Raising, correcting, sending and voiding invoices. Where to find it: **Finance** → [Invoices](/invoices), or a project's **Invoice** tab #### Raising one **Raise invoice** on the project's **Invoice** tab picks specifications and builds the invoice (see [Raising from items](/manual/money#raising-from-items)). - An item the client accepted on a proposal is invoiced at the price and quantity they signed; a line discounted on the proposal stays discounted. - The invoice takes the project's whole **Bill to**, address included. - **Blank invoice**, beside it on the Invoice tab, opens a draft with no lines for the bill the specifications cannot derive — a design fee, a reimbursable, a correction. [Screenshot: Raise invoice: check what to bill; each item shows what is already invoiced.] #### Changing the lines On any draft or sent invoice with nothing received, every line's quantity and price can be changed, a line written by hand can be reworded, any line taken off, and **Add a line** writes one. A new line is taxed to start with, as a proposal line is; uncheck *Taxed* for a fee or a service that is not taxed. The tax is reworked each time. Once a payment is on it the lines stand, and a credit or a new invoice carries the change. A deposit applied is not a payment for this, so an invoice holding only a deposit can still be corrected. Each line's total is rounded to the cent before the invoice adds them up, so the lines always foot to the total. #### Revised invoices and questions An invoice changed after it was sent — a line added, changed or taken off, the tax or the freight — is marked **Revised**, with its revision number on the client's PDF, and the page offers **Send the revised invoice…**. A client can **Question this invoice** from their home page. It reaches whoever raised it and the project's managers, and stays on its history. A credit is recorded with no payment method. The client's PDF lists a deposit applied, a credit and money paid on lines of their own. [Screenshot: An invoice: its lines, Bill to, Due, payments and the actions to send it.] #### Bill to and sending An invoice's **Bill to** is edited on its page (**Save Bill to**). It holds the address the invoice email goes to when the client has no portal sign-in. Marking a draft **Sent** shows the email first — to whom, the subject, the words, the PDF — with three plain choices: - **Mark sent and email it** - **Mark sent (I sent it myself)** - **Cancel** With nobody to send it to, it asks for an address, which is kept in Bill to. The page says who it was emailed to only when the email went, and says so when outgoing email is paused and it is held. Two people marking it sent at once send it once. #### Due dates Every invoice gets a due date from its terms, else the firm's terms under [Settings → Money → Invoice layout](/settings?tab=money#invoice-layout) (*Net 30*, *Payment within 14 days*, *Due on receipt*; thirty days when they say nothing), counted from the invoice date. A deposit or retainer is due on receipt. Change it in the **Due** box on the invoice. An older invoice with none takes one when it is marked sent; [Aging](/aging) names any still without one, since they can never show as overdue. #### Lists a page at a time [Invoices](/invoices) and [Purchase orders](/purchase-orders) come a page at a time when they are long, newest first. The foot says where you are and how many there are (*Page 2 of 9 · 412 invoices*), with **Newest**, **Newer**, **Older** and **Oldest**. The filters stay set as you move through the pages, and the heading counts the whole list, not the page. A project's own Order and Invoice tabs page the same way. #### Voiding **Void** asks why, and keeps the reason on the invoice's history. A void invoice stays void; its hours and expenses are free to bill again. See also: /manual/money#payments-and-pay-online, /manual/money#tax, /manual/money#markup-and-cost ## Payments and pay online Link: /manual/money#payments-and-pay-online Recording payments, credits and refunds, and letting the client pay by card. On an invoice, the **Payments** card lists every payment, credit and refund and records new ones (amount, date, method, reference), and says so if a removal is refused. - The same payment twice (same amount, day and reference) is asked about before it is recorded. - Recording more than is owed asks first: the excess stays on the invoice as the client's **credit on account**, shown as such on the statement, on **Budget and margin** and in the Overview's money line. - A refund gives back no more than was received on the invoice. Refunding an overpayment takes back the part over first, so the sales tax and commission reports on a cash basis still count the invoice as paid. - Stripe, QuickBooks and Xero payments record themselves, each once. #### Pay online Before you start: - Online payments switched on under [Settings → Money → Payments](/settings?tab=money#payments). An invoice gets its own **Pay online** address when it is marked sent (or with **Make a pay-online link** on its page). It goes on the client's PDF, in the invoice email and on the client's home page. Each click opens the payment page for the balance due at that moment — after a part payment it asks for what is left, and a Stripe page never goes stale — until the invoice is paid, when the link is taken off. An accepted proposal shows a **Pay the deposit** button to the client once the deposit invoice has been sent. See also: /manual/money#deposits-and-retainers, /manual/money#statement ## Deposits and retainers Link: /manual/money#deposits-and-retainers Asking for money up front, holding it, and applying it to an invoice. - A proposal's deposit invoice is drafted on acceptance, addressed to the person the proposal was sent to, for you to review and send. - **Request a retainer…** on the project's Invoice tab drafts an invoice for a stated amount, marked retainer or deposit. - A deposit applied to a draft invoice leaves it a draft, to be sent as any other. [Screenshot: A project's Invoice tab, with Request a retainer… and Blank invoice beside Raise invoice.] #### Money held A paid deposit or retainer invoice is money **held** on the project. **Apply deposit** on a standard invoice moves it across, and the statement shows both sides. **Budget and margin** (on the Invoice tab) shows client deposits asked (with their tax) and received. #### Deposits under VAT or GST Under VAT or GST — a firm or a project whose currency is not US dollars, or whose tax is named VAT, GST, HST, IVA, TVA and the like — a deposit is a tax point: - A retainer adds the tax to the amount you type; the form says so before it is raised. - A proposal's deposit is split into what it is on and the tax it carries. - The [Sales tax report](/manual/money#sales-tax-report) counts that tax with the deposit and not again on the invoice it is applied to. US sales tax waits for the sale. ## Statement Link: /manual/money#statement The client's account on a project, with a running balance. Where to find it: A project → **Invoice** → **Statement** (and the client's own home page) The account chronologically with running balance and deposits held, the open invoices, any credit on account, and the balance due — as a page and a PDF on the invoice letterhead. **Send statement** emails the client the balance and the link. [Screenshot: A project's statement: every invoice and payment with a running balance.] ## Change orders Link: /manual/money#change-orders What changes after an order is agreed, accepted by the client and billed once. Where to find it: **Finance** → [Change orders](/change-orders), or a project's **Propose → Change orders** tab **Propose → Change orders** lists the project's own change orders, with **+ New change order** for this project; the firm-wide list is [Finance → Change orders](/change-orders). 1. Open one and add its lines under **What it changes**: an item with its **Change in quantity** and **New unit price**, or a line of money with no item (negative for a credit). One line per item; the order's amount follows its lines. 2. Set it to **Submitted**, and the client on the project is told. 3. The client opens it from their home page, sees what changes and what it comes to at the prices they pay (no cost, none of your notes), and can **accept or decline** it with their name. Accepting approves it (applying its lines); declining declines it. You are told either way. **Approve** applies every line to its item in one go (quantity and price, noted in the item's history). An approved change cannot be moved back. A change order the client sees says when tax is on top of what it adds. [Screenshot: A change order: what it changes, line by line, and what it comes to.] #### Billing a change **Raise invoice** then offers the approved change orders under *Approved change orders*. The change is billed once, as the change order's own line, while the item's own line bills only what it was before the change — whichever is invoiced first. ## Markup and cost Link: /manual/money#markup-and-cost Where cost comes from, the markup rules, and re-pricing a project. #### A project's own cost An item's cost comes from its library product, and a project can have its own: a volume discount, a special price the vendor gave for this job. Set it as *Unit cost, this project* when editing the item. The library keeps its cost, and the item says whose cost it is. Only people who may see cost and margin see or set it, and the price to the client does not move with it. #### Markup rules [Settings → Money → **Markup rules**](/settings?tab=money#markup) sets cost-plus percentages by category for the firm (and one for everything else). A project overrides them under Invoice → **Budget and margin** → Markup rules. - A new specification with a known cost is priced by the rule for its category. - A vendor's quote applied from an RFQ re-prices the item by its markup. - **Price the unpriced specifications** / **Re-price every specification** on the project's **Budget and margin** page apply the rules across the project, logged on each item. On a job copied from last year's, items whose cost is behind the library's say so ("the library has $1,229.60", with **Take it**), and **Take the library's current cost on N items** does them all — then re-price. #### Typed prices and the library On a library product, changing the cost or markup moves a sell price that followed the markup. A sell price typed by hand stays, and the product and the Budget and margin lines say the markup it really carries (marked *). #### Markup on an invoice A specification takes cost × the rule in force when it is made, and an invoice line takes the specification's cost, markup and price — so the markup on an invoice is the rule that applied when the item was specified. The invoice's working view says so under its lines, with a link to the project's **Budget and margin**; hover a price to see where it came from. While an invoice is open, each specification line's **Markup %** can be changed (the price follows). **Apply the project's current markup** reprices every specification line from the rules as they stand now — the invoice only. The specification keeps its own price; changes to the item itself are made on the specification. See also: /manual/money#budget-and-margin, /manual/purchasing#rfqs ## Tax Link: /manual/money#tax Rates per project, per line and by ship-to. #### Per project, and per line - A project's own rate under Edit project wins over everything: a Las Vegas job and a California job can each carry theirs. - On an invoice or proposal each line has a **taxable** checkbox. - Hours invoiced from time sheets start untaxed, since labor is untaxed in California and taxed elsewhere. #### By ship-to [Settings → Money → Tax and currency](/settings?tab=money#tax) holds the default rate and, under **Rates by ship-to**, rates by region and postcode prefix (a county or city rate beats the state's). Give a project a **Ship to** address with its region and postcode under Edit project, and invoices, retainers and proposals raised on it take that rate unless the project has a rate of its own. Project details shows which rate applies and why. See also: /manual/money#sales-tax-report, /manual/money#deposits-and-retainers ## Budget and margin Link: /manual/money#budget-and-margin A project's budget against purchased, invoiced and collected. Where to find it: A project → **Invoice** → **Budget and margin** **Budget and margin** on a project (Invoice → Budget and margin) shows the budget against: - purchased (at cost); - invoiced — shown with tax, the before-tax figure beside it; - collected — cash in: payments and deposits received, refunds out, as the statement and Profitability count it; - what is outstanding, invoice by invoice, as the statement counts it (with any credit on account named apart); - estimated versus actual by category. It also shows client deposits asked (with their tax) and received, vendor bills, what is owed, and the actual margin (invoiced less vendor bills). The figures of [Profitability](/manual/money#profitability) sit here too, under *Margin after time and expenses*, beside the budget-against-actual report by area. [Screenshot: Budget and margin on the example hotel: budget against purchased, invoiced and collected.] See also: /manual/money#add-on-charges-and-budget-against-actual, /manual/money#markup-and-cost, /manual/money#profitability ## Add-on charges and budget against actual Link: /manual/money#add-on-charges-and-budget-against-actual Freight, crating, installation and the rest, on each item and each order. **Budget add-on charges** — freight, packing / crating, installation, sales tax, contingency, customs / duty, other — sit on each item's **Budget and actual** card (in the **Budget** tab of the item's page; *Budget vs Actual* on the tabbed layout's *Pricing* tab — *Budget* with Pricing off — and under the project-first form). Those who see project money see them; those who also edit specifications change them. Each is a **percent** of the goods or an **amount**, with the usual purchasing checkboxes: - **taxable** — the sales tax charge reaches it; - **in deposit** — counted in what a deposit is asked on, shown as the deposit base; - **marked up** — sold at the item's markup. Not offered with Pricing off, where the item carries its budget alone. The card sets the budget — the estimated cost where the firm sells and you see cost, else the budget price — beside the **actual**: what its orders cost (not drafts or canceled ones), with its share of each order's charges (an order's freight shared by each line's goods), its tax and what is **left**. #### An order's own charges An order's own **Charges** (the order's page, beside its bills) are the vendor's freight, packing, customs and the rest, with the same checkboxes. They print on the order's PDF and the vendor's copy, go into the order's total, and show on the project-first layout's *P.O. Detail → PO Costs/Deposit* with the total for the deposit. The *P.O. Items List* sets each line's budget beside its cost of goods with the variance, and [Reports → Budget against actual](/manual/projects#the-project-page) gains *Budget charges* and *PO charges*. ## Fund requests, the approval chain and the accounting exports Link: /manual/money#client-fund-requests-the-approval-chain-and-the-accounting-exports For a firm buying as the client's purchasing agent. For a firm buying as the client's purchasing agent (the project-first purchasing screens' work, in every style). #### Fund requests Where to find it: A project's *Order* menu → **Fund requests**, beside its purchase orders A fund request asks the client for the money for orders before they are paid. 1. Check the issued orders (each at its total with its charges). 2. Add an opening paragraph. 3. **Make the request** — numbered FR--0001. 4. **Send…** emails it to the project's clients (or the addresses typed) with a link to it on their portal, where they read it and its **PDF**. 5. **Received…** records the amount and the check or wire reference. 