The Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first thing you see after signing in, and the first entry in the module menu. It is the one page in SmarteBuild that is not about a single project: it reads every job you have access to and puts the week ahead, the money coming in and the money going out on one screen.

Everything on it is a link. Click a project to open it, a claim date to go to that job’s Progress Claims, a task to open the Calendar, an invoice to open it in Expenses.

What each part shows

The figures across the top

Six counters, each of which takes you to the page where the number gets dealt with.

• Active jobs — costings you can see that are not archived and not marked Finished.
• Tasks this week — schedule tasks running on any day of the current week, on every job. The same count the Calendar shows.
• Overdue tasks — tasks past their finish date that are not marked complete.
• Invoices overdue — supplier invoices past their due date, with the total including GST. An invoice that Xero reports as paid is not counted.
• Awaiting approval — variations the client has not accepted, plus purchase orders that have not been approved.
• Open defects — defects not yet marked fixed.

A pink figure is one worth acting on. A quiet week shows six ordinary ones.

Latest messages

Your most recent conversations from every job and every chat you are part of — job chats, client chats from the client portal, group chats and direct messages — with their latest messages, so you can see what is going on without opening Messages.

Conversations are listed with the most recent activity first, whether you have read them or not, so the panel always shows what has been said lately. Each card shows which job the chat belongs to and its newest few messages in the order they were sent; Show earlier opens the rest. Messages from a client carry a Client tag, your own show as You, and anything that @mentions you is highlighted.

What you have not seen stands out. A conversation with unseen messages is outlined, shows how many are waiting, and marks each unseen message with a dot; one you have read says Seen. Any conversation with something unseen is always on the list, however long ago it arrived — it cannot drop off the bottom behind newer, already-read chats.

• Reply (or Open chat) opens the conversation in Messages, where it is marked as read in the usual way.
• Mark read marks a conversation as read without leaving the dashboard. It stays on the panel — it just stops being highlighted.

Nothing is marked as read just by appearing here. The unseen number in the heading is the same one Messages shows, and chats you have muted are left out of it. A muted chat still appears among your latest conversations; an older one is kept on the list only if someone @mentions you in it — the same rule as notifications on your phone.

The panel keeps itself up to date while the dashboard is open, and refreshes as soon as you come back to it from another tab or page. If you do not have access to Messages, the panel is not shown.

Recently opened projects

The last five projects you opened, most recent first, with each job’s status and the page you were last on in it. Clicking a project takes you back to that page — the Bill of Quantities, the Purchase Orders, the Schedule — with the costing you had selected, not to Project Settings. This list is yours: two people in the same company see their own. Archived projects are marked but still listed, because you were working in them.

Next claim dates

The five contract stages coming up soonest across all your jobs that have not yet been claimed in full, with the amount still to claim (including GST).

The date is the stage’s expected date. Where a stage is linked to a schedule task, the task’s finish date is used instead, so the list moves with the programme. The badge tells you whether the linked task is complete (Ready) or how far along it is; a stage with no linked task is always Ready, because there is nothing to wait for.

Below the list, a note counts stages whose expected date has passed without a full claim — money sitting on the table.

This week

Monday to Sunday, every job at once. Each day lists:

• Tasks from the schedule — on every day they run, with the days after the first shown faintly. Milestones carry a diamond. Completed tasks are struck through.
• Supplier invoices falling due that day, with the amount.
• Contract stages expected that day.

Weekends and company non-working days are shaded. When a day has more than six items it shows the first six and a + more button.

Cash forecast

Twelve weeks ahead. Green bars are expected income: unclaimed contract stages by their expected date. Red bars are supplier invoices by their due date. Both include GST, so they are comparable. The line is the running net position.

This is a forecast from what is recorded, not a prediction: a stage with no expected date and an invoice not yet entered are both invisible to it.

Claimed vs contract

For each job, how much of the contract price plus approved variations has been claimed so far, with the balance still to claim. Ordered so the job with the most left to bill is at the top. Jobs without a contract price are not shown.

Client selections

One row per job that has a selections schedule. The bar is how many items you have approved. The figure on the right is the selections so far against their allowances — pink when the client’s choices are costing more than the estimate allowed for, which is a variation waiting to be raised. A to review badge counts items the client has confirmed through their link that you have not yet approved.

Jobs are ordered most-over-allowance first, so a blown allowance is the first thing on the page rather than something you find on the schedule. Click a row to open that schedule. Figures here are ex GST, the same basis as the schedule itself.

Every chart has a table

The Table button in the corner of each chart swaps the drawing for the numbers, including the jobs that did not fit in the chart. Sales estimates are left out of both charts — they are not jobs yet.

Who sees what

The Dashboard only ever shows jobs you have access to, exactly as the Calendar and the Projects List do. Two people in the same company can see different dashboards, and a counter here will never include a job you cannot open.

Not yet on the Dashboard

• Cash going out on purchase-order-linked schedule tasks (the Cashflow page’s projection). The forecast here uses entered invoices only.
• A “my jobs only” switch by site manager.
• Choosing which panels to show.

A Monday routine

Five minutes before anything else:

1. Latest messages — is anyone waiting on an answer from you, especially a client?
2. Next claim dates — has any job passed a stage without a claim being raised? That is money you have earned and not invoiced, and it is invisible everywhere else.
3. Client selections — is anyone drifting over allowance without a variation? A client $9,000 over with no variations raised is a difficult conversation being deferred.
4. This week — what is on, and is anything still unconfirmed?
5. Cash forecast — is the shape still what you expected?

Everything on that list is cheaper to deal with on Monday than at month end.