People and settings

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 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.

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. More under 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.

Who can sign in

By invitation only, or Anyone at the listed domains:

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, 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), 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.

The Roles tab: pick a role, check what it may do, with a plain-words reading beside it.

Invite someone

• 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 Clients and trades · Former people · Seats

Clients and trades

Everyone outside the firm who can reach something, and every open link.

Where Firm → People and roles → Clients and trades

Firm → People and roles → Clients and trades 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

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

What lets an employee sign in: buying, handing out and counting them.

Where 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.

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 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, 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.

Staying signed in, View as and welcome links

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

Watch the video · 1:34View 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

Where the firm keeps its days, and how dates are written.

Where Firm → Settings → Firm → The firm's day

Settings → Firm → The firm's day 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.

Somebody who is not where the firm is sets their own time zone on their profile, and that is the day reckoned for them. Both are shown when a meeting is put in the diary — see 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.

The firm's day: the time zone the firm keeps its days in, and how dates are written.

Workspace style

Keep the words and layout of the software your team came from.

Watch the video · 1:42Workspace styles

Where Firm → Settings → Firm → Workspace style

A team coming from other specification software can keep the words and the layout it knows. Settings → 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.

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.

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.

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, or keep Use my firm's style.
• Clients and contractors always see the portal in its own words.

What's in the portal

Counts and sizes of everything the portal holds — never money.

Where Firm → What's in the portal

Firm → What's in the portal 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.

What's in the portal: counts by kind, files by size, people by role and the last thirty days.

Settings

Every firm-wide setting, tab by tab.

Where Firm → Settings

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… 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 — 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 — 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.

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).
• Your own email domains — sending and receiving.
• The Email outbox — how many are held and waiting for approval, and the latest five. Review the outbox opens every email, 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.

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), 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.

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 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 switches them off for the portal.