Clients and outside people
What clients, contractors and restricted people see, and seeing a project as the client sees it.
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.
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.
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). |
| 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). |
| 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 Seeing a project as the client sees it · Approvals
Seeing a project as the client sees it
Open a project through the client's eyes, then come back.
Where 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 does the same for any person or role.
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.
- 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.
Contractors
Installers and trades: their jobs, visits, deliveries and pick lists — never money.
To bring a contractor in
- Invite the contractor or installer with the Contractor role.
- 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 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.
Their menu holds their projects and Help, and Help → Contact (with the firm's name) writes to the firm, not to PortSpace.
See also Installation schedule · Pick lists
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