6. **Applied…** marks it used on the orders. A draft can be removed; one sent stays as the record. The client's project tabs show *Fund requests* once one is sent. The project-first layout's *P.O. Detail → Fund Requests* lists those that name the order. [Screenshot: A project's fund requests: made from issued orders, sent, received and applied.] #### The approval chain An order's page has **Approval chain**: the dates the purchasing agent, the designer and the client approved it, it was sent to the client, and the vendor accepted it, with the next step marked. These are the columns of a purchasing program's P.O. List, which the project-first layout's *P.O. List* shows, with each order's **Flag**. #### Yardi and P3 exports A project's purchase orders page offers **Yardi purchase orders** (all, or *flagged only*) and **P3 accounts payable** (from its vendor bills) as CSV files in their usual layouts. The project-first layout's P.O. List offers them for the Active Project. The codes they carry are set once under [Settings → Accounting](/settings?tab=money#accounting) → *Codes for the Yardi and P3 exports*: per vendor (*Account number* on its card) and per project (*Property code* under Areas and rooms). Some columns are inferred from existing files rather than from Yardi's or P3's own specifications; ask support for the column list if the client's accountant needs it. Careful: Check a first file with the client's accountant. ## QuickBooks and Xero Link: /manual/money#accounting-sync Sending invoices, orders and bills to your books, and payments coming back. #### Accounting, both ways With QuickBooks or Xero connected under [Settings → Money → Accounting](/settings?tab=money#accounting), invoices, purchase orders and vendor bills go across with one button on their pages. Payments recorded there against sent invoices come back onto the invoice and the statement every night, or at once with **Pull payments now**. #### CSV for QuickBooks Every sent invoice has **CSV for QuickBooks** in QuickBooks Online's import layout: - Each line under the item for what it bills: FF&E, Design fees, Design time, Reimbursable expenses, Deposits, Freight. A line written by hand for delivery or shipping goes under Freight, and a change order's line under its item. - The tax on a line named as the job names it (GST on a Canadian job). The invoice PDF says what it was charged on, *VAT (20% of £3,450.00)*, and marks lines not taxed. - The terms by QuickBooks' own names (Net 30, Due on receipt). - A credit given on the invoice comes out as a negative *Credits given* line, with its share of tax off the tax line, so the books take it off the sale. - A deposit applied to an invoice comes back off it as a negative **Deposits** line, with the deposit's share of tax taken off the tax line, so the deposit invoice and the invoice it was applied to are not both booked in full. Tip: In QuickBooks put the **Deposits** item on your customer deposits account. Connected, the portal puts it on an account named for deposits when there is one. A draft or void invoice has none: it is not a sale. [Month-end](/manual/money#month-end) takes every invoice of a period in one file. The files open in Excel with accents intact. The vendor bills recorded on an order come out as **Bills CSV for QuickBooks** in the bill import layout, and credits apart as vendor credits; **Vendor bills** exports them all at once. #### Send to QuickBooks If the portal is connected under [Settings → Money → Accounting](/settings?tab=money#accounting), **Send to QuickBooks** creates the invoice (with its customer and those service items) or the purchase order (with its vendor) in the company file and remembers its number. A vendor bill sent this way is split as in the file: the goods net of the vendor's tax on the purchases account, and the tax on its own line to *VAT reclaimable* (or your tax's name), which it makes if the company file has none. ## Reports and printouts Link: /manual/money#reports-and-printouts Every printout and export of a project, on one page. Where to find it: Specify → **Actions** → *Reports and printouts…*, and the link at the head of *Reports* Every printout and export of a project is on its **Reports and printouts** page: every report the project-first layout and its purchasing screens offer, drawn on the firm's letterhead (the project's letterhead, or the one a link asks for), in every workspace style. The page groups them as your style's menus do: - In the project-first layout, under *Spec Reports*, *Project Summary*, *Reference*, *Finish Schedule* and *Correspondence* (also listed under **Spec Reports** above the list, and the Main Menu's **Reports & Printouts** tile), with the purchasing menus *P.O. Reports*, *Invoice / PO Costs*, *Tracking*, *Fund / Payment Requests* and *Export PO / Invoice* (the Main Menu's **P.O. Reports**). - In the tabbed layout, under *Reports* and *Accounting reports* (linked from the head of every Accounting screen). - In PortSpace's, under specifications and under budget, purchasing and accounting. Each has its options (flagged only, an area heading, an area, a first page number, a title…) and its PDF, Excel or CSV. You see only what your seat allows: anything with money for those who see project money, cost and markup only for those who see margins (and never with Pricing off), the purchasing ones with Procurement on. Clients and contractors get their printouts where they always did. [Screenshot: Reports and printouts on the example hotel, grouped as your style's menus are.] #### The project reports On every project (Specify → **Actions** → Schedules…), and under [Finance → **More reports**](/reports). That page is two choices and a button: *which project* (type to find it, or one of yours from the chips) and *which report* (the seven, each with a line on what it holds), then **Open the report** on the page or **Download Excel**. - the **FF&E schedule**, by area or by trade; - the **room schedule** — what goes into each room type, per room and extended, from the takeoff; - the **finish schedule** by area, and the **finish legend** by material (carpet, wallcovering, paint, stone, tile, wood, glass, fabric and the other interior finishes, each once with everywhere it is used); - **budget against actual** by area — estimated cost and sell, on purchase orders, invoiced, still to invoice; - the **lead-time schedule** of everything on order by delivery week, with late items flagged. Each is drawn on the page and downloads as Excel in the same layout; prices show only to those who may see them. [Screenshot: Finance → More reports: pick a project and a report, then open it or download Excel.] See also: /manual/money#printouts-catalogue ## What each printout holds Link: /manual/money#printouts-catalogue Spec sheets, budgets, revisions, orders, indexes, finishes, labels, letters and exports. Where to find it: A project → Specify → **Actions** → *Reports and printouts…* #### Spec sheets The spec book page adds these options: - the item's **Δ lines** (each issued revision: Δ, rev, date, Revision or Addendum, reason), with the revised fields shaded; - its **instructions**; - a **Required for approval** row (seaming diagram, strike-off, finish sample, cutting, shop drawings, prototype, flame certificate) with *Prepared by*; - **lead time**, **ship to** and **drawing #**; - the **maker's block beside the source's** (phone, mobile, fax, account #); - **area and room quantity** lines (with the room numbers when asked); - the item's components as **References**; - the project's **spec note** at the foot of every sheet, and each item's own page count. Switches hide the quantity, source, model, instructions, Δ lines, approvals, prepared by and page numbers, or show the category and area heading. *Label on every page* and *First page number* set the rest. *Which items* narrows by area heading, category, manufacturer or source (the Flag, Public / Guest and the area carry over from the list). **Request for quotation** prints no prices and a quote block on every item. Ship to, drawing #, prepared by, the approval checkboxes and **LEED** are set on the item's **On the spec sheet** card. #### Spec sheets, one PDF each *Each spec as a PDF, zipped* on the spec book page (*PDF Individual Specs* in the project-first layout): every spec the page would print, with its options and filters (flagged only, an area, a category, a maker…), as its own PDF named by its printed item number (L-101.pdf), all in one zip with no cover or index. A few download at once. A big project is made in the background with a count (*Making 120 of 400 sheets…*), and the download appears there, and in your alerts, when it is ready — leave the page and come back, it carries on. The zip is yours alone and stays on the server for a week. Whoever may open the spec book may make it, with what their seat may see. #### Budget Items under their area headings and areas with *Manufacturer | Source*, quantity, budget each and extended, area and heading totals. Then the add-on charges added up by name, **SUBTOTAL**, the **sales tax on the taxable part**, **GRAND TOTAL**. The latest *Budget Δ* sits in the head with the issue date; the project's **budget note** (Areas and rooms) and the firm's **disclaimer** ([Settings → Printouts](/settings?tab=work#printouts)) at the end. Options: flagged only, an area heading or area, charges shown or left off, hide pricing, a page per heading, the first page number, a title. **Budget with markup** adds a percent to every price (and to the first charge if checked); **Budget summary** gives the area totals, the cost of each room type and the totals. With Pricing off the columns read *Budget each* and *Budget total*. #### Revisions and matrices - The **Revision / Addendum index** (by Δ, or *by area*) marks an item revised after it went to purchasing; the **Δ list** gives each revised item's lines; the **revisions crosstab** (Excel) has an item a row and a Δ a column. - *FF&E matrices* (Excel) — items down; across, the room types with their rooms and the areas for the **total quantity**, the room types for the **quantity per room**, or every **room number**. - *Budgets by room* — the budget with a line per room type under each item (per room × each = per key × rooms) and the cost per key; the budget by room type (each type's items, the cost of one room and of all of them). #### Purchase orders and requests to the client Each order's PDF carries the full purchasing head: original and revision dates with the reason, the **Source** and **Manufacturer** blocks with account numbers, **Bill to** with *do not ship to the bill-to address*, specified by, final destination, prepared by, reference #, area and the project contact. Per line: the **sidemark**, finish, lead time, **Tag for** room quantities (with room numbers), required submittals and instructions. Then each charge and each tax on its own line, the **deposit** (the order's deposit % of what the deposit counts) and deposit paid, **TOTAL DUE**, and the **Approvals** and *Accepted by vendor* blocks (*?accept=0* on its link leaves the vendor block off). The head's fields are set on the order's *On the order's PDF* card. The Fund requests page makes three kinds of request: a **fund request** (FR-) for orders at their totals, a **deposit request** (DR-) for each order's deposit, and a **payment request** (PR-) for open vendor invoices the client is to pay. Each PDF has a block per order or invoice (maker / source, invoice, PO #, due date, terms, what the amount is made of), the totals, *please make payments payable to* (the vendor on a payment request, else the firm) and the approval box. **Fund requests and totals** lists them all. **Yardi** and **P3** exports, in their usual layouts, as before — and a second Yardi export, **Yardi payables from purchase orders (PO-Inv)**: a row per order, area and item type with that part's goods as the amount (vendor code, post month, due date, property, the area's code as the account, the item type as the expense type), with the order's charges, tax, deposit, ship-to and vendor repeated on each; flagged only if asked. Support can send its column list. #### Indexes, finishes and cut sheets - *Indexes* — the spec index by area (under its headings), item type, issue date, lead time, source or manufacturer, each line with its Δ and issue date; quantity and price for those who see money. - *Finishes* — the finish schedule (PDF or Excel, as on its page), by room, the finish legend, the finish index with pricing and the lighting schedule. The material reference lists each material, finish and component with the items, areas and rooms using it, and the index with fabric references each item's fabrics and components. - *Cut sheets* — an item a page with its first picture large and the next three under it, every picture four to a page, or a blank cut sheet. - *Labels* — Avery 5160 sheets (30 a page) for the sources, the manufacturers, the order vendors (with the PO number) and a sidemark per order line for the cartons. *Skip labels* leaves the first ones empty for a sheet already started. #### Correspondence, purchasing and reference - *Correspondence* — source letters (each source's items with quantities and required submittals, between the firm's opening and closing from Settings → Printouts, with {project}, {source}, {date}, {firm} and {client} filled in), the fax / transmittal cover with its FOR YOUR and SENT VIA checkboxes and page count, cancellation letters for canceled orders and credit requests for goods received damaged, short or wrong. - *Purchasing* — expediting by source, manufacturer or area; the lines still waiting on a step (not submitted, not acknowledged, not shipped, not received, not installed, not invoiced); status and history, acknowledgements and revisions; deposit tracking; the payment projection of open vendor invoices; budget variance (goods, or with charges and tax); requests for quotation and bids; the client-priced index; quantity and cost discrepancies; purchasing summaries by manufacturer, source and item type; the vendor invoice listing and detail and the quarterly sales tax. - *Exports* — QuickBooks Desktop purchase orders and bills in their usual layouts, numbered from the first PO # and bill # under Settings → Printouts, and the P.O. export (a row per order with its money). - *Reference* — manufacturers and sources with their cards, the instruction library, item types, room types with their room numbers, the project directory, the communication log, the task list, pictures to verify and spec status. ## Aging Link: /manual/money#aging What is owed to you and by you, by how late. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Aging**](/aging) [**Aging**](/aging) shows receivables (invoices sent, by client) and payables (vendor bills, by vendor, less the vendor's open credits) in current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90+ day buckets, with every open item (credits included) under it. **As of** any earlier day shows what was owed then, from the payments recorded by that day, and **Excel** takes either as a workbook. Aging names any invoice still without a due date, since it can never show as overdue. [Screenshot: Aging: receivables and payables in day buckets, with every open item under them.] ## Sales tax report Link: /manual/money#sales-tax-report What was charged in a period, by tax and by jurisdiction. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Sales tax**](/tax-report) (named for your tax) [Finance → **Sales tax**](/tax-report) totals what was charged in a period by the tax as it is named on the invoice — the firm's label, or the named rate of the ship-to region, so GST and PST sit apart with their own subtotals — and within that by jurisdiction: taxable sales, untaxed sales and the tax collected, with the rate. It counts the invoices raised in the period (by invoice date) or, on the cash basis, the money received in it, each payment split across its invoice in proportion. [Screenshot: The sales tax report: taxable and untaxed sales and the tax collected, by jurisdiction.] #### What counts where - Jurisdictions come from the ship-to tax table under [Settings](/manual/administration#settings). An invoice on a project with its own rate shows as that project's rate (under the project's own tax name when it has one, set in Edit project); one on the firm's default rate as the firm default. - Freight is a sale too: taxable where the firm taxes freight, untaxed where it does not. - A credit given on an invoice is a negative sale in that invoice's proportions, sales and tax alike. - Under VAT or GST a deposit counts when it is invoiced, and the invoice it is applied to counts less by the deposit's own sales and tax, in proportion to what was applied, so the tax is reported once. - Invoices in another currency are never added in: each currency has its own section below the firm's, with its own totals. Excel from the button, with the period on each sheet and each other currency on a sheet of its own. It takes the same period buttons as [Month-end](/manual/money#month-end). ## Commissions Link: /manual/money#commissions Each project manager's commission for a period. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Commissions**](/commissions) Before you start: - A module, off until an administrator switches it on under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules). - Each manager's rate set under [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles), beside the billable hourly rate. [Finance → **Commissions**](/commissions) works out each project manager's commission for a period: their rate on the net sales — before tax — of the projects they manage, by invoice date or on the cash basis. On the cash basis a deposit applied to an invoice counts from the day its money came, not the day it was applied. - Every manager of a project earns their own rate on the whole of it — or they share it, if the firm says so under Settings → Tax and currency. - Projects without a manager are listed at the end, so nothing is missed. - Each invoice (or payment, on the cash basis) is paid to whoever managed the project **on that day**, at the rate they had **on that day**. Handing a project to someone else, or changing a rate, never moves or reprices a period already past, and a rate that changed mid-period shows as two lines. - Invoices in another currency are reported in a section of their own, in that currency, never added in. The Excel says the period and the basis under the figures. It takes the same period buttons as [Month-end](/manual/money#month-end). [Screenshot: Commissions for a period, per manager, with projects without a manager at the end.] ## The dashboard Link: /manual/money#the-dashboard The principal's one screen: money, decisions, what is late and the week ahead. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Dashboard**](/dashboard), or *Dashboard →* on the home page [Finance → **Dashboard**](/dashboard) is also *Dashboard →* on the home page's **Money** card, for anyone who sees the firm's money. It opens on: - collected this month, owed to you and how much is overdue, what you owe vendors, invoiced this month, deposits held; - hours logged this month (billable, and their value at rate); - proposals out with clients by value, and the margin on active projects. Then what needs a decision (approvals, proposals out, expense reports, arrival claims, bills due within a week), what is late and what is coming up within three days (items, tasks, site visits, vendor bills, emails that failed — late in red, coming up in amber) and the next seven days. The biggest overdue invoices, vendor bills due soon and the thinnest margins appear as cards only when there are any — the tiles above already say when there are none. Every line links to the page where it is dealt with. A person limited to some projects sees only those. [Screenshot: The dashboard: the firm's money, what needs a decision, what is late and the week ahead.] ## Profitability Link: /manual/money#profitability Every project's money on one line, down to the margin after time and expenses. