Getting started

Signing in

Your portal emails you a link and a code: no password needed.

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.

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). 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.

Who may sign in

The portal's administrator decides under Firm → People and roles → Invite and sign-in: 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

Your name, time zone, security, layout and what the portal holds about you.

Where 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.

Your profile: details, security, workspace style, tips, your access and your own connections.

What is on your profile

Your 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) and your password, if you want one (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.
• 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.
• 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

Type a question; the answer comes from the manual's own words.

Where 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.

The bar

Up to six menus across the top, with search, the alerts bell and your name.

Watch the video · 1:33Getting around

The bar across the top holds up to six menus, with search, the alerts bell and your name to the right.

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), Projects, Tasks, Calendar, Meetings, Waiting on a decision (every approval still open, firm-wide) and, for those who manage projects, My projects at a glance. Deliveries: Receiving and Pick lists.
• Library — Products: Product library, Price lists to review, Clip from a website, Import products. Companies: Makers, Vendors and contacts. Templates: Specification templates, Product templates (for those who manage settings), Project templates, Categories. The firm: Fonts and resources.
• Finance — Selling: Proposals, Change orders, Invoices. Buying: Price requests (RFQs), Purchase orders, Vendor bills, and Imported quotes where the portal has quotes brought over from an old system. Reports: Dashboard, Month-end, Aging, Profitability, the firm's tax report (named for its tax, e.g. Sales tax), Commissions where they are switched on, and More reports.
• Time & expenses — My timesheet, My expenses, the Expense queue for whoever decides, and Labor cost.
• Firm — People and roles, Settings, Plan and billing, What's in the portal and Imported files.
• Help — Manual, Find a setting…, Setting up and Contact 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

The page you land on: the day, what needs you, the week ahead and your projects.

Watch the video · 1:33Getting around

Where Home in the Projects menu, or the firm's name at the left of the bar

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.

On a phone everything stacks: the figures two to a row, Needs you, the week, your projects.

See also Amber before red · Alerts · The project page

Amber before red

Three steps for every date and wait: plain, amber, red.

Watch the video · 1:33Getting around

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.

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

The bell by your name: what is new for you.

Where The bell beside your name → Alerts

The bell by your name counts what is new and opens 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.

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.

Search

Find a record, a page or a setting — and the words inside files, transcripts and mail.

Watch the video · 1:33Getting around

Where The search box in the bar, or the search page

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) 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… lists every place you may open, with a filter. The filter box at the top of Settings does the same inside Settings, pointing out of it (under Elsewhere) to what lives on a project or in People.

The search page: pages and settings first, then records, with highlighted snippets from inside files.

Inside files, transcripts and mail

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.