User Guide
Customer Portal
A read-mostly window into a job for the person paying for it. Your customer signs in, sees the progress, the photos and — if you allow it — the money, can approve change orders and sign the contracts you send them. Every part of that is a switch you control.
Quick overview
The portal exists to answer "how's it going?" without a phone call. It's Pro plan on your side, and free for your customer.
Nothing is shared by default. A customer with portal access still sees nothing until you share a specific project with them, and even then only the tabs you switch on. Sharing is always a deliberate act.
Web or app
| Web portal | Customer app | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | A /customer-portal address on your Jobmand site | The Jobmand Customer app on their phone |
| Looks like | Your company's branding, no Jobmand sidebar, with Projects and Contracts along the top | A small app with three tabs: Projects, Contracts and Account |
| Sign-in | Access link, or username and password | Access link, or username and password |
| Content | The same tabs, the same data, the same switches | |
Give them whichever suits them. This guide covers both — the tabs are identical.
The portal needs a connection. Unlike your crew's app, the customer app stores nothing on the phone. With no signal it shows nothing.
Setting it up
Three steps, in this order. Miss the second one and your customer signs in to an empty screen.
1. Give the customer access
Open the customer in Operations → Customers and go to the Portal tab:
- Switch on portal access
- Set a username and password, or use Generate Portal Link
- Reset Password and Revoke are here too, for later
Full detail in Customers.
2. Share a project
Open the project and go to its Portal tab. This is where you say this customer may see this job. Access without a shared project shows "No projects have been shared with you yet."
3. Choose what they see
Still on the project's Portal tab, decide per project:
| Switch | Effect |
|---|---|
| Enable portal | Whether this project appears for them at all |
| Show schedule | Adds the read-only Schedule tab |
| Show financials | Adds the Financials tab — budget, cost to date, remaining |
| Show photo gallery | Adds the Photos tab |
| Allow customer notes | Lets them post comments in Notes |
| Allow customer uploads | Lets them add files in Files |
| Customer-visible status | Overrides the status they see, so you can show "Finishing works" while your internal status says something else |
| Allow change-order approval | Gives them the Approve button on change orders |
Contracts need no switch: sending a contract for signature is what puts it in their portal.
Think hardest about Financials. It shows your cost to date and your budget usage. For a cost-plus job that's exactly right; on a fixed-price job it shows the customer your margin. Leave it off unless you mean it.
How your customer signs in
Two ways, both leading to the same place:
- Username or email + password — whatever you set on the Portal tab
- An access link — one tap, no password
The access link
Generate Portal Link produces a link that signs them in on its own. On a phone with the customer app installed, opening it hands straight over to the app and signs them in there.
The link is shown once and it is a key. Copy it before closing the panel; you can't read it again. Anyone holding it can see that customer's shared projects, so send it directly to your contact — not into a group chat. If it goes astray, generate a new one, which kills the old.
What they see
After signing in: your company's branding, then Your Projects — a card per shared project with its name, number and status. Opening one gives the tabs below. A separate Contracts section lists the contracts you've sent them to sign.
Overview, Notes, Files and Change Orders are always there. Schedule, Financials and Photos appear only if you switched them on.
Overview
Status, customer, address, start date, estimated completion, who to contact at your company, and the project description. For most customers this tab alone replaces the phone call.
Schedule
The tasks and subtasks with their dates and a progress bar each. Read-only — they can watch, not reschedule.
Financials
- Budget, cost to date, remaining, and percentage used with a colour-coded bar
- The split between labour and materials
- Change-order totals: approved, pending, the revised budget and the schedule days added
The change-order figures are the useful part: they show the customer, in one place, that the extra days and extra cost came from things they asked for and approved.
Photos
A grid of the photos you've shared, each tapping open full-screen. Progress photos are the cheapest goodwill in the product — a customer who can see the work happening asks for far fewer updates.
Notes
A comment thread. They read it, and if you allowed notes they can post to it; their own comments are badged "You".
This is the one genuinely two-way part of the portal. Watch it, or turn it off — an unanswered customer question sitting in a thread is worse than no thread.
Files
The documents you've shared, which they can download or share to their device. If uploads are allowed they can add files too — a photo from their gallery, or a document.
Useful for getting a signed form, a colour choice or a photo of a problem back from them without an email thread.
Change Orders
Every change order on the project: number, cost impact, schedule days, and the description. Expanding one shows the scope of work, the reason, the new completion date, any delay reason and the approved amount — plus a full approval history timeline.