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Profitability**](/profitability) [Finance → **Profitability**](/profitability) puts every project's money on one line: budget, what the specifications add up to, what the client accepted, what is on order with vendors, what vendors have billed, what has been invoiced and collected, hours and time cost, approved expenses, and the margin that leaves. [Screenshot: Profitability: each project's budget, orders, invoices, time and margin on one line.] #### How cost is counted - Goods once: the larger of what is on order and what vendors have billed (since a first bill is often only a deposit), plus anything invoiced to the client but not yet ordered, at its cost. - Time at each person's rate: their cost rate where one is set; otherwise the billing rate stands in, and the page says so. - Every approved expense. A receipt billed on to the client stays in cost, because its invoice line is in what was invoiced. Margin is invoiced less cost, before tax. #### Credits, plan and collected - A credit given on an invoice comes off Invoiced by its share before tax (and off Billed with tax in full), on Budget and margin and the Dashboard's *Invoiced this month* too. A vendor's credit comes off cost even while the order it was on stands. - **Planned margin** is what the specifications add up to less their own cost — the margin the job was specified at — so plan and actual sit side by side. Templates are not jobs and stay out. - **Billed with tax** beside Invoiced adds the tax, freight and deposits asked for — less any deposit already applied to an invoice, so a deposit is counted once. It is what **Collected** (cash received, with its tax) is measured against. - A project in another currency shows in its own money (CA$, €) and is left out of the totals, which say so. The Excel formats each row in its own currency. The same figures sit on each project's **Budget and margin** tab (under Invoice) under *Margin after time and expenses*, beside the budget-against-actual report by area. Excel from the button. ## Month-end Link: /manual/money#month-end The bookkeeper's page: money in and out, what was owed, the files for your accounts, and closing the books. Where to find it: **Finance** → [**Month-end**](/month-end) [Finance → **Month-end**](/month-end) is the bookkeeper's page. Pick the period: **Last month** is where it opens, and this month, this or last quarter, this or last year are a click each, or any two days. [Screenshot: Month-end: money in, paid to vendors, what was owed, the files and Close the books.] #### Money in and paid to vendors **Money in**: every payment received in the period (deposits and retainers paid included, refunds going back), with the invoice, the customer, how it came and its reference. **Paid to vendors**: every payment made on a vendor bill. Each downloads as a CSV. A credit applied to a bill, a deposit moved onto an invoice and a credit given to a client are not money, and are not in either. #### What was owed at the end What was owed at the end of the period, to you and by you, with [Aging as of that day](/aging) a click away (and as Excel). #### Files for your accounts Every invoice issued in the period in one QuickBooks file, the vendor bills dated in it, and the vendor credits. - *Only those not yet exported* leaves out what an earlier file took, and *note them as exported* marks what this one takes, so next month's file does not repeat it. - A credit given or a deposit applied after its invoice went into a file comes in the file of its own period, as a memo of its own on its own date. - Drafts and void invoices are never in them. The tax report, commissions and labor cost for the same period are linked, each with its Excel. The tax report and commissions take the same period buttons. #### Books closed 1. **Close the books** through a day (usually the period's last). 2. From then on, a payment, refund, vendor bill (and what was already paid on it), credit applied, or hours dated on or before that day are asked about before they are saved (*Write it into the closed period anyway?*), and so is removing one (*Remove it from the closed period anyway?*). So is an invoice's date moved into or out of the closed period, and sending or voiding an invoice dated there. 3. **Open them again** clears it. Changes are recorded under [Changes to settings](/manual/your-portal#audit-retention-and-removal). # Time and expenses Timesheets, invoicing from time and expense reports. ## Timesheet Link: /manual/time#timesheet Your hours, a week at a time: typed in, from a clock time, or with the timer. Where to find it: Time & expenses → [**My timesheet**](/timesheets) [Time & expenses → **My timesheet**](/timesheets) shows a week at a time: an entry per project with hours, what you did, and whether it is billable. [Screenshot: My timesheet: the week's entries by project, with the timer and the week grid.] #### Entering time - **Hours** takes 1.5, 1:30 or 1h30. - **Start and end time** takes a clock time from and to (9:15, 2:30 pm) and a break in minutes, and works the hours out. 22:00 to 1:30 runs past midnight. - Each entry can carry a **phase** — the firm's list under [Settings → Time](/settings?tab=time#time). By default: Programming, Concept, Design development, Documentation, Specification writing, Procurement, Installation and Admin. Both sit at the top of the timesheet. If the firm rounds (to 6 minutes or the quarter hour), hours are rounded up when saved and the entry says so. Hours dated into [books already closed](/manual/money#month-end) are asked about first. #### The timer **▶ Start timer** is on the timesheet, on a project's Overview (its **Hours** card), and in the menu under your name. It keeps running on the server, so closing the tab or switching to your phone doesn't lose it. One runs at a time. - **Stop and save** makes an entry for the day it started, with its clock times. - A timer left on for more than 10 hours asks before saving. - **Discard** throws it away. #### Time on each item An item's page has a **Time** tab (the tab reads the hours, or *Running*): *Time on this item: 2.5 h* — everyone's hours on it — with **▶ Time this item**, and under it the entries logged on the item (everyone's for those who report time, else your own). **▶ Time this item** starts your timer on the item's project as **Specification writing**, with the item named; **Stop and save** there (or anywhere the timer shows) puts it on your timesheet. With your timer already running on something else, the item's page says so and links to stop it. In the tabbed and project-first layouts the timer sits under the item's title. A project's **Time** tab has a **Specification writing** card: the phase's hours on the project and the hours timed on each item. The [hours report](/timesheets/hours) groups by item and narrows to one phase, so *Specification writing, by project* is how long each job's specs took. Moving an entry to another project takes the item off it. Shown when Time is switched on, to those who log time. #### The week grid and the day list **Week grid** shows a row per project and phase and a box per day, with totals across and down. - Type hours in a box and move on: it saves when you leave it. A blank or 0 removes that day's hours. - The arrow keys move between boxes. - **+ Add a row** adds a project and phase. - **Copy last week's rows** brings last week's rows back without their hours. A box holding several entries, clock times, or approved or invoiced hours is changed in the **Day list**, which lists every entry by day. A phone opens on the day list. #### Hour budgets A project's **Hours** card on its Overview shows hours logged against its budget and each phase's — *62 of 80 h* — amber from 90% and red past the budget. Whoever sets up projects chooses **Set hour budgets**. The grid shows a project's budget beside its rows. #### Approving hours: Labor cost [**Labor cost**](/timesheets/report) (accountants) prices everyone's hours by rate for a period, and **Approve** beside each person approves their hours in it once they are checked. - Nobody approves (or reopens) their own hours while someone else in the firm can. - Approved hours are fixed for everyone, the approver included — **Reopen** them first to change them. - Hours on an invoice stay as invoiced. - Only an administrator or owner changes someone else's entries. - The Excel, named by its period, says which are approved. On the page and in the Excel, your own rows show no cost or value. [Screenshot: Labor cost: everyone's hours priced by rate for a period, with Approve beside each person.] #### The hours report [**Hours report**](/timesheets/hours) shows hours for a period by project, phase, person, week or item, for every phase or one — billable, not billable, and the billable share — with an **Excel** download. Those who report on time see everyone's (on their projects, and office time), with **Who's missing time this week**; everyone else sees their own. [Screenshot: The hours report, grouped by project, phase, person, week or item.] #### Friday reminders With **Remind people on Friday afternoon** on under Settings → Time, anyone whose week is under four fifths of the working week (40 hours unless the firm sets another) gets one reminder at 2 pm where the firm is — in the portal, and by email if they take alerts by email. Never on the demo. ## Invoice from time Link: /manual/time#invoice-from-time Turn a project's billable hours into a draft invoice. Where to find it: A project → **Team** → **Time** → **Invoice these hours** On a project's **Time** tab, **Invoice these hours** lists the billable entries no invoice has taken yet, priced by each entry's rate or the person's current rate from [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles). 1. Narrow by date, and uncheck anything to hold back. 2. Choose one line per person or per entry. 3. Press **Raise invoice**: a draft invoice opens, and the entries are marked invoiced. [Screenshot: A project's Time tab: hours by phase and person, with Invoice these hours.] #### Hours with no rate An entry whose person has no rate reads **set a rate** (a link to their row on [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles), for those who may set rates) or *no rate*; hovering says why. Such hours would be invoiced at nothing until a rate is set, so entries without a rate are left open. Tip: Voiding the invoice hands the entries back. Time lines are raised untaxed; check tax on the invoice where services are taxable. ## Expense reports Link: /manual/time#expense-reports Receipts gathered into a report, submitted, approved and paid. Where to find it: Time & expenses → [**My expenses**](/receipts) A report is for one scope: a project (billable to the client) or non-billable. To claim expenses 1. Open [**My expenses**](/receipts) → **Start an expense report**. 2. Add receipts by **scanning PDFs from the office computer** (drop several at once), **photographing** on a phone, or **entering by hand**. Each becomes a line and is read automatically where possible. 3. Mark a line **Company card** if the firm paid. 4. When every line has a file, vendor, amount and date, press **Submit report**. The accountant is emailed. Reading: a large phone photo is shrunk for reading, and the date and currency are read the firm's way. [Screenshot: An expense report: a line per receipt, read from the file where possible.] A report and its receipts are yours alone until you submit them; approvers and accountants see them from then on. #### The expense queue The [**Expense queue**](/queue) is for approvers and accountants: - approve or return whole reports; - download the report as one PDF with every receipt; - export to Excel; - mark paid. [Screenshot: The expense queue: reports waiting for a decision, to approve, return, export or mark paid.] See also: /manual/time#timesheet, /manual/money#month-end # Clients and outside people What clients, contractors and restricted people see, and seeing a project as the client sees it. ## Clients Link: /manual/clients#clients Where a client lands, what they see and don't, and what they can do. #### Where a client lands Clients read their own short manual under Help. Their home page starts with **Waiting on you** — proposals to decide, items sent for approval, invoices due — then a card for each of their projects with its tabs, their proposals and invoices, and recent photos. [Screenshot: A client's home page: what waits on them, then their projects, proposals, invoices and photos.] A project opens on the client's own short **Overview**: the property's picture when the firm shows it to them, what waits on them (or one quiet line when nothing does), their items and deliveries, their account (invoiced, received, to pay) and the links marked for them. Their tab row is short and in plain words: **Overview**, **Waiting on you** whenever something waits on them, **What we heard** when the firm shares the brief, **Items**, **Boards** when you have shown them a board, **Proposals and invoices**, **Photos**, **Files**, and **Installation** when there are visits. Their menu holds their projects and Help: the manual, and **Contact** with the firm's name, which writes to the project's managers and emails the client a copy. [Screenshot: A project as the client sees it: their own Overview and a short row of tabs.] #### What they see, and what they don't - Items carry pictures, quantities and where each stands, but no prices, subtotals or totals. The **Show** filter offers *Everything* and *Hide omitted* only. - An item's page shows the order, source and specification cards without prices or edit controls, *Where it is* as plain text, approved cut sheets, samples and drawings but never a quote, and the revision history without the staff notes. - Their Overview leaves out the budget, billing, tax, the firm's internal notes and any link not marked for them. - The brief, the firm's money tabs and its reports are not there at all. A client who types one of those addresses is sent back to their Items. #### What they can do | To… | They… | | Decide approvals | Choose Approve, Approve with notes…, Revise & resubmit… or Not approved…, one item at a time or **Approve all** in one go. Whoever decided can **Change** it under Decided until the item is on an order that went out (see [Approvals](/manual/project-work#approvals)). | | Accept or send back a concept | Are told when a deck is filed for them, and on the deck's page choose **Accept this concept** or **Ask for changes…** with what they would change. The firm is told (see [Concept](/manual/projects#concept)). | | Accept a change order | Get each one set to Submitted. At the same link they see the client's copy, at sell prices and without the firm's notes (saying when tax is on top), and choose **Accept the change** or **Decline** with a note (see Change orders on a project). | | Question an invoice | Press **Question this invoice** beside an invoice still to pay on their home page, or beside any invoice, paid ones too, on the Proposals and invoices tab. It goes on the invoice's history and to whoever raised it and the project's managers. An invoice changed after it was sent is marked **Revised**, and the firm sends it again. | | Report a problem | Use *Something wrong with it? Tell your designer* on an item's page, with a photo — on an archived job too. The project's managers are alerted; it shows under the Overview's *Needs attention* until someone at the firm answers it with **Reply and close…**, and the client sees their report on the item with its status and the firm's reply. | | Take the files | Press **Download all (zip)** on Files: every file shown to them, and each item's approved papers, warranties and care sheets in a folder per item. | When a project is archived, what the client accepted, their invoices and their statement stay open to them, read-only, for their records. #### Client comments At their proposal link the client can ask a question or leave a note under **Questions and notes**, no sign-in needed. Whoever raised the proposal is told and replies from the proposal page in the portal; the reply appears at the link and goes to the client by email, from the person who replied. Clients with a portal sign-in can also comment on the photos of their projects, and the project's managers are told. See also: /manual/clients#seeing-a-project-as-the-client-sees-it, /manual/project-work#approvals ## Seeing a project as the client sees it Link: /manual/clients#seeing-a-project-as-the-client-sees-it Open a project through the client's eyes, then come back. Where to find it: A project's header → **Project** menu → **See it as the client sees it** For administrators and owners. It borrows that project's client contact — or a client's view if none is on it yet — and opens the project. The yellow bar brings you back. *View as* on [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles) does the same for any person or role. ## Restricted people Link: /manual/clients#restricted-people An intern, a part-timer or a consultant: only the projects they are given, and no prices. The **Restricted** role is for an intern, a part-timer or an outside consultant. They see only the projects they are given (project access is listed for them, always), with an employee's tools on those projects — specifications, files, boards, tasks, expediting, their own time and expenses — and no prices. Everything they make (a board, an expense report, a receipt) goes only on projects they are on. #### Putting them on projects - An administrator picks *Only these projects* under **Project access** on their card at [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles). - Or a manager of the project (or an owner or administrator) puts them on under *People on this project* on the project's Team page or its Overview. The person gets an alert, the project's alerts reach them, and the × there takes them off again. Tip: Clients and contractors are always kept to the projects they are given in the same way, whether they come by invitation or by a welcome link. ## Contractors Link: /manual/clients#contractors Installers and trades: their jobs, visits, deliveries and pick lists — never money. To bring a contractor in 1. Invite the contractor or installer with the **Contractor** role. 2. Put them on their projects. #### Their home page - their jobs and their contacts at the firm; - **Your visits** across their jobs — today, this week, and any past one not yet marked done, with the address and the access notes; - what has been received and where it is (**Received, where it is**); - the **Pick lists to load** (read-only, line by line) — the lists being picked or picked, not the firm's drafts; - the latest issue sets and what is arriving on site. #### A project, as they see it A project opens on their **Items** (the specifications, without prices). Their tab row is in their own words: **Items**, **Deliveries** (expediting), **Spec sets** (issue sets printed without prices), **Files** (drawings and the files shown to them, and their own uploads), **Photos**, and **Installation**. Deliveries shows what is late and what is coming up in the next three days as [Expediting](/manual/purchasing#expediting) does. On a phone each card ends with the day it was last updated. #### What they can do - Mark an item **Delivered** or **Installed** on the day it happened — never a day still to come. An item the order does not yet show as shipped is asked about first, and the studio is told it came early. - **Undo** a step they marked (Undo shows only on their own marks). - **Report a problem**: a note and a photo, kept on the item and sent to the project's managers. The firm is told of their marks and their photos. Careful: Nothing about money is ever shown to them — not the budget, the billing address, the tax, a client invoice, the firm's project notes or its commercial remarks. Their menu holds their projects and Help, and **Help → Contact** (with the firm's name) writes to the firm, not to PortSpace. See also: /manual/purchasing#installation-schedule, /manual/purchasing#pick-lists # Ask the AI Questions about a project, answered from its own records. ## Ask the project AI Link: /manual/ai#ask-the-project-ai A side panel that answers questions from one project's records and nothing else. Where to find it: On a project: **Ask the project AI** at the top of the Overview, beside Edit project, and in the toolbar of Specify On a project, **Ask the project AI** opens a side panel that answers questions from that one project's records and nothing else. Escape closes it. [Screenshot: Ask the project AI: a question answered from the project's own records, with item numbers as links.] #### What it reads - Specifications with totals by area, category, status and supplier; - areas, room types, notes, meetings and document titles; - the brief, the accepted concept and what its deck says ([Concept](/manual/projects#concept)); - for each item, its client approval, the orders it is on, what has arrived and any open claim — so *what arrived damaged?