Work on a project

Team & tasks

Who works on the job, who outside the firm can see it, and the tasks to get it done.

Where A project → Team → Team & tasks

The project's Team tab holds four: Team & tasks, Meetings, Time (hours logged on the job, where the time module is on) and Activity.

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 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.

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 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 Calendar · Meetings · Activity

Calendar

Every dated thing on your projects, in one month — and in your own calendar app.

Watch the video · 1:37The Calendar

Where Projects → Calendar

Projects → 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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, or for yourself on your profile; see The calendar in Slack and Teams.

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).

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.

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 on your profile.

Email in

Every project has an email address: forward mail there and it lands on the project.

Where 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 [email protected].

• 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.

A project's Communications: the mail forwarded to its own address.

An owner or administrator switches it on under Settings → Work → Modules; the site administrator wires the receiving provider underneath.

Meetings

Put a meeting in everyone's diary, record what happened, and turn what is left open into tasks or questions.

Watch the video · 1:43Meetings

Where Projects → Meetings; on a project, Team → Meetings

Projects → 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.

Every meeting, newest first, with the key takeaway beside each.

Putting one in the diary

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 for where the firm keeps its days, and your own zone on 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.

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

The project's documents and links, who sees each, drawings with tags, versions and expiry dates.

Where A project → Files → Files

The project's Files tab holds three: Files, Photos and Transmittals.

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.

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

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

The project's gallery, from a computer, a phone or the site.

Where 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.

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.

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.

Watch the video · 1:28Swatch boards

Where 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.

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

A room's specified furniture on its floor plan at true size, with clearances, groups, notes and exports.

Watch the video · 1:44Layouts

Where 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.

The layout editor: the plan at scale, the room's pieces beside it, and the clearance check under it.

Starting a layout

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); anything else a plain outline, with a line along the front.

Moving, turning and the keys

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

Selecting several pieces, groups, clearances, hiding and locking, measuring, notes, trying a piece and exports.

Watch the video · 1:44Layouts

Where 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.

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

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

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.

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

Trace a layout's room, place cameras, see it in 3D and make photoreal concept pictures, kept per layout and in Renderings.

Watch the video · 1:44Visualize a room

Where 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

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

Watch the video · 1:41Renovating from photos

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.

Every view, variations and compare

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 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.

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.

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.

Watch the video · 1:42Presentations

Where 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

• 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

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.

See also Swatch boards · Room, 3D and visualizations · Approvals

Approvals

Ask the client or a colleague to decide on an item, and see every decision still open.

Watch the video · 1:16Get client approval

Where Projects → Waiting on a decision; on a project, Propose → Approvals

Across every project, Projects → Waiting on a decision 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.

Waiting on a decision: every approval still open, firm-wide.

Asking for a decision

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.

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

A colleague checks an item before the client sees it.

Watch the video · 1:16Get client approval

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 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 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

The project's timeline: who changed what, and when.

Where 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.

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

When the job is finished: read-only, out of every list, its outside links closed — and nothing deleted.

Where 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 and Payments and pay online. Once archived the project is read-only, and its unpaid invoices stay on 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 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.

See also The Project menu · Invoices · Statement