Client Portal · One module of the operating system
One link. No login.
The three questions, answered before they are asked.
Every builder answers the same three questions most weeks: have you seen the invoice, what did we decide on the tapware, and can you send me some photos. Each one is a phone call or an email thread. The VIABUILD client portal answers all three from a single link that carries your logo and your brand colour, with no account for the client to create and nothing to download. What the client does there comes straight back to you as a notification on the job.
The Founding Builders Programme · Onboarding in small cohorts
01 / What it does
What this feature does
A construction client portal is a private page for one project that the owner opens from a link you send them. In VIABUILD it carries your own logo and brand colour, names the project, the site address and the contract number, and holds three things: the progress claims you have already sent them, the selections waiting on a decision, and the site photos you have chosen to publish.
There is no login, no app and no password. That is a deliberate decision, not a shortcut. Client-facing software fails on adoption, not on features: a homeowner who has to create an account, remember a password and download an app will ring you instead, and then the portal has cost you time rather than saved it. A link that opens on the first tap is the only version most clients will actually use.
The portal is also deliberately narrow. Your client sees their claims, their selections and their photos. They do not see the schedule, the budget, your costs, your margin or your document store. A client portal is not a window into your business, it is a controlled view of the parts of a job the client has a legitimate stake in, which is the same principle behind good client management in residential building.
Selections are one tab of the portal. The allowance logic behind them, how an allowance is set in the estimate and what happens to a choice afterwards, is covered in depth on client selections.
02 / Why it matters
Why builders need it
The three weekly questions
“Have you seen the invoice”, “what did we decide on the tapware”, “can you send me some photos”. Each one interrupts your day. A page the client can check themselves answers all three without you.
Clients out of the loop dispute
Most disputes start as silence. A client who can see what has been claimed, what they chose and what the site looked like last week has far less to be surprised about at handover.
Adoption beats features
A portal nobody logs into is worse than no portal, because you still field the calls and now you maintain a second system. No account and no app is what makes it get used.
Decisions arrive as work
A client approval buried in an inbox is not a record. Every action in the portal raises a notification in VIABUILD that deep-links to the exact claim or selection, so it lands where the job lives.
The photo feed writes itself
Photos come from the site diary your supervisor already keeps. You mark an entry client-visible and it appears. One record serves the internal history and the client feed, so nothing is photographed or written twice.
You control the door
You create the link, you can see when it was last opened, and you can rotate or revoke it at any time. Access is something you hold, not something the client owns.
03 / The VIABUILD way
How VIABUILD handles it
One link, three views, and every client action coming back as a notification.
You generate the link from the job. The full URL is shown to you once, at that moment, and only a hash of it is stored. The address cannot be read back out of the database later, only reissued, and creating a new link automatically revokes the old one. The job record also shows when the client last opened it, which tells you whether silence means disagreement or means they never looked.
What the client sees is filtered by state, not just by permission. Progress claims only appear once they have been sent or paid, so drafts and working figures stay internal, and the status reads in client language: “Awaiting payment”, “Paid”. They can approve a claim with one button, which records their name against it, or leave a comment. Earlier comments render inline with the author and date, and an “approved by you” badge appears on anything they have already signed off, so nobody approves the same claim twice.
Selections show the allowance, a due date in plain language (“Please decide by 14 Mar”) and option cards with an image, a description and a price. Status is written the way a homeowner reads it: “Your decision needed”, “Chosen, you can still change it”, “Locked in”. They choose from the page. Progress photos are the published, client-visible entries from the site diary, with their captions, laid out as a grid. Your phone number and email sit in the footer, because the point is fewer calls, not no contact.
Then the loop closes back to you. Every action raises an in-app notification that deep-links to the right place: “Client approved claim CL-003”, or “Client selected Caesarstone Cloudburst for Kitchen benchtop, $1,240.00 over allowance”. That second one escalates in severity, because a choice that lands over its allowance is a commercial event and needs your attention sooner than a choice that lands inside it. VIABUILD shows you the variance and tells you about it. Turning it into a variation stays your decision, made deliberately, not something the software does behind you.
- One link, no account, no app, no password
- Your logo, your brand colour, the project and contract number
- Only sent or paid claims are visible, in client language
- One-button claim approval that records the client’s name
- Selections chosen from the page, with allowance and plain-English status
- Progress photos published from the site diary, captions included
- Every client action notifies you and deep-links to the job
- Create, rotate or revoke the link; see when it was last opened
04 / The workflow
How it runs, step by step
- 01
Create the link
Generate the portal link from the job. The full URL is shown once and only a hash is kept, so it can be reissued but never read back out.
- 02
Send it to the client
They open it on a phone or a laptop with no account to create. The page carries your logo and brand colour, the project name, site address and contract number.
- 03
They see what has been sent
Claims that are sent or paid, with amount, issue date, due date, notes and a status written in client language. Drafts and internal figures never appear.
- 04
They act
Approve a claim with one button, leave a comment, or make a selection from option cards showing image, description, price and the allowance.
- 05
You get told, where the work is
Each action raises an in-app notification that deep-links to the claim or selection. Over-allowance choices escalate in severity so they are not read as routine.
- 06
Photos keep the story running
Diary entries your supervisor marks client-visible appear in the photo grid with their captions, so the internal record and the client feed come from one act of writing.
- 07
You keep control of access
Check when the link was last opened, rotate it when circumstances change, or revoke it outright. A new link automatically revokes the one before it.
05 / FAQ
Common questions.
A construction client portal is a private page for one project where the owner can see and act on the things that concern them: the progress claims the builder has sent, the selections waiting on their decision, and the site photos the builder has published. In VIABUILD it is a single link with no account, no app and no password, branded with the builder’s logo and colour and headed with the project name, site address and contract number.
No. The client gets one link and the page opens. There is no account to create, no password to remember and nothing to download, because the portal is a web page rather than an app. That is what makes it get used: a homeowner who has to set up credentials will ring you instead.
They see progress claims that have been sent or paid, their selections, and the site photos you have published from the diary, plus your phone number and email. They do not see the schedule, the budget, your costs, your margin or your document store. The portal is a controlled view of the parts of the job the client has a stake in, not a window into your business.
Each visible claim shows the amount, issue date, due date, any notes and a status in client language such as “Awaiting payment” or “Paid”. The client approves with one button, which records their name against that claim, or they can leave a comment instead. Previous comments show inline with the author and date, and an “approved by you” badge appears on anything they have already signed off.
The variance is shown against the allowance and you receive a notification naming the item and the amount, for example “Client selected Caesarstone Cloudburst for Kitchen benchtop, $1,240.00 over allowance”. That notification escalates in severity, because an over-allowance choice is a commercial event. Converting it into a variation is a decision you make deliberately; VIABUILD does not raise one automatically.
They come out of the site diary. Your supervisor records the day’s work with photos and captions as usual, and visibility is controlled per diary entry. Entries marked client-visible appear in the portal’s photo grid with their captions. One entry serves both the internal site record and the client’s photo feed, so nothing is written or uploaded twice.
Yes. You can create, rotate or revoke the link at any time, and creating a new one automatically revokes the previous link. The full URL is displayed to you once when it is generated and only a hash is stored, so it can be reissued but not recovered. The job also shows when the client last opened the portal.
Variations go out on their own single-use link rather than through the portal. The client approves or declines by typing their name as a signature, and a decline requires a reason so you know what to price or explain differently. The detail lives on the variations feature page.
06 / Keep reading
Related features & guides
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