* is answered from the receiving records. Money is in the answers only for those who may see it. Someone who may not see prices gets the same answer with the amounts taken out. Tip: Answers cite item numbers as links; check them. #### Keeping and sharing answers Every answer is kept under **Your earlier questions**. **Share with the project** puts one under **Shared with the project** for colleagues who may see as much money as the person who asked, so the same question is not asked twice. Clients and contractors do not have the panel or the shared answers. #### Switching it on and off Ask the project AI is switched on per portal by the site administrator and can be switched off under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules). On the demo portal it answers from the project's own figures without an assistant, and says so under each answer: every part of the question (what a meeting you point at with @ decided and left open, the late items by name, the margin for this project and any you point at, what waits on the client). The Ask box shows the visitor's own AI actions, as the demo bar does. ## Ask from the home page Link: /manual/ai#ask-from-home One question across every project you may see — and the assistant can offer to do things. Where to find it: **Ask**, beside the search box on [Home](/) The home page carries an **Ask** button beside the search box, for everyone at the firm with the *Use Ask AI* right (never a client or contractor, whatever the grid says). It opens a side panel like a project's: one question across every project the person may see, and only those. - Money only for those with *See project money*. - The firm's totals only for those with *See the firm's money*. - Never another portal's records. Answers cite each project and item as a link. Every question is kept under *Your earlier questions*, and Escape closes the panel. [Screenshot: Ask from the home page: one question across all your projects.] #### When you ask it to do something When a question asks for something to be done — write this down, remind me, open that project — the assistant answers and then **offers** the action for you to confirm: - a note written out — edit it, then *Add the note*; - a task with a title — *Add the task*; - *Open the project*. Nothing is written until you say so, and your seat's rights decide what is offered. A client seat gets the box only if the firm grants the right to the Client role, over their own projects, without notes or tasks. On the demo the answer is built from the records without an assistant. ## Pointing at something with @ Link: /manual/ai#pointing-with-at Type @ in either Ask box to bring a project, item, specification or meeting into the question. 1. In either Ask box — the home page's or a project's — type **@**. 2. Pick a project, a library item, a specification or a meeting, as in a brief's notes ([The brief](/manual/projects#the-brief)). For example: *what palette did @Larkin Hotel use?*, *would @Oak Lounge Chair suit this lobby?* 3. What you point at shows as a chip under the box (× takes it off) and goes with the question. #### What goes with the question - a library item or a specification — in full; - a meeting — as its takeaway, decisions and open questions; - a project — only as its areas, room types, direction, palette and materials, never its item list. Only records you may see go: a project outside your list is left out. The answer names each as you wrote it, linked to the record. Tip: On a project, pointing at another project keeps that answer to you: it is not offered to *Share with the project*, so a colleague kept from the other job never reads it there. # Your own settings Alerts, Slack or Teams, two-factor, your password, your calendar and your phone. ## Which alerts Link: /manual/your-settings#which-alerts Choose which kinds of alert reach you. Everything in this chapter is what each person sets for themselves on their profile, whatever their role. Where to find it: Your name → **Your profile** → *Which alerts* On [your profile](/profile), under *Which alerts*, uncheck the kinds you do not want: task notes, comments, approvals, proposals, vendor answers, email in, reminders… An unchecked kind is not raised for you at all. [Screenshot: Which alerts on your profile: uncheck the kinds you do not want.] Alerts about a project reach the people who can still act on it. Someone taken off a project stops hearing about it, and staff without a seat are not alerted (invitations and access changes still reach them). #### The portal's account Owners and administrators also have **The portal’s account**: the month's included AI actions nearly or wholly used, the firm's own AI key close to its end date or refused by its provider, storage near its limit, mail that could not be sent — and, for whoever records payments, each client invoice that goes overdue on their projects. #### Clients and contractors Clients and contractors start on the daily digest, and every client gets a short **Your week** email on Mondays when something happened on their projects. ## Your own Slack or Teams Link: /manual/your-settings#your-own-slack-or-teams Your alerts posted to a Slack DM or a Teams channel of your own. Where to find it: Your name → **Your profile** → **Your Slack or Teams** Besides the firm's channels (under [Settings → Integrations](/settings?tab=integrations#chat)), each person can have their own. #### Connecting a channel - When the site has a Slack app, **Add to Slack** lets you pick a channel on Slack's own screen and makes the hook for you. - Otherwise paste the channel's incoming-webhook address. - Teams always takes a pasted address. This works the same for the firm's channels and for your own. #### What it posts On your profile, **Your Slack or Teams** takes a webhook for a Slack DM or a Teams channel of yours and posts only your alerts there: the kinds you choose, for the projects you are on, every project you can see, or a chosen set — just like your calendar. Firm channels under [Settings](/manual/administration#settings) can be limited to chosen projects the same way. #### Your calendar there too With the Calendar on, each of your channels — and your Slack direct messages, when the firm has connected its workspace — can also take a **morning calendar digest** at your own time on the days you choose, and **meeting reminders** 15 minutes, an hour or a day before the meetings you are expected at. Invoices due appear only if you may see money; a quiet day posts nothing unless you ask. See [*The calendar in Slack and Teams*](/manual/your-portal#slack-teams-calendar). ## Two-factor sign-in and devices Link: /manual/your-settings#two-factor-sign-in-and-devices A code from an authenticator app at every sign-in, and every device you are signed in on. Where to find it: Your name → **Your profile** → **Security** Setting it up 1. On your profile, under **Security**, start two-factor sign-in. 2. Scan the code with any authenticator app. 3. Type the six digits it shows. 4. Keep the ten recovery codes somewhere safe. The app lists it as *PortSpace.io · your firm's name* (for example *PortSpace.io · Studio Demo*), with your email under it, so a search in the app for either name finds it. A code set up before keeps its older name and keeps working; rename it in the app, or switch two-step off and on to scan it again. From then on every sign-in, by Google or by emailed link, also asks for the code. [Screenshot: Security on your profile: two-factor sign-in, your devices and your password.] #### Your devices The same card lists every signed-in device with when it was last seen, and signs any of them out, or all but this one. #### When the firm requires it A firm can require two-factor sign-in from everyone on its team: the firm's owner under [Settings → Two-factor sign-in for the team](/settings?tab=security#two-factor), or PortSpace from the console. Clients and trades are not asked; they sign in by one-time email link. - Each person without it has seven days, from when the rule started or from when their seat was made, whichever is later, with an amber line across the top counting down and **Set it up now**. - After that the portal opens only on the setup page, with **Sign out** beside it, until it is on. - While the firm requires it you cannot switch yours off. Tip: On a new phone, ask whoever manages people to **Reset two-factor…** on your card under People. You are signed out everywhere and set it up again at your next sign-in. The reset is in the firm's settings log. The demo never asks for it. ## Your password Link: /manual/your-settings#your-password Optional: most people sign in by emailed link, Google or Microsoft. Where to find it: Your name → [**Your profile**](/profile#password) → **Security → Password** Setting a password 1. On your profile, under **Security → Password**, press **Set a password**. 2. Type one of twelve characters or more, twice. 3. From then on **Sign in with a password** on the sign-in page works from anywhere. The emailed link still works too. - **Change password** asks for the current one first; saving signs out your other devices. - **Remove password** takes it away, and you sign in by link again. - Two-factor sign-in, if on, asks for its code after the password as after a link. Clients and trades sign in by link and are not offered a password; the demo has none. #### A temporary password If you are locked out, PortSpace support can set a temporary password for you. You get an email saying so; the password itself reaches you another way. Sign in with it under **Sign in with a password**: the portal opens on **Choose your password**, and nothing else opens until you have saved your own (or signed out to use the emailed link). #### Clearing someone's password Whoever manages people sees on a person's card under [People](/people) whether they sign in with a password of their own, and **Clear password…** takes it away. They are told by email and sign in by link from then on. Careful: Nobody can set another person's password from the firm's side. Owners' passwords are cleared only by another owner. Both are in the firm's settings log. ## Your calendar and your time zone Link: /manual/your-settings#your-calendar-and-your-time-zone Your dates in your own calendar app, and your own "today". Where to find it: Your name → **Your profile** → **Calendar feed** and *Your details* #### Calendar feed **Calendar feed** on your profile gives an address to add to Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar: your tasks due (with Team tasks on), meetings, items shipping and landing, pick lists, proposal expiries and invoice due dates, kept up to date on its own. It holds the same things as [Projects → Calendar](/calendar), for your projects unless you choose all or a chosen set there. #### Your time zone **Your time zone** (under *Your details*) is the firm's unless you set your own. Someone working from another city sets theirs, and "today", what counts as overdue for them, and the hours on meeting forms follow it. ## On your phone Link: /manual/your-settings#on-your-phone Put the portal on your home screen; photos taken without signal upload later; what works by touch. The portal can be put on a phone's home screen like an app, with your firm's name and icon: - iPhone: Share → Add to Home Screen. - Android: Install. On a site with no signal, **Take a photo** on a project still works. The pictures wait on the phone and upload on their own when the connection is back, and a note at the corner says when they have gone up. On a phone the portal is laid out for a thumb: **Menu** and your initial open as sheets across the screen, lists read as cards, menus of actions rise from the foot, and a long form keeps its **Save** at the foot while you fill it in. Everything works the same, with three exceptions that need a mouse and room: arranging a **swatch board**, moving pieces on a **layout** and tracing a room are done on a larger screen. On a phone those open for looking at, with a note saying so; showing them to the client, their PDFs and exports, approvals, statuses, quantities, notes and photos all work by touch. # Running your portal Modules, logo and color, plan and billing, email, importing, backups and security. ## Starting a portal Link: /manual/your-portal#starting-a-portal You go straight into a new portal: the example project, five first questions, a checklist that checks itself off, and an email to confirm. 1. At portspace.io, choose **Start your free portal**. 2. Give the firm name, its address and the owner's email. 3. You go straight in as the owner: the portal arrives with the example project, and nothing waits on an email. 4. The first screen is five questions, on one screen: what the firm calls its people, whether it sells to clients or only specifies, which parts it will use, the kind of software it is coming from, and whether email should go to your clients and vendors while you try PortSpace. The usual answers are already picked; **Skip, I'll do it later** keeps them as picked. Each answer is a setting the portal already reads. The word for your people (employees, team members, staff, or your own) names the Employee role and is used on People and roles, seats, invitations, the expense queue and this manual; [Settings → Firm](/settings?tab=firm#people-word) changes it. *We only specify* switches pricing and procurement off; the parts are the modules under [Settings → Work → Modules](/settings?tab=work#modules); the software sets the workspace style. The email question starts on **Not yet — keep them in the outbox for me to review**: email to clients, vendors, contractors and consultants waits in the [outbox](/settings?tab=email#outbox) (it is the *Pause email to people outside the firm* choice), while your own team's alerts and everyone's sign-in links go. **Yes, send as usual.** sends everything as it happens. Skipping keeps *Not yet*. Either way it changes under [Settings → Email → **Outgoing email**](/settings?tab=email#mail-pause). While email to clients waits, Finish setting up carries **Start sending email to clients and vendors**, with the held emails waiting under it; the step checks itself off once email goes as usual. A portal that existed before the question is never asked it. We also email the owner a **Confirm your email** link. Until it is used, the portal sends no email on the firm's behalf to anyone else: invitations, proposals, invoices, presentations, statements, purchase orders and RFQs say *Confirm your email first* with **Resend** beside it. Everything else works, from the example and specifying to spec books, pictures, the assistant and downloads. The first step of **Finish setting up** shows the address the link went to, **Resend**, and **Wrong address?** to correct a typo (the link then goes to the new address). Signed out before confirming? On the portal's sign-in page, enter the address you signed up with: the emailed sign-in link or code also confirms it. A portal whose owner never confirms is reminded once, three days before, and removed after 14 days with everything in it. After that, the home page of the owner and administrators carries a **Finish setting up** card that checks itself off as the first steps are done. **Remind me next week** puts it away for seven days and **Dismiss** for good; [Help → **Setting up**](/setting-up) brings it back. The card is twelve steps — logo, brand color and email sender, time zone, sales tax and currency, markup, item numbering, team, showing your principal, seeing the portal as your people do, payments, first project, retire the example. A firm that only specifies sees nine: tax, markup and payments are left out. A firm that answered *Not yet* to the email question also has **Start sending email to clients and vendors**. Until the owner confirms their email, **Confirm your email** comes first, and stays in view even on a card put away. Two things are asked at the moment they matter instead: the first spec book, proposal or presentation made without a logo offers to add one to the cover, and the first proposal or invoice with no sales tax set asks for the rate. **Not now** stops either asking again. The firm address given at signup goes straight onto the invoice layout, and every portal starts invitation-only: the owner can let everyone at the firm's own email domain sign straight in under [Firm → People and roles → Invite and sign-in](/people#invite). **Show your principal** is for whoever set the portal up when the decision is someone else's: often a senior designer bringing PortSpace to the firm's owner. It offers a short film of PortSpace — *The whole job* (2:22) or *AI in the work* (2:02) — with **Copy link** and **Email it**. Email it opens your own mail program with a short message, its subject and the film's link filled in, to change as you like and send to whoever you choose; PortSpace sends nothing, so it uses none of the portal's email. **See or change the message** shows it first. Copying or emailing checks the step off; **Not now** puts it away. [Screenshot: Finish setting up: the first steps, each checked as it is done, with Show your principal.] ## The demo portal Link: /manual/your-portal#the-demo-portal Anyone can walk into a demo portal of their own, as principal, designer or client. portspace.io → **Try the demo** walks anyone into a demo portal as a visitor: - **as the principal** — everything, with a short tour in the corner; - **as a designer** — projects and specifications, no firm-wide money; - **as the client** — their one project, without cost or markup. The green bar switches between the three. Each prospect gets their own portal, built the first time they open their link and kept, so they come back to their own work rather than a clean slate. **Start over** in the green bar puts the example project back. A portal nobody has opened in a fortnight is taken down, and rebuilt if they return. On the shared demo the example project cannot be deleted, archived or renumbered, so every visitor finds it. On a prospect's own portal it is theirs to remove. Its makers, vendors and people are invented, its outgoing mail is paused and the shared directory is not shown, so nothing real can be reached from it. Tip: Paying on a demo — a plan, a bundle of AI actions, a client's pay page — goes to Stripe's test side, never the live one. The page carries a red *TEST MODE — no real money* bar, and no card is charged. ## Sending email to people outside the firm Link: /manual/your-portal#sending-email-to-people-outside-the-firm Every email to a vendor or client is shown to you before it goes. Every send to a vendor or client — a purchase order, a proposal, a transmittal, an issue set, a statement — shows the email first: from, to, subject and the words as they will go, with the link. - *Send* on that preview is what sends. - *Back* changes nothing. Nothing leaves the firm unseen. #### Sending it from your own mail Would rather send it yourself? **Copy for Outlook or Gmail** puts the email on the clipboard with the firm's look — logo, color, the button for the link, the closing line — ready to paste into your own mail program. *Copy plain text* gives the bare words. See also: /manual/your-portal#emails-held-for-approval, /manual/your-portal#branded-email ## Modules: what your firm does Link: /manual/your-portal#modules-what-your-firm-does Switch off what your firm does not do; the menus, tabs and pages go, the records stay. Where to find it: [Settings → Work → **Modules**](/settings?tab=work#modules) #### The first questions The owner's first sign-in asks, on one screen, *Do you sell to your clients, or only specify?