If you allowed approval and they haven't approved it yet, there's a green Approve button with a confirmation step.
This is the portal's strongest feature. A customer approving a priced, dated change order in a system that timestamps and attributes it is a far better record than "yes, go ahead" in an email. See Customer approval.
Contracts
Not a project tab: Contracts sits next to Projects at the top of the web portal and has its own tab in the app. It lists every contract you've sent for signature — and only those. Contracts you never sent don't appear.
| Badge | Means |
|---|---|
| Awaiting your signature | They can open it and sign |
| Signed by you | They signed; your company hasn't countersigned yet |
| Fully signed | Both parties signed — the signed PDF is ready to download |
| Link expired | The signing link ran out, or was replaced or switched off, before they signed — send it again |
Opening one shows the whole contract, a Download PDF button and, while it's waiting for them, the signature panel: full legal name, draw or type, the consent box and Sign contract. It is the same signing as the emailed link, and the same details land on the signature certificate.
If you gave them an access link pinned to one project, they only see that project's contracts.
Account & language
The Account tab shows their name, email and company, a language picker (English, Español, Português), and log out.
Their language choice is their own and doesn't affect anything on your side.
What they can never see
A portal account is confined to the portal. Regardless of switches, a customer cannot reach:
- Any project you haven't shared with them
- Any other customer, anywhere
- Your employees, their hourly rates, or their timesheets
- Your estimates, invoices or payments, or any contract you haven't sent them to sign
- Anything belonging to another company on Jobmand
That boundary is enforced by the server, not by hiding buttons — so it holds regardless of what a curious customer types into their browser.
Common workflows
Put a customer on the portal
- Customers → their record → Portal tab → switch access on
- Generate Portal Link and copy it immediately
- Open their project → Portal tab → enable it for them
- Decide the switches: schedule yes, photos yes, financials probably not, notes if you'll watch them
- Email the link to your contact directly, with a line about what they'll find
- Open the portal yourself once to check it shows what you intended
Get a change order approved
- Raise the change order with an honest cost and day count
- Set it to Submitted
- Make sure allow change-order approval is on for that project
- Tell the customer it's waiting in their Changes tab
- They approve; the timestamp and their name are recorded
- You set it to Approved — contract, project value and completion date update
Have a portal customer sign a contract
- Prepare the contract's document and send it for signature — by email or not
- Tell the customer it's waiting under Contracts in their portal
- They open it, read it and sign
- You countersign; the badge turns Fully signed and they can download the signed PDF
Cut a client's access off
- Customers → their record → Portal tab → Revoke
- Any outstanding access link stops working
- To keep the account but hide one job instead, turn off Enable portal on that project
Reduce "how's it going?" calls
- Share the project with schedule and photos on
- Have the crew take project photos regularly — they land in the gallery
- Use the customer-visible status to say something meaningful: "Rough-in complete, inspection Tuesday"
- Answer anything they post in Notes within a day
FAQ & Troubleshooting
- My customer signs in but sees "No projects have been shared with you yet."
- Access was granted but no project was shared. Open the project and enable the portal for them on its Portal tab.
- They can't see the Financials tab.
- Schedule, Financials and Photos are per-project switches, all off unless you turn them on.
- They lost the access link.
- Generate a new one — the old one dies immediately. Or give them the username and password instead.
- They can't post a comment.
- Allow customer notes is off for that project.
- The Approve button isn't showing on a change order.
- Either allow change-order approval is off for the project, or they've already approved it.
- They can't find the contract I sent.
- Contracts live in the Contracts section, not inside a project. Only contracts sent for signature appear, and a customer whose access link is pinned to one project only sees that project's contracts.
- The contract shows "Link expired" and there's no Sign button.
- The signing link ran out or was replaced before they signed. Send the contract for signature again and it becomes signable in the portal straight away.
- The portal is blank on their phone.
- The customer app needs a connection — it stores nothing locally. Check they have signal.
- Can they see our other customers?
- No. Never, under any setting. Each portal account only reaches the projects shared with that one customer.
- Can they see our profit?
- Only if you switch on Financials, which shows budget, cost to date and usage. Leave it off on fixed-price work.
- Can they change anything?
- They can post notes, upload files, approve change orders and sign contracts you sent them — each only if you allowed or sent it. Everything else is read-only.
- Do I need the portal to get change orders approved?
- No — you can export the PDF and email it. The portal just produces a much stronger, timestamped record.
Need help?
For training, access, or feature requests, contact your Jobmand admin. If you're a customer using the portal, contact the company doing your work — they control what you can see.