Clients have their own sleek Dashboard that puts your branding front and center and makes it easy for them to see project updates, chat with you and your team, see the budget, view selections, and collaborate on Tasks. If you want to see more specifics about client permission settings head over to this article.
The Client Dashboard is primarily read-only for clients. Clients collaborate with you through the comments within each item along with the chat.
Clients access their dashboard by logging into their account, which they can do a couple of different ways:
At buildbook.co/login via their desktop web browser or their mobile web browser
On the BuildBook app on their mobile device. Once they've logged in they should stay logged in for a period of time
Note: Although clients can access their project from the app, they will need to accept the invite for their project via a web browser. We don't recommend having your client download the app until they've successfully created their account from your project invite.
Updates
The Updates tab is the primary place for clients to receive project updates. These updates come directly from your Daily Logs that you choose to share with them. If you give your client access to the Updates tab, all you need to do is share some Daily Logs with them in order for them to see that information here. Here's a quick overview of how to share Logs with clients.
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Schedule
The client's schedule is viewable solely in the Calendar View rather than the Schedule View with the Gantt Chart. Phases from your schedule are always visible to the client so that they can see a high-level view of the timeline, along with Selection Categories and Budget items that have a due date. Tasks that have been shared with the client appear in the schedule as well.
Client Chat
The Chat tab on the client dashboard allows the client to send and receive chat messages from Pro Team members and Collaborators who have access to the Client Chat within the project.
Pro Tip: If you want an added layer of notifications, we advise that you and your client @mention each other within the chat. This will notify you with a chat bubble alert as well as a notification bell alert.
Tasks
The Tasks tab in the dashboard allows the client to view tasks that you've shared with them. If you don't have any Tasks shared with the client, you can simply disable the Tasks tab completely from their dashboard by unchecking the Task option in their permissions.
Financials
If you choose to include the Financials tab in the client dashboard, you can adjust what exactly the client sees in the budget to provide either a brief or detailed summary. Here's how to choose those settings.
Invoices
Clients can access Invoices from the Financials tab. They'll be able to see similar metrics including:
Budget, Outstanding, Overdue, Paid
Only "Open" invoices appear for clients. Invoices in "Draft" Status do not appear.
Selections
Clients have read-only access to everything in the Selections tab. As with all other tabs in their dashboard, they can upload photos and information to the comments section.
Files
The Files tab only shows files you have chosen to share. Clients can also upload files here to share with you, which will automatically appear in your main Files list.
Settings
Clients have access to notification settings and user settings the same way that you do, by clicking on their avatar/initials in the upper right corner and clicking "Settings." Here they can adjust how they receive notifications and can adjust their profile picture, name, or email address.
Notifications
Clients can adjust the way they want their notifications to be delivered in their Notification Settings! They can choose which options they want to be notified about as well as how they're notified:
We notify clients depending on what our Pros are wanting to share with them but here are the normal things we would notify someone about:
1. Updates - these come from Daily Logs that have been created and shared with the client at the same time. If you create a Daily Log, save it and then share it, the client will see that on their updates tab but won't be notified.
2. Comments - clients can get a notification if they're @mentioned on a comment in an area they already have access to.
3. Tasks Assigned - clients will get a notification if they're assigned to a Task. We don't send out notifications when a Task is complete, when it's date has changed, ect. so that we're not spamming people's inboxes.
4. Approvals - we send out notifications for requested approvals on things like Selections or Change Orders that clients will receive.
5. Chat Messages - these notifications are PUSH only notifications, meaning they come to your phone. If you want you client to get an email notification as well, you can @mention them in the chat. Push notifications are notifications that are sent to an individuals phone and not a text. The client would need to have the BuildBook App added and logged in for Push Notifications to come through.
Outside of those notifications, we don't notify a client about other things. Additionally, these notifications are highly up to our Pros. We allow you to share the information you think is pertinent so if a client says they're not getting a notification for something, check their permissions first to make sure you've shared that specific object with the client.
Support
If your client is having any trouble they can always reach out to the BuildBook support team to receive the same support that you do!
Clients who can't access their account can email [email protected] and can also chat live with our team from within the app by clicking the ? icon in the upper right corner.
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