* (*We only specify* switches pricing and procurement off) and *Which of these will you use?* — the brief, commissions, time tracking, expenses, team tasks, the calendar, the client portal, receiving, installation schedules, transmittals, visualizations, presentations, vendor price lists — and shows only those areas. Commissions start off because most firms do not pay them. It also asks what the firm calls its people and *Which kind of software are you coming from?* — *None*, *A web-based spec system with tabbed item pages*, *A desktop spec database* or *Something else*. The two spec systems set the firm's [workspace style](/settings?tab=firm#workspace-style) to the familiar layout for them (Tabbed or Project-first); the others set PortSpace's own. Left unanswered, the style stays as it is. *Skip, I'll do it later* leaves everything as it is. [Settings → Work → **Modules**](/settings?tab=work#modules) changes any of it later, and the owner can have the questions asked again from there. Off hides the menus, tabs and pages; the records stay. [Screenshot: Modules under Settings → Work: each area of the portal, on or off.] #### Procurement A firm that specifies but doesn't buy — the client or a purchasing agent places the orders — can switch **Procurement** off. - Price requests, purchase orders, expediting, receiving, pick lists and the vendor links go from the menus, the project's tabs, Home, the Overview, the Dashboard, search and the daily alerts. - A spec shows its quantity and price without order tracking. - The project's Order tab becomes **Installation**, since installation stays its own choice. The orders already recorded are kept, and switching it back on shows them again. #### A lean studio A design-only firm whose architect of record runs the job in Procore or Autodesk Forma can switch off what it does elsewhere, each on its own: - **Team tasks** — Tasks, the tasks on each project's Team page and on an item, task lines on Home and the Overview, and the task and overdue-task alerts. Meetings stay, and so does time tracking, which is its own switch. - **Calendar** — the Calendar page, its feed for Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar, and the calendar links on Home, the Dashboard and the Installation tab. It is its own switch: with Team tasks off and the Calendar on, the calendar shows meetings, site visits, deliveries, pick lists and due dates, and no tasks. - **Client portal** — no client seats or client invitations, nothing sent to a client for approval (internal reviews still go to colleagues), and no proposal links for a client to open. A client who already has a seat sees a page saying the projects aren't shared here, and nothing more. - **Pricing, proposals and invoicing** — *budget only*. Each item keeps a price, read as its budget ("Budget each", "Budget"); the project's budget stays and its Budget page shows the budget against what is specified, by area. Markup and cost, proposals, change orders, invoices, payments and pay links, statements, deposits, vendor bills, the money reports and Home's money figures are hidden, and the spec book and issue sets are made without prices. Nothing is deleted: switched back on, every task, proposal and invoice is there as it was. #### Reaching a switched-off page A module that is off hides its menu entries and tabs. If someone reaches one of its pages by an old link or a bookmark, it says that it is switched off and that nothing was deleted. An administrator is offered the switch; anyone else is told who can flip it. ## Settings, logo and color Link: /manual/your-portal#settings-logo-and-color One brand on everything you send, the seven tabs of Settings, and AI. #### The seven tabs of Settings | Tab | What is on it | | **Firm** | The firm name, the brand and letterheads, what you call your people, the firm's day and time zone, workspace style, project lists. | | **Work** | Modules, specification fields, printouts, layouts, welcome tours. | | **Time** | Timesheets and expenses, when either module is on. | | **Money** | Tax and currency, markup, invoice layout, payments, accounting, books closed, and a link to Plan and billing. | | **Email** | Outgoing email, approval, how email looks and the firm's signature, your own domains, and the outbox's summary. | | **Integrations** | AI, Slack and Teams, import. | | **Security and data** | Two-factor sign-in for the team, audit and retention, backups and your data, anonymous usage counts. | The open tab is in the address, and you see only the tabs your role may change. The box above the tabs finds a setting by name; a link to a card, such as the outbox, opens its tab. #### One brand, everywhere Where to find it: [Settings → Firm → **Brand**](/settings?tab=firm#brand) The Brand is what your clients and vendors see on everything from you — proposals, invoices, statements, purchase orders, requests for quotation, spec books and issue sets, transmittals, briefs, expense reports, boards and layouts, invitations and every email, and the pages they open from a link. Set it once: - the firm name; - the **Logo and name in the bar**; - a **Logo on documents and email** of its own — not cropped to the bar; an SVG is drawn sharp at print size; *Print the logo* turns it off everywhere; - one **Color** — also the portal's highlight: buttons, links, the current tab; - a **Typeface** — Helvetica, the standard, one of six open-license fonts embedded in each PDF, or [your own](/manual/your-portal#your-own-typeface). A letter the typeface lacks is printed as its nearest plain letter, and email falls back to a close standard font where the reader's mail shows no web fonts; - the **Letterhead** — the address under the name, phone, website, email, tax registration number, and small print at the foot of every page. The email's sender name, reply-to address, closing line and signature are under [Settings → Email → **How email looks**](/settings?tab=email#email-look). Check it before you save 1. On the right, pick a document — the email, an invoice, a proposal, a purchase order, a spec book's cover or a transmittal. 2. **Show the preview** draws a sample of it with the brand as it stands on the page, before you save. 3. **Save brand** saves it all at once. 4. **Email me a sample** sends you an email as saved. [Screenshot: The Brand card: logos, color, typeface and letterhead, with a preview of a document on the right.] Spec books follow the brand color unless the **Spec book color** under it gives them one of their own, and whoever builds a book can still pick another for that one. The invoice layout keeps only what invoices alone say (title, columns, terms, how to pay, the closing line). Dashboard tiles lay out in even rows (eight is four and four, six is three and three). #### Other letterheads Where to find it: [Settings → Firm → Brand → **Other letterheads**](/settings?tab=firm#letterheads) A firm with a second studio, office or division gives each its own letterhead. A desktop spec database's several letterheads land here too. 1. Press **+ Letterhead**. 2. Give the name only you see, and the **Name it prints** (blank prints the firm name). 3. Fill in the address, phone, website, email, tax number, small print and, if it differs, a color. A part left blank prints the Brand's; the logo and typeface are always the Brand's. 4. **Save letterheads** saves them. - A project prints on one of them from its **Areas and rooms** page (**Letterhead**: the Brand or another). - A purchase order, proposal or invoice can pick its own beside its PDF buttons (**Letterhead**: the project's, the Brand, or another). Its PDF, the vendor's and client's copies and the emailed attachment follow. - Every document the project prints — spec books, issue sets, transmittals, statements, fund requests, reports, the finish schedule, briefs and boards — takes the project's. - A print link can ask for another with *?letterhead=* and the letterhead's name in short (*main* is the Brand). [Screenshot: Other letterheads: one per studio, office or division.] #### The firm name [Settings → Firm → **Firm name**](/settings?tab=firm#firm-name) is the one name on everything that leaves the firm: invoices, orders, proposals, statements, email, invitations, the sign-in page, the pages clients and vendors open, and online payment. Changing it there changes it in all of them, the bar's text included; it is recorded in the settings history. Where the old name is still written in the firm's own words — the letterhead address, the small print, the email signature, the invoice terms, how to pay, the invoice's closing line — the card says which, and offers **Replace it there too** or **Leave it**. Nothing there is rewritten unless you say so. #### The logo in the bar Where to find it: [Settings → Firm → **Logo and name in the bar**](/settings?tab=firm#branding) 1. Drop an image on the card, or choose one. 2. Fit it: the portal shows it inside the exact frame the bar uses (wide, or square for a mark). Zoom and drag until it sits right. 3. A crisp copy is saved. SVGs go straight in. *Text in the bar* sits beside it. Documents and email print this logo too, unless the Brand has a **Logo on documents and email** of its own. Tip: The brand **Color** is the highlight color of the portal itself as well — buttons, links, the current tab. Keep it dark enough to carry white text. #### AI actions and the meter AI features are part of the Per seat plan (complimentary and trial portals have them too). - A Per seat portal has so many actions per seat a month (thirty unless the console says otherwise), pooled. - The Free plan has a few a month for the whole portal (ten unless the console says otherwise) on PortSpace's AI. Receipts read for you and a portal's own AI key stay with the Per seat plan. - Both are shown on [Plan and billing](/billing#ai) and in Settings. A question to Ask — on a project or from the home page — a meeting summary, a brief read or a product-page read is one action. Receipts and questions to the manual are read free, within a daily ceiling. More is bought up front, never billed after use. Under *Buy up front* on [Plan and billing](/billing#ai) an administrator chooses a bundle — 50 for $10, 250 for $45 or 1,000 for $160 unless the console says otherwise — paid once by card through Stripe. - Bought actions are spent only once the month's included ones are used, the oldest bundle first. - Each bundle lapses twelve months after it was bought; the page says how many are left and when the oldest lapse. - **Bought AI actions are not refundable**, as the payment page and the receipt say. - With no included or bought AI actions left, AI waits for the month to turn — nothing is ever added to an invoice for AI. Owners and administrators are told when four fifths of the month's included AI actions are used (with what is left bought, or what more would cost), and again when they and any bought ones run out. A portal on its own key is never limited. A daily ceiling guards against a runaway. #### Which AI reads your material Where to find it: Settings → Integrations → **AI** (administrators) Choose PortSpace's AI, or **Use your own AI key**: paste an API key from your AI provider account and PortSpace works out which kind it is. A model name is optional; left blank, the provider's recommended model is used. On PortSpace's AI the heavy work — Ask, reading briefs, concepts, meeting summaries, look-ups — runs on the strongest model we offer, and plain reading (receipts, product pages, the manual) on a faster one, as the operator sets them. With your own key, receipts, meeting notes, project questions and product pages go straight from the portal to your account and never through ours. The key is sealed on the server and never shown again. - **Test** makes one tiny request and shows the reply, so a wrong key is caught before anyone needs it. - Where the provider gave your key an end date, type it under **Key expires on**. The portal's owners and administrators are told a week before, on the last day and on the day itself. PortSpace also tries the key once a day, telling them the same day if the provider refuses it. - A new key pasted without a new date leaves the old date behind. [Screenshot: The AI card: PortSpace's AI or your own key, with Test and the key's end date.] The site administrator can withhold own keys from a portal (on its card in the console, *Own AI key: not allowed*). The choice then offers PortSpace's AI only, a sealed key is set aside rather than used, and every request counts against the allowance. ## Your own typeface Link: /manual/your-portal#your-own-typeface Upload your firm's font and it goes on every document, client page and email. Where to find it: [Settings → Firm → Brand → **Your own font**](/settings?tab=firm#brand) (owners and administrators) A firm with a typeface of its own can put it on everything it sends instead of one of the built-in faces. Only an owner or administrator can upload it, and only when the firm holds a license that lets it embed the font in documents it sends — most desktop font licenses do not, so check with the foundry first. Upload it 1. Under **Your own font**, choose the **Regular** and **Bold** files, and the **Italic** and **Bold italic** if you have them: TTF, OTF, WOFF or WOFF2, up to 2 MB each. 2. Check *We hold a license that lets us embed this font in documents we send*. 3. **Upload and preview** checks each file. A file that is not a well-formed font, is too large, has no plain letters, or loses letters when it is made small enough to go inside a PDF is refused with the reason; a TTF often works where an OTF of the same font does not. 4. Look at each document in the preview on the right: it is drawn with your font before anything is saved. 5. **Save brand** puts it on every PDF (embedded), the pages your clients and vendors open, and your email. The built-in face you choose above stays underneath: any letter your font lacks (a € sign, an accented capital) is printed in it, on paper and on screen. Most mail clients — Gmail and Outlook among them — ignore web fonts in email and show the built-in face's nearest standard font; Apple Mail and the iPhone show yours. Documents and client pages always do. **Remove this font** goes back to the built-in face and deletes the files. The files are kept with your firm's own files, rebuilt without any of the small programs a font can carry, and served only to your own portal and the pages your clients and vendors open from it. ## Plan and billing Link: /manual/your-portal#plan-and-billing Your plan, seats, projects and storage; paying, changing and canceling. Where to find it: [Firm → **Plan and billing**](/billing) (administrators) The page shows where the portal stands — trial, active, complimentary or paused — with staff seats, active projects and files stored against the plan's limits. Staff seats are people at the firm and invitations holding a seat; clients and contractors are free. Files stored is everything the portal keeps on disk: documents, pictures with the sizes made of them, 3D models, exports and imports. It is measured every hour, and a file uploaded since counts at once. [Screenshot: Plan and billing: the plan, seats, projects and storage against their limits.] #### The trial A new portal starts with everything on for its first days (the trial). When they are up it moves to the free plan by itself, never to a closed portal. Nothing is charged either way: with no subscription the page says *Nothing is billed*. The owners are emailed three days before (with who will lose a seat) and on the day, and in the last three days the home page says so too. *subscribing* during the trial ends it that day, and the change page says so. #### The two plans - **Free** — one seat, three projects, no card, no time limit. *Use the free plan* on that page ends the trial early. - **Per seat** — unlimited projects. The seats themselves are added and removed under [Firm → People and roles → Seats](/people#seats); Stripe, once connected, mirrors them. Plans are chosen and paid through Stripe from that page, and the same page holds invoices, the card and cancellation (**Invoices, card and cancellation**). Buying — seats, room, AI actions or a term — needs *Portal settings*. A team manager hands seats out but does not buy them. **A sale price.