Sharing the schedule with the client

Instead of recording every choice yourself, you can hand the client a private link. They see the schedule on their phone, pick from the products you have put on each item, and confirm. You review and approve. Nothing they do is final until you approve it.

Creating the link

Share with client, under the Actions menu in the grid’s toolbar, creates the link; the menu shows a count of client-confirmed items waiting for you. It asks for:

• Client name and email — prefilled from the project’s default client. The name is shown on their page; the email is only used to address the message.
• Link expires — never, 30 days or 90 days. You can revoke it at any time regardless.
• Client can choose between the products on each item — untick this to send a read-only copy they can confirm but not change.
• Show allowances, prices and the difference — untick this for a version with no money on it.

Only one link is live per schedule. Creating a new one replaces the old, which stops working immediately.

Copy puts the link on your clipboard. Email the link… opens a message in your own mail program, already addressed and worded, so it goes out with your signature and from your account. SmarteBuild does not send it for you.

The link is the key

Anyone who has the link can open the page. Send it to the client directly, not to a group, and revoke it when the selections are done.

What the client sees

Their page is a plain list built for a phone, grouped by category the way your schedule is, or by room when they flip the switch — handy when they are standing in the kitchen deciding on the kitchen. Each category is a closed row with a + button and a count, 2 of 5 confirmed; it turns teal with a tick once everything in it is confirmed, so the page reads as a checklist before they open anything. Open all and Close all sit above the list, and the page remembers what they left open. Inside a category:

• Each item with your note to the client, its rooms, and the allowance and the running difference (when you have left money on).
• The products you put on the item, with pictures where you have them. They tap one.
• A quantity box, if you have left that open on the item.
• A box to tell you something about the item — “only if it comes in brushed”.
• Confirm this selection. The item turns teal. They can change their mind until you approve.

Items you have already approved show as Approved by builder and cannot be changed there. Items on a sent purchase order show as Ordered.

The client never sees your internal notes, your cost, or supplier pricing beyond the selected product’s price.

Reviewing what comes back

On your grid, an item the client has confirmed carries a Client confirmed chip, the client’s comment appears under the item name, and Share with client shows a count of items waiting for you. Filter the grid to Client confirmed – to review to work through them.

For each one: check the product and quantity, read the comment, then Approve as usual. Approval is what locks the item and what the order takes its product from. If the choice is not right, change the product or quantity yourself and tell the client — the chip clears when you approve, and the client’s page shows the item as approved.

Who changed what

Every item keeps a history. The clock button on a row lists each change — product, quantity, approval, notes, rooms, category — with who made it, when, and what it was before. Changes made by the client through their link are marked as the client; changes made in the office are marked with the team member’s name.

Two things this is for. First, an un-approve resets the selected product and quantity back to the estimate’s defaults, and the history is how you see what was there before. Second, when a client says “I never chose that”, the history says whether they did, and when.

The history starts when this version was installed

Changes made before then were not recorded, so older items may show an empty history.

If the client already has a portal

A client with a portal does not need a separate selections link. As soon as the job has a selections schedule, the portal’s Selections tab shows it, inside the portal, using the portal’s own link as the key. Revoking the portal closes the selections with it.

Share with client knows this. When a client on the job has a live portal, the dialog says so first, with Copy portal link and Email… for that client, and the separate link stays underneath for anyone who should see the selections without the rest of the portal — an interior designer, for instance. If you have made a separate link, its two settings (money shown, products choosable) also apply inside the portal.

Every selection the client confirms through the portal is posted into their chat with you, and the portal’s home page lists the newest selection activity — what they chose, what you approved, what went into the estimate.