** When PortSpace runs a sale (a *Launch offer*, say) and your firm signed up during it, your first purchase is charged the sale price automatically — no code — for the time the sale says (often your first 12 months), then the regular price from that renewal on, by itself. Plan and billing shows it, for example *Launch offer: $49 a seat a month until 8 Oct 2027, then $69*, and the renewal email names the price. Seats added meanwhile are at the sale price too. A coupon does not combine with a sale: at the first purchase the better of the two applies, and while you are on the sale price a coupon is not taken. #### Seats On the **per-seat** plan a seat is an account for one of your employees — clients, contractors and vendors are free. The same page grows or shrinks the seats, prorated; invitations stop at the seat count. Careful: Moving to the free plan asks first and names who loses a seat. The person choosing it keeps the one seat (at the trial's end, the owner who signed up). Colleagues see a page asking for a seat until seats are bought, and waiting invitations stop reserving one. Nothing they made is touched, and a confirmation is emailed. A paused portal shows everyone a notice and keeps every record until it is reopened. More AI actions are bought on the same page, up front — see [AI actions and the meter](/manual/your-portal#ai-actions-and-the-meter). See also: /manual/your-portal#leaving-portspace ## Your own email domains Link: /manual/your-portal#your-own-email-domains Send from your own domain, receive project mail at it, and pause outgoing email. #### Sending from your domain Where to find it: [Settings → Email → **Your own email domains**](/settings?tab=email#domains) 1. Add a sending domain (mail.yourfirm.com). 2. Put the DNS records it shows in place. 3. Press Verify. From then on every email the portal sends leaves from that address rather than portspace's. Below it, name a receiving domain of your own for project addresses (jobs.yourfirm.com) and point its MX where the card says. Otherwise projects receive at the portal's own address. [Screenshot: Your own email domains: a sending domain with its DNS records, and a receiving domain for project addresses.] #### Pausing outgoing email [Settings → Email → **Outgoing email**](/settings?tab=email#mail-pause) chooses who the portal emails: - **Email goes out as usual** — everything goes as it happens. - **Pause email to people outside the firm** — email to clients, vendors, contractors, consultants and any address that is not one of your own staff waits in the [outbox](/settings?tab=email#outbox), client and contractor logins included. Mail to your team (alerts, digests, assignments, mentions) still goes, unless you also check **Also pause email to our own team**. - **Pause all email** — every email waits, for a quiet day or while testing. A new portal's first screen asks the same thing: *While you're trying PortSpace, should emails go to your clients and vendors?* **Not yet** (the usual answer, and what Skip keeps) is **Pause email to people outside the firm** without the team switch; **Yes, send as usual.** is the first choice. While that first-run pause holds an email, the message where you sent it says *Email to clients and vendors is paused while you try PortSpace. Start sending in Settings → Email.* Sign-in links and codes, confirm-your-email links and security email always go, whichever you choose, so nobody is locked out. With the approval hold on as well, a paused email waits in the outbox, not under Waiting to go out. #### Reviewing held email Held emails stay in the outbox until you send or discard them: switching a pause off sends nothing by itself. The count shows on Settings → Email and, while any wait, on the Finish setting up card on Home. - Open an email to read it whole: who it is to, the subject, the message and its attachments. - **Send** lets it go. While email is still paused for that address, the portal asks first and sends just that one; the pause stays as it is. - **Discard** asks first, and the outbox keeps a line saying who discarded it and when. A discarded email is never sent. - Check several for **Send selected** or **Discard selected**, or press **Discard all held**. Owners and administrators can do this, and anyone whose role pays expenses. An invitation held while paused is sent again from People, since its link is never kept; it says so on the People page. #### What never gets email Three things are never emailed, whatever the switches say. The outbox shows them as *never sent* with the reason, and they cannot be sent again from it: - anything about the **example project** — its alerts still appear in the portal, but no one is mailed about an invented hotel, and they are left out of digests and the weekly client summary; - anything from a **demo portal**; - addresses at test domains that reach nobody (*.example*, *.invalid*, *.test*, *example.com*). ## Emails held for approval Link: /manual/your-portal#emails-held-for-approval Email to people outside the firm can wait for a manager's or owner's look. Where to find it: [Settings → Email → Approval → **Hold emails to people outside the firm for approval**](/settings?tab=email#mail-approval) Switched on, anything the portal would email to someone who is not on your team — a client, a vendor, a contractor, a rep — waits for a look before it goes: proposals, invoices, statements, issue sets, transmittals, price requests, purchase orders and their notices, expediting chases, approval requests, client invitations, meeting invitations, alerts and the weekly summary to clients. Mail to your own people, sign-in links and codes, and a note to someone about their own account are never held. Under the switch, check the kinds that need nobody's approval; they go straight out as before. Off (the default), email goes out as it happens. #### Who approves - The project's **managers**, for email about their project. A manager who does not see prices leaves proposals, invoices, statements, orders and price requests to the owners. - The **owners**, for anything. Email about no project goes to the owners. - A manager may approve their own email. #### Deciding on a held email Where you pressed send says *Held for approval by …* and nothing has gone yet. The approvers see a count in the bell and a line on Home, and [**Waiting to go out**](/outgoing) (under Projects) lists each one: the email exactly as it will look, with its files (the proposal or invoice PDF, say), who wrote it and from where. On each: - **Approve and send**; - **Edit, then send** — subject, message, recipients (several addresses, separated by commas; an invitation goes as it is); - **Send back** with a note to the writer; - **Cancel** when it went from your own mailbox instead — it is marked canceled in the outbox, and *Copy the text* on the email's page gives you its words to paste. [Screenshot: Waiting to go out: each held email as it will look, with Approve and send, Edit, Send back and Cancel.] Only one decision counts, however many press at once, so it is never sent twice. The writer is told in the portal when it goes, comes back or is canceled (and by email if they take alerts by email); no reminder emails are sent. Every step is in the project's Activity and on the order, invoice or proposal it came from. An email approved while outgoing email is paused waits in the outbox until it is back on; the outbox never sends a held email round the approval. ## Branded email Link: /manual/your-portal#branded-email Every email carries your logo, color, typeface and the sender's signature. Where to find it: [Settings → Email → **How email looks**](/settings?tab=email#email-look) Everything the portal emails (approval requests, proposals, invoices, statements, vendor links, invitations, sign-in links) goes out with your logo, color and typeface from the [Brand](/settings?tab=firm#brand), a button for the link, and the sender name, reply-to address and closing line set under **How email looks**. Every email a person sends ends with their signature, and the foot carries your closing line, address and contact line. *Email me a sample* shows the result, signed as you. #### Email signatures Two signatures, plain or HTML pasted from a signature service: - **The firm's**, under [Settings → Email → How email looks → **Signature**](/settings?tab=email#signature): a template with {name} {title} {email} {firm} {phone} {website}, or HTML with the same fields inside it. Left empty it is the sender's name over the firm's. - **A person's own**, on their [profile → **Email signature**](/profile#signature): plain text, or *Paste HTML from your signature service*. **Which one goes:** a person's own signature replaces the firm's on what they send; without one, the firm's is filled in for them. An owner or administrator can switch on **Firm signature only**, and then everyone signs with the firm's and the ones on profiles are ignored. **Which emails carry one:** what a person sends — proposals, approval requests, purchase orders and price requests, invoices, statements, transmittals, replies on a proposal, and the invitations they send (People → Invite, Send again, and inviting a client or contractor to a project), signed as the person inviting. An invitation held for approval is signed when it goes. Never alerts, digests, sign-in links, or an invitation the portal sends by itself. It comes after the message and its button, before the foot; the invitation's link stays its own. - Pasted HTML is cleaned on the server when it is saved and again whenever an email is built: tables, text, links (https, email and phone), images hosted on https and simple inline styles stay; scripts, style blocks, forms, frames, SVG, event attributes, comments and javascript: or data: addresses go. - At most about 10 KB of HTML and five images. - The preview shows exactly what will be sent, in a frame that runs nothing, with the plain-text version made from it for mail that shows text. A reply goes to the person who sent it — or, for what the portal sends by itself, the project's manager — and the preview before each send says where replies to it will go. Calendar invitations name the portal they came from, not PortSpace. ## Slack and Teams Link: /manual/your-portal#slack-and-teams What happens in the portal, told where the team already reads. Where to find it: [Settings → Integrations → **Slack and Teams**](/settings?tab=integrations#chat) (its own tab) Each event goes once, with a link back to the record — an approval decided, a proposal accepted, a vendor's answer, an arrival with a claim, someone mentioned. It can go to: - **A firm channel** — everything, or the kinds you pick, for every project. On the Slack and Teams tab, paste an incoming-webhook address, choose kinds and projects, and send a test. - **A project's channel** — a channel that follows one project. The project's **Areas and rooms** tab (under Specify) shows which channels it posts to, and **Add a channel for this project** opens the same form with the project already chosen. - **A person's own** — see [Your own Slack or Teams](/manual/your-settings#your-own-slack-or-teams); nothing for an administrator to do. Several channels can take different kinds. [Screenshot: Slack and Teams: firm channels, Connect Slack workspace and a test message.] #### Direct messages, with nothing to set up 1. An administrator presses **Connect Slack workspace** once on the Slack and Teams tab. 2. Approve on Slack's screen. 3. From then on everyone at the firm whose portal email is in that workspace gets their alerts as a Slack direct message, the kinds they have not switched off. Clients and contractors never get Slack or Teams alerts. Each person's profile shows it, with an off switch, a **Send me a test message** button, and a box for a different Slack email when the address on their Slack profile is not the one they sign in with here. The same test button sits on the Slack and Teams tab. *Disconnect* stops the messages and leaves channels alone. #### The calendar in Slack and Teams With the [Calendar](/manual/your-portal#modules-what-your-firm-does) switched on, each channel has two more choices under its kinds and projects. Owners and administrators set them for firm and project channels; each person sets their own. - **Post a morning calendar digest** — at a time you set (8:00 to start, in the firm's time zone; a person's own channel and Slack DMs use their own zone), on the days you check (Monday to Friday to start). It lists today's meetings with their hours, deliveries and expected ship dates, site visits and installation, deadlines and, with Team tasks on, tasks due — each a link, with **Open the calendar** at the end. A firm or project channel lists invoices due only when **Include invoices due** is checked, since everyone in the channel reads it; a person's own lists them only if they may see money. - **Meeting reminders** — 15 minutes, an hour, or a day before (any of them). A firm or project channel is reminded of the meetings on its projects; a person's own channel and Slack DMs of the meetings they are expected at. A quiet day posts nothing unless **Post even when nothing's on** is checked. Reminders are worked out from the meeting as it is when they go: a meeting moved is reminded at its new hour, one deleted is not reminded at all, and none goes twice. Nothing is posted to clients or contractors, nothing about the example project, and a demo portal never posts. Switching the Calendar off stops both. ## Importing what you already have Link: /manual/your-portal#importing-what-you-already-have Bring projects, specifications, contacts and products in from a spreadsheet or another program. Where to find it: [Settings → Integrations → **Import**](/settings?tab=integrations#import), or the [product library's import](/products/import) 1. Say what the file holds — specifications, the project list, vendors and manufacturers, or clients. 2. Bring the file in one of three ways: **Upload a file** (CSV or Excel, or for specifications an Access database from a desktop spec system), **Paste a link** to a Google Sheet or an Excel workbook on OneDrive or SharePoint, or **Paste cells** copied from any spreadsheet. 3. Check the column meanings it guessed, and change any that are wrong. 4. Press Import. Nothing is written until you do. It takes projects and specifications, vendors and contacts, or the [product library](/products/import). [Screenshot: Import: say what the file holds, drop it in, and check each column's meaning.] Tip: *Download an example CSV* on either import page gives a file with every column the importer understands, to fill in or to check a vendor's file against. A link must be shared so that anyone with it can view it: in Google Sheets, **Share** → *General access* → **Anyone with the link** → *Viewer*; in Excel or OneDrive, **Share** → **Anyone with the link** → *Can view*. A link to one tab of a Google Sheet brings that tab. A work or school SharePoint link often asks for a sign-in; the page says so, and then you can download the file and upload it, or paste the cells. The link is kept with the import and named in each item's or product's history. **Paste cells** needs no sharing; pictures in cells come across a paste from Google Sheets in the browser, not from desktop Excel or Numbers. #### Files it knows Exports from the common design-business programs are recognized and loaded for you by the people who run the portal, so nothing lands in the wrong place. The page offers **Send it to us** with a note; the file is kept under the portal's documents and the support address is told. You hear back at your portal email, usually within a working day. *Map the columns myself instead* is there for anyone who would rather. For any other file, every column shows a guessed meaning you can change. **Send it to us** is offered too wherever the page cannot take a file: more rows than an import takes, an old .xls, a program's own backup file, or one over 95 MB (for that, paste a link to it in the note). #### The headings A title or a group row above the column headings is passed over and the page says so. If it chose the wrong row, type the row the headings are on and press *Read again*. Problems name the row as Excel numbers it. #### What becomes what Specifications become projects (matched by number), areas, products (matched by manufacturer and model), vendors and specifications. Width/depth/height are joined into dimensions and, where a room type and per-room quantity are given, the takeoff. Project and address-book rows match by number or company name and are brought up to date rather than doubled. A row already there keeps what it has wherever the file is blank — unless you check **Clear fields the file leaves empty** before importing, which empties a field where its mapped column is blank. #### Importing again - A row with an item number is matched by it. One without is matched to the specification of the same description in the same area that has no number either — so a second import of the same file doubles nothing, and a number added in the file is taken on by the row that had none. - The same item number twice in one file is said and the later row left out, not written over the first — except a row for another room type of the same item (one row per room type, as the template writes it), which adds that room type's takeoff line and its count to the item. A room type with no count takes the one its rows imply (quantity ÷ per room). - Totals and subtotal lines are skipped. - A field changed in the portal since the last import — an area merged, a supplier corrected, a quantity — stays as it is. The result lists which rows and fields it kept, your value beside the file's (with a word where a new cost sits under a kept price). - Every field an import changes goes in the item's history, old → new, as any edit does. - The product library does the same, except that a vendor's own price list still brings its prices. - An area written in another case ("lobby bar") joins the project's own. - A row with no quantity counts as one until it has one, and the result says how many there were. #### Moving in mid-project A *PO #* column (with *PO date*, if the file has one) records each order as placed in your previous system: an order under that number, Issued, with those rows as its lines, and nothing sent to anyone. Importing again adds only rows it does not have. A number another project's order already uses is not added to it: the import's notes name that order, its project and supplier, so you can give the rows their own number. #### Pictures Pictures come with specifications and the product library as they do with [a schedule](/manual/specifications#import-pictures): pictures over the cells, pictures placed in a cell (Excel's *Place in Cell*), *=IMAGE("https://…")*, and a picture column of web addresses (*Picture*, *Image URL*…). Next to the columns, the page says how many pictures the file has and of which kind, and a *Pictures* column counts each row's. Each row's pictures go on its library product, after any it already has, in the row's order; the same picture is never added twice. A specification row needs a manufacturer or a model for its product, and the import says so where a row with pictures has neither. An address that does not load keeps its place on the product, with **Try again** there. A Google Sheets link to one tab brings that tab with its pictures. A picture linked to a file on your computer (Excel's *Link to File*) is not in the workbook, and a Google Sheet whose picture column came through empty is said in the preview, with what to do. The product library also reads *Markup %*, *Lead time*, *Web Site* and a *Description* beside the name, leaves out a totals line at the foot, and files each vendor under an address-book card, making the card if there is none. #### Orders and invoices already sent, by hand - *Raise purchase order* → *Placed already, in another system?* keeps the order's number and date. Then mark it Issued, and Acknowledged if the vendor confirmed — Expediting follows, and nothing is emailed. - On a draft invoice, *Sent already from another system?* keeps its number and date. The due date moves with the date by the terms unless you set it by hand. Then *Mark sent (I sent it myself)*. - A line typed on an invoice starts taxed, as a proposal line does; uncheck it for a fee or a service that is not taxed. - Until a vendor gives a ship date, Expediting reckons one from the order date and the item's lead time, and says so. #### One company, several spellings Under Vendors and contacts, *Merge into…* on a card moves its orders, bills, quotes, products and history onto another card and renames the specifications that named it. On [Library → Makers](/manufacturers), *Merge two spellings…* does the same for a maker across the library, capitals included ("ARTERIORS" into "Arteriors"). Either way the old spelling is kept, and an import that uses it reads it as the new name. Renaming a card carries the new name onto its specifications the same way; renaming it to another card's name is refused, with the merge offered instead. On a project, renaming an area onto another area's name offers to merge them. #### Imported files A portal that came across from a design database keeps a page under [Firm → **Imported files**](/files): how many of the files its records point at came across, which are missing, and the exact list to ask the client to re-share. Files found on the firm's earlier drive with no record pointing at them are listed there too, under *From the old drive*: by project, each linking to the project's Files (where they have their own *From the old drive* list, and the cut sheets named by an item number are on that item too), and the rest by the month folder they were found in. Only the firm sees them; a client or a contractor is never shown them. ## Backups and your data Link: /manual/your-portal#backups-and-your-data The nightly backup, and a copy of everything whenever you want it. Where to find it: [Settings → Security and data → **Backups and your data**](/settings?tab=security#backups) The card shows the nightly backup and its recent runs. The whole database and the uploads are encrypted and copied each night to Cloudflare R2, where 35 days are kept; the server keeps the latest night. A library imported from another system is copied off-site too, file by file, as it changes. The card shows the size of your own files, not the site's backup. Restoring from a backup is a support request. The companies that process your firm's data for PortSpace (hosting, email, payments, and the AI features where you switch them on) are listed on the [sub-processors page](/dpa/subprocessors). Your account owners are told by email at least 7 days before a new one is added. #### Taking a copy - **Download everything** takes a copy of every record in the portal, whenever you like, as an Excel workbook with a sheet per table, or as JSON. - **Prepare the full export with files** adds every document, photo, receipt, recording, logo and product picture to the workbook and JSON as one zip. It is prepared in the background — it can run to gigabytes — with an alert and a download link when it is ready, and stays on the server for seven days. The workbook is for reading: amounts in whole units, each project's code beside its id, a **firm** sheet with the portal's settings and invoice layout, the invitations and the sent-mail log, and a Contents note on where each file sits in the full export. The JSON keeps cents and ids for other software. [Screenshot: Backups and your data: the nightly runs, Download everything and the full export with files.] ## Leaving PortSpace Link: /manual/your-portal#leaving-portspace Stop paying, take everything with you, or close the portal for good. Where to find it: [Plan and billing → **Leaving PortSpace**](/billing#leaving) It is said in one place. A portal on a subscription stops paying under *Invoices, card and cancellation* and runs to the end of what was paid, then moves to the free plan. A trial or free portal has no card and nothing to cancel. Before you start: - Take everything first under [Backups and your data](/manual/your-portal#backups-and-your-data): *Download everything* for the records, *Prepare the full export with files* for the records and every file. - Clients and vendors with links lose them when the portal closes, so send them what they need first. 1. To close the portal for good, an owner writes to support. 2. Sign-in stops at once; everything is kept thirty days in case you change your mind. 3. Then the records and files are removed for good (portspace closes it from the console, and a nightly job removes it on the day). ## Audit, retention and removal Link: /manual/your-portal#audit-retention-and-removal The activity log, the history of settings changes, and removing a person's details. Where to find it: [Settings → Security and data → **Audit and retention**](/settings?tab=security#audit) Download the portal's activity log (who opened or changed what, when) for as long as it is kept, and set how long that is. Shortening it asks first, since older entries are deleted that night. #### Changes to settings Under it, **Changes to settings** lists who changed which setting, from what to what, and when — kept for a year, or as long as the log if longer: - the tax rate, the currency, markup rules (firm and project), permissions and roles, modules, the AI choices (the key's expiry date included), the logo, the plan; - changes to people: a role, project access, a billable or cost rate, a commission, archiving or bringing someone back (and who took their work), an invitation, and a project's managers. [Screenshot: Audit and retention: the activity log to download, how long it is kept, and Changes to settings.] #### Removal Anyone can ask from their profile to be removed (it asks first, and tells them it was sent). The request waits under [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles), for another administrator to decide. The portal's only owner cannot ask: there is nobody to remove them. The profile says to make someone else an owner first, or to close the portal ([Leaving PortSpace](/manual/your-portal#leaving-portspace)). **Remove personal details** there — or on a former colleague's row under *Former people*, asked first, for someone who left without asking — closes the account and replaces the person's name and address everywhere the portal wrote them: the logs, meeting notes and attendees, comments, alerts, the search index. Their work stays on the projects as "Removed person". A signature a client typed to accept a proposal is kept as the record of what was agreed. **Download their data** on a card gives the person's own file first. What is kept and for how long — sessions, sign-in links, invitations, the mail log — is on the privacy page; the portal deletes each on time by itself. ## Security, status and the data processing agreement Link: /manual/your-portal#security-status-and-the-data-processing-agreement Three public pages for a firm's own due diligence. Three public pages, linked from every footer: - **Security** — where data lives, encryption, who can get in, backups, the third parties used, how to report a problem. - **Status** — live checks on the application, the database, the last nightly backup and the last restore rehearsal, with the recovery target; also as JSON for monitors. - The **Data processing agreement** — processor terms with the firm's name filled in. Tip: Send a client's IT or legal reviewer the links rather than a PDF; they stay current. ## Recovery Link: /manual/your-portal#recovery Backups are rehearsed every week. Backups are rehearsed weekly on a scratch database, and the last rehearsal shows on the site's health page. The terms state the recovery target: every portal back within four hours, data as of the last nightly backup. # People and settings People and roles, the firm’s day, workspace style, what is in the portal and every setting. ## People and roles Link: /manual/administration#people-and-roles Who works here, what each role may do, invitations and seats. This part of the manual is for administrators and owners: **Firm** in the top bar. Where to find it: Firm → **People and roles** Firm → **People and roles** is five tabs: - **People** — everyone's cards. A colleague who manages projects says how many, and the link lists them. - **Invite and sign-in** — who may sign in, and invitations waiting. - **Clients and trades** — the clients and contractors on your projects. - **Seats** — who holds one, and who is waiting for one. - **Roles** — the permissions grid, with a plain-words reading of it. A request to be removed shows as a badge on People; invitations waiting show as one on Invite. [Screenshot: People and roles: one row per person, with their seat, role, email, last seen and project access.] #### Everyone in this portal One row per person: a dot for their seat, name, role, email and when they were last seen, and their project access at the right. The heading counts your employees and invitations apart ("4 employees · 2 invited"). Click a row and it opens for editing: **Name**, **Role** and **Project access** — *All projects*, or *Only these projects* with a picker. A restricted person always has a list. Owners are not limited and have no picker. One **Save changes** button at the bottom saves every card at once. Nothing is saved if any card is wrong: the page comes back with everything you typed still in place and the card that's wrong open. #### Rates and commission Anyone with the **See and set billable rates** grant (accountants and up by default) also sees each person's **Billable hourly rate** — what clients are charged for their time on time sheets and time invoices, not their pay. When the commissions module is on, they see each person's **Commission %** too. Someone with that grant but not *Manage people* gets a People page of rates alone. Nobody sees or sets their own rate, cost or commission: someone else at the firm does. Your own card never shows your own rate, cost or commission. #### Archiving someone **Archive** (and **Restore access** to undo) keeps their history but stops them signing in. The card names the projects they manage and their open tasks, and the question says they go to the colleague you chose. Whoever is added to or taken off a project's managers is told. Archiving someone who sent proposals says how many of their proposal links still open, with the way to close them under [Clients and trades](/people#outside). More under [Former people](/manual/administration#former-people). #### Private note **Private note** on a card (for those with *Manage people*): a few lines about the person — a review coming up, how they like to work — saved with its own **Save the note**. Only people who manage people see it. Never the person, alerts, search, the firm's export, or anyone's data download; and it is deleted when the person's details are removed. The person's own data download leaves it out too. Careful: Under data-protection law (GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA) a formal request for their personal data generally covers notes about them, so when one comes, copy the note into the answer. Write it as you would if they read it. #### Who can sign in By invitation only, or **Anyone at the listed domains**: 1. Type the firm's email domain under *Your firm’s email domain*. 2. Check *Everyone with an address at @… works at this firm*. The domain must be one an owner or administrator here signs in with, and a public mailbox (gmail.com, yahoo.co.uk, gmx.de and several hundred more) is refused. Clear it to go back to invitations only. #### What each role can do On [the Roles tab](/people#roles), pick a role on the left and check its capabilities on the right. Ten built-in roles — Client, Contractor, Viewer (an employee who reads every project and changes nothing; it takes a seat), Restricted, Employee (built in as Employee: it takes the firm's word for its people, set under [Settings → Firm](/settings?tab=firm#people-word)), Approver, Accountant, Team manager, Administrator, Owner — plus any you add. - **+ Add a role** with *Start from* an existing staff role: the new role begins with everything that role has, the fixed administration rows included. One started from Restricted keeps to the projects its people are given. - A custom role is one of your employees; clients and contractors are not starting points. - A built-in role can be called what your firm calls it — **Rename** beside its name turns Employee into Designer, say — without changing what it may do. - A person gets exactly their role's list. Owners can do everything; administrators always keep the two administration rows. Every change is recorded under [Changes to settings](/manual/your-portal#audit-retention-and-removal). [Screenshot: The Roles tab: pick a role, check what it may do, with a plain-words reading beside it.] #### Invite someone 1. Open [Invite and sign-in](/people#invite). 2. Enter their email, name, role, and project access. 3. They get a link to a page where **Accept and sign in** signs them in. - A client, a contractor or a Restricted person is always invited to the projects you list, never to all of them. - Clients and contractors never take a seat. A Restricted person is staff and takes one, reserved for them when **Reserve a seat** is checked. - A Restricted person does not start new projects and does not change a project's managers: they work on the ones they are given. Who manages a project is set in its header by someone who sets up projects across the firm. - An address already on the portal is refused: change that person's role or projects on their card, or bring an archived one back from *Former people*. - Pending invitations can be sent again or withdrawn. #### The Team manager role The **Team manager** role is for an office manager who looks after the team but not the portal's settings. On People they invite, set roles and project access, remove and restore access, and see how many seats are in use. They cannot make or change an administrator, buy seats, or change the Roles grid and the sign-in settings, which stay with administrators. Everything else, they have as an employee. Team managers hand seats out on this page; buying seats and room is for those with Portal settings. See also: /manual/administration#clients-and-trades, /manual/administration#former-people, /manual/administration#seats ## Clients and trades Link: /manual/administration#clients-and-trades Everyone outside the firm who can reach something, and every open link. Where to find it: Firm → People and roles → [**Clients and trades**](/people#outside) [Firm → People and roles → **Clients and trades**](/people#outside) lists everyone outside the firm who can reach something: - clients and contractors with an account; - the links that open without signing in — proposals, invoices' pay links, vendor purchase orders and price requests, vendor price lists, transmittals, issue links. Each link has **Copy link** (to send it yourself, or again when it is lost), *Open* (where sending again lives) and a way to close it. Closing keeps the record. A proposal still waiting is voided; a decided one gets a **New link** and the old one stops; a pay link comes off the invoice until it is sent again. Archiving a project closes every link on it, pay links included, and a closed link answers that it is no longer open. A client or contractor row shows their projects and last sign-in, with **Send a sign-in link**, which goes to their own address and nowhere else. ## Former people Link: /manual/administration#former-people Someone who has left: archive them, hand their work on, bring them back. For someone who has left, press **Archive** on their row (People tab). It signs them out everywhere, ends their calendar feed, removes their access, frees their seat and keeps their history, and moves them to a folded *Former people* list at the bottom. #### Before you archive Before you press it, the card says what they hold — projects they manage, open tasks, approvals waiting on them. Choose to *hand projects and tasks to* a colleague who can act on them (given the projects if they are on listed ones). With *nobody*, the administrators hear about those projects. #### Bringing someone back **Restore access** brings someone back without a seat, by the same rules as archiving: an owner only by an owner, an administrator only by someone with Portal settings. A person whose details were removed shows *Details removed* and cannot be restored — invite them again as someone new. A welcome link from the site administrator brings an archived person back with the role the link carries. If the address now belongs to someone new, the welcome page asks, and *No, I'm new here* retires the former account under a "(left …)" name with its history intact and makes a fresh one. ## Seats Link: /manual/administration#seats What lets an employee sign in: buying, handing out and counting them. Where to find it: Firm → People and roles → **Seats** A seat is what lets an employee sign in. Clients and contractors never take a seat. The People page's **Seats** tab shows four tiles: assigned to people, reserved for invitations, **available** to assign (bought plus complimentary, minus assigned and reserved), and bought. On a portal with no seat limit, a *No limit* tile takes the place of the last two. [Screenshot: The Seats tab: the four tiles, then each staff account with its seat.] #### Buying more **Add or remove seats** on the Seats tab opens [Plan and billing → Add or remove seats or room](/billing/change) with the new count. The price for the term (a month, or a year on an annual plan) and anything due today are spelled out before anything is saved. - Seats are monthly (or yearly on an annual plan) and all renew on one day. - A seat added mid-term is charged for the days left in the term and in full from the renewal. - A seat removed stays until the renewal and is not refunded. Adding seats goes through a checkout for what is due today — Stripe's own page once Stripe is connected. Until then a stand-in page shows the same figures and a **Pay** button that records the seats without charging anything. A trial's first purchase buys every seat the portal uses; only a complimentary portal keeps the seats it was using as complimentary and pays for the new ones alone. A **coupon** code from the operator takes a percentage off each seat, for its months or for good, and reaches Stripe with the purchase. The same *Add or remove seats* sits under [Plan and billing](/manual/your-portal#plan-and-billing), which also says who to see for handing seats out. #### Handing them out Below the tiles the tab hands seats out: each staff account with a green dot for a seat, *Assign a seat* / *Release the seat*, and the count assigned against the seats bought. - Someone new takes a free seat if there is one. Otherwise they land on a *No seat assigned* page until one is handed to them. - Releasing a seat signs that person out. - Owners always hold one. - An invitation **reserves a seat** (a checkbox on the Invite tab, on by default), so the person hits the ground running the moment they accept. The Seats tab lists reserved invitations too and can release them. #### Where the count is shown People's heading shows how many seats are in use against the seats bought (on a per-seat plan) or the plan's allowance. Removing someone's access frees their seat; administrators add seats under [Plan and billing](/manual/your-portal#plan-and-billing). ## Staying signed in, View as and welcome links Link: /manual/administration#signing-in-and-view-as How long a sign-in lasts, seeing the portal as someone else, and links that walk someone in. #### Staying signed in A sign-in lasts as long as you keep using the portal on that browser. It ends after 30 days without a visit, then the portal asks again. *Sign out* under your name ends it sooner, and an administrator removing access ends it at once. #### View as Folded to a line above the People tabs — the people come first — and one click opens it: see the portal as a role would, or as one person, with a yellow bar at the top and the way back. It is read-only. It is also under your name at the top right: *View as someone else…*. **Tips and tours** on your profile: *Show the tips again* brings back the welcome tour and the View-as banner. That banner sits at the top of every page for a new owner or administrator until they close it: one press sees the portal as a designer, an accountant, a contractor or the client, with the yellow bar to come back. #### A welcome link from the operator For someone you want to walk straight in, the site administrator can make a link good for a number of days. It opens a page with one button that signs them in, so a link preview never uses it up, and it works once. ## The firm's day Link: /manual/administration#the-firm-s-day Where the firm keeps its days, and how dates are written. Where to find it: Firm → Settings → Firm → [**The firm's day**](/settings?tab=firm#zone) [Settings → Firm → **The firm's day**](/settings?tab=firm#zone) says where the firm keeps its days. Every date the portal decides is decided there: what is due today, what is overdue, what was collected this month, what the next seven days hold, and the last thirty on [*What's in the portal*](/manual/administration#what-s-in-the-portal). Careful: Left unset, a day runs midnight to midnight UTC — which is what it silently was before the setting existed, so nothing moves under a firm that has not chosen it. A firm on the Pacific coast that leaves it sees its tasks turn overdue at five in the afternoon. Somebody who is not where the firm is sets **their own time zone** on [their profile](/manual/getting-started#your-profile), and that is the day reckoned for them. Both are shown when a meeting is put in the diary — see [Meetings](/manual/project-work#meetings). #### How dates are written The same card says **how dates are written**: month first (*Sep 21*), day first (*21 Sep*), or year first in numbers (*2026-09-21*). - On pages the year is added only when it is not this one; emails, PDFs and exports always carry it, since they are kept. - Left unset it is year first, as it always was; a new portal starts month first. - Exports and forms keep the numbers either way. [Screenshot: The firm's day: the time zone the firm keeps its days in, and how dates are written.] ## Workspace style Link: /manual/administration#workspace-style Keep the words and layout of the software your team came from. Where to find it: Firm → Settings → Firm → [**Workspace style**](/settings?tab=firm#workspace-style) A team coming from other specification software can keep the words and the layout it knows. [Settings → Firm → **Workspace style**](/settings?tab=firm#workspace-style) (owners and administrators) offers three, each with a line on what changes: - **PortSpace** — the portal as it is. - **Tabbed layout** — familiar if you've used a web-based spec system with tabbed item pages: one grid of every item, each item in tabs. - **Project-first layout** — familiar if you've used a desktop spec database: pick a project, work from a main menu, one dense form per item. [Screenshot: Workspace style: PortSpace, the Tabbed layout or the Project-first layout.] #### The Tabbed layout It uses the words of a tabbed spec system throughout the pages people use most, and draws the item list the same way: one flat grid sorted by Item #, Area a column, the usual columns in their usual order, and a *View* menu; each item opens in tabs. One bar at the top holds the modules in two rows, the picked project under them, everything else under ☰. The start page says which layout is on, where to change it, and leads to [Coming from a tabbed spec system](/guide/tabbed). #### The Project-first layout It uses the words of a desktop spec database throughout, and its arrangement: the Main Menu as the start page with the Active Project picked there, one bar with *RETURN*, *MAIN MENU* and its columns, the Furnishing List in its usual order and columns, the spec as one dense form with its print buttons, and the project-first purchasing screens. The start page leads to [Coming from a desktop spec database](/guide/project-first). #### What stays the same The records, pages and features underneath are the same whichever is chosen, and the modules the firm has switched off stay off. - The firm's answer to *Which kind of software are you coming from?* on the home page's first questions sets it too. - Each person can choose their own under **Workspace style** on [their profile](/manual/getting-started#your-profile), or keep **Use my firm's style**. - Clients and contractors always see the portal in its own words. ## What's in the portal Link: /manual/administration#what-s-in-the-portal Counts and sizes of everything the portal holds — never money. Where to find it: Firm → [**What's in the portal**](/stats) [Firm → **What's in the portal**](/stats) counts the portal: - projects by status, specifications, the product library and Vendors and contacts; - the areas and room types specifying has built up; - every kind of paperwork ever raised; - files by kind with their size, and people by role; - what was done in the last thirty days. Counts and sizes only — never money, which has its own screens behind their own permission. A file is counted once however many records point at it. The room is billed on everything the portal keeps, which also takes in the sizes made of each picture and the other formats of 3D models, so the figure under *Files and room* is larger than the files listed added up. Tip: On a portal that was imported, the last thirty days counts the firm's own work and says so: the date on an imported record is the day the import ran, not the day somebody did the work. [Screenshot: What's in the portal: counts by kind, files by size, people by role and the last thirty days.] ## Settings Link: /manual/administration#settings Every firm-wide setting, tab by tab. Where to find it: Firm → **Settings** [Screenshot: Settings: the find box above the tabs, then Firm, Work, Time, Money, Email, Integrations, and Security and data.] #### Find a setting The box above the tabs: type *tax*, *logo*, *signature*, *markup* or *managers* and the matching cards from every tab show together, each labeled with its tab. What lives outside Settings (a project's managers, People and roles, a report) is listed under **Elsewhere** with a link, and the box says when nothing on Settings matches. [Help → **Find a setting…**](/find-setting) lists them all for anyone, and the search box at the top offers them too — a project's own managers, details and markup when you are on one. Settings has seven tabs, and the open one is in the address (*?tab=email*), so a link or a bookmark opens it. Each person sees only the tabs and cards their role may change; a bookkeeper, for one, sees Money read-only, Email and Time. On a phone the tabs sit on one line that scrolls sideways. #### Firm **Brand**: - **Firm name** — the one name on documents, mail and the client's and vendors' pages. - **Logo and name in the bar** — drop or choose a PNG, JPG, WebP or SVG and fit it to the bar's frame; the text beside it, or none for the logo alone. - **Logo on documents and email**, **Color**, **Typeface**, **Letterhead** and a preview of each document. - **Other letterheads** and the **Spec book color**. Also on this tab: **What you call your people**, **The firm's day** (time zone and how dates are written), **Workspace style** (PortSpace, the Tabbed layout or the Project-first layout), **Project lists** (icon tiles on or off) and a link to People and roles. #### Work - [**Modules**](/settings?tab=work#modules) — the modules from the first-run questions, Ask the project AI when the site makes it available, **Online payments**, **Email in**, **Internal review before the client**, clients seeing the brief. - **Specification fields** — your own columns, item numbering, fields by category, and links to product templates and duplicate item numbers. - **Printouts** — the words the budget, spec sheets and source letters print. - **Layouts** — the walkway clearance. - **Welcome tours**. #### Time Shown when the Time tracking or Expenses module is on: **Time** (rounding, phases, short-week reminders) and **Expenses** (where a submitted report is sent, and a link to the expense queue). #### Money - **Tax and currency** — the default rate and its name, the billing currency, tax on time and freight, commission choices, rates by ship-to. - **Markup rules**. - **Invoice layout** — the client's copy: title, columns, terms, how to pay, the closing line; the letterhead is the Brand's. - **Payments** (once Online payments is on) — Stripe with your own key, or a pay link from Square, PayPal, QuickBooks Payments and the like. The money goes to you; the portal never holds it. - **Accounting** — QuickBooks Online and Xero, connect or disconnect, *Pull payments now*. - [**Books closed through**](/settings?tab=money#books) — a day on or before which money and time ask before they are written. - **Plan and billing** — a link to the plan, usage and invoices. A bookkeeper sees Tax and currency and the invoice layout read-only, with the day the books are closed through. Careful: A currency change asks first: prices already entered are not converted, and invoices, orders and proposals already made keep theirs. #### Email - **Outgoing email** — email goes out as usual, **Pause email to people outside the firm** (with **Also pause email to our own team**), or **Pause all email**. Sign-in, confirm-your-email and security email always go. - **Approval** — hold emails to people outside the firm for approval, and the kinds that go straight out. - **How email looks** — the sender name, reply-to address, closing line, whether it says it came through PortSpace, and the firm's **Signature** ([Email signatures](/manual/your-portal#email-signatures)). - **Your own email domains** — sending and receiving. - The [**Email outbox**](/settings?tab=email#outbox) — how many are held and waiting for approval, and the latest five. **Review the outbox** opens [every email](/settings/outbox), 25 to a page. On the outbox page, filter by **Held**, **Waiting for approval**, **Sent**, **Captured**, **Failed** or **Discarded**, or search by recipient or subject. Open one to read it whole; **Send** or **Discard** each, or check several on the page for **Send selected** and **Discard selected**. **Discard all held** takes every held email, on every page. A sign-in link or an invitation is never kept in the outbox, so those are sent again from where they were made — an invitation from [Firm → People and roles → Invite and sign-in](/people#invite). #### Integrations - [**AI**](/settings?tab=integrations#ai) — whose AI key and, for your own, when it expires; this month's actions, bought ones included; and whether the AI key and email are set up at the site. - **Slack and Teams** — the firm's and each project's channels. - **Import** — projects and specifications, vendors and contacts, the product library, and what came across from a design database. #### Security and data **Two-factor sign-in for the team** (owners), **Audit and retention** with **Changes to settings** ([Audit, retention and removal](/manual/your-portal#audit-retention-and-removal)), **Backups and your data**, and **Anonymous usage counts** — whether PortSpace may count, anonymously, which kinds of page your employees open while it is counting. Never clients or trades, never a project or a name. The **Setting up** checklist is under [Help → Setting up](/setting-up). Tip: Old links still land: a link to a card (*/settings#tax*) opens its tab and scrolls to it, and the former tabs (The firm, Look, Features, Modules, Finances, Data) open the tab their cards moved to. #### Four choices of the firm's own - *Tax on design fees and time* (Money) makes invoice lines raised from time taxable at the project's rate, for states that tax services. - *Commissions* (Money, when the module is on) sets whether commission is paid on everything invoiced or on design fees only, and whether a project's managers each earn in full or share. - *Fields by category* (Work) lets each custom specification field name the categories it applies to. - Every person can switch off the *day-before site visit* reminder on their profile. Team managers hand seats out on the [People and roles](/manual/administration#people-and-roles) page; buying seats and room is for those with Portal settings. #### Welcome tours A person's first visit opens a few cards fitted to their role — what Home shows, where projects, people or approvals live — and never returns once finished or put away. [Settings → Work → *Welcome tours*](/settings?tab=work#tours) switches them off for the portal. # Help Finding a setting, the videos, setting up, contacting support and suggesting a feature. ## The Help menu Link: /manual/help#help-menu The last menu in the top bar, on every page. Where to find it: **Help**, the last menu on the bar **Help** is the last menu in the top bar, on every page. It holds: - [**Manual**](/manual) — this manual (the parts for administrators only for them); a client gets a shorter manual of their own. - [**Videos**](/manual/videos) — short walkthroughs, one to two minutes each, made on the example hotel and grouped by the job, *Start here* first: narrated, with captions (on by default) and a transcript, and **Music on/off** to keep only the voice (the choice is remembered in your browser). Each has its own page to share, and the manual's sections show the one that covers them, as do the **How it works** links on the pages (**▶ Watch**). A video about a module your firm has switched off is left out. A client sees the one made for clients. A new firm's home page offers the basics for its first month; × puts that away. - [**Find a setting…**](/find-setting) — every setting and page you may open, found by the words people use for it (*tax*, *logo*, *managers*, *markup*). The search box at the top offers the same, and the filter above Settings' tabs shows the matches from every tab. - [**Setting up**](/setting-up) (administrators) — the checklist a new portal starts with, twelve steps — logo, brand color and email sender, time zone, sales tax and currency, markup, item numbering, team, showing your principal, seeing the portal as your people do, payments, first project, retire the example. It checks itself off as each is done; the home page's **Finish setting up** card is put away for a week or dismissed, and this brings it back. - [**Contact support**](/support) — a note to the people who run the portal, with your address, the portal and the page you were on, so they can reply and know where to look. Clients and contractors see **Contact** followed by the firm's name instead, and their note goes to the firm. - [**Suggest a feature**](/suggest) — also under your name at the top right. One box: what would make this easier? It goes to the people who build PortSpace, with the kind of page you were on (never what was on it), and if it ships you get an alert saying so. For the firm's employees; clients and contractors write to the firm instead. *Getting around*, the first video, follows a designer's day. Owners and administrators also see *Getting around for principals* right after it: the owner's Home, with the firm at a glance. [Screenshot: Find a setting: every place you may open, found by the words people use for it.] ## When a form is turned down Link: /manual/help#when-a-form-is-turned-down What you see when a form is not open to you, or its record has gone. A form your role may not use, or one for something since removed, lands on a short page that says so — *That is not open to you* or *That is no longer there* — with a link back to where you were. Nothing was changed. #### Viewing as someone else Viewing as someone else, a form lands on a page saying nothing can be saved until you use *Back to* in the yellow bar.