Job email and the Communications page

Every job has its own email address, like pur-26-0412.pure@jobs.operant360.com. Mail sent to it is saved on the job, attachments included, where everyone working on the job can read it. Nobody has to dig through one person's inbox to find what the adjuster said.

The address

An address is the job number, a dot, then a short name for your company. You'll find it on the job, under the property address, with a Copy button beside it, and on the job's Comms tab under Email.

The short name is chosen once by an admin. If one branch should have its own (say pure-toronto for the Toronto office), give that branch its own name and its jobs use it instead. Branches without one use the company's.

• Where to set it: the first time, right on a job's Overview or on the Email tab of the Communications page. After that, in Settings, Organization, Job email, where every branch is listed.
• Changing a name: jobs get the new address from then on. Addresses already given out keep working, so a reply to an old email still finds the job. No other company can ever take a name you've used.
• Who can change it: owners and admins. Everyone else sees the address once it's on.

Getting mail onto a job

• CC or BCC the job on any email you send from your own mailbox. Your message and every reply that includes the job's address land on the job.
• Forward an email to the job's address to file something that's already in your inbox. The original sender and date are kept.
• Give the address out. Clients, adjusters and subtrades can write to it directly.

Mail that doesn't pass the sender's security checks is held, not filed. It waits under Held until an owner or admin looks at it and presses Release to job. Held mail may be fake, so nobody else can let it onto a job. Mail sent to a job number that doesn't exist waits under Not on a job yet, so nothing is lost.

Mail that isn't on a job yet

Mail sent to your company's own address, to a branch's address, or to a job number that doesn't exist goes to Not on a job yet on the Communications page. Owners and admins see it there. Nothing in it is filed or deleted until a person decides.

When the email names a job number, a purchase order number or a job's address, it shows Looks like that job or order, marked Strong. A weaker match, such as the street alone or a sender who is already a contact on a job, is marked Possible. The reasons are listed under it. If more than one job fits, each one is shown.

Press File to to choose where it goes:

• A job. You can also add the sender to that job's contacts, so their replies land there from now on.
• A purchase order. The email goes onto the order's job and is linked to the order. An order that isn't tied to a job can't take it; file it to a job instead.
• Not job mail. It leaves the list and is kept under Handled.

Any conversation already on a job has File to at the top too, to move it to another job or purchase order. If photos or documents were added from it, you're asked whether they move as well.

Every filing and every move has Undo in the message that appears. Undo is refused once something newer happens, like a new email in the conversation or another move.

A bill from a subtrade

When the email carries a bill and you file it to a purchase order, File to reads the bill first: the vendor, the invoice number, the amount, and what the order has left once it's in. Tick Send the bill for approval and the bill goes where the order's other bills are reviewed, under Payables and on the order's Bills tab, with a link back to the email. The conversation is marked handled.

If the email has more than one document, pick which one is the bill. If the bill can't be read, File to says so and offers Enter the bill. That opens a page with the PDF on the left and the order's own bill fields on the right. Type the bill in, press Add to purchase order, and you land back on the email with File to showing the bill. Filing then links that bill instead of making a second one, and Cancel there leaves the bill in review on the order. You can still file the email without a bill and enter it on the order later. Undo takes the bill back out as long as nobody has changed or approved it yet.

Mail to a closed job

Mail sent to a closed job still lands on it, with a note that the job is closed. From that note you can File to another job, or press New project from this email to open a new project with the sender and the email's text filled in. The email moves to the new job once you create it.

Sending and replying from the job

Write to a client, adjuster or subtrade from the job itself. Nobody has to copy the job's address into their own mailbox first.

• From is the job's address. Every email goes out from it, with your name beside it, so the client sees who wrote.
• Replies come back to the job. Whoever answers lands in the same conversation, for the whole team to read.
• Reply all is the default. Reply opens with everyone on the original email. Take people off before you send if they shouldn't see it.
• Bcc is private. Only your team sees who was on Bcc. The people you wrote to never do.
• Drafts are kept. Close the window and your draft is saved. Open the email again and it's back. Discard draft throws it away.
• Someone else may be replying. You'll see their name while their reply is open, so two people don't answer the same email.

People on the job

On the job's Comms tab, On this job lists its contacts. Press Add contact to search saved people. The client's contacts come first; people from other jobs show their job number beside them. Pick someone to add them without leaving the page. Undo removes that addition from the job and keeps their saved contact record.

For someone new, type their name or email and choose New contact. The usual contact sheet opens with what you typed filled in. Saving creates the contact on the client and adds them to the job together. People you add are also offered in the email recipient picker. Teammates are kept out of the contact list.

The contact strip stays one row tall. When more people are hidden, Show all expands it; Show fewer returns to one row.

A client asks for their PO on an invoice

When a reply to an invoice asks for a client PO number, the conversation offers Add PO and revise invoice. Review the number read from the email, marked in purple, and correct it if needed. The sheet names the invoice and the phase it covers.

Press Save PO and prepare reply to save the number and revise the invoice. A reply opens with the revised PDF attached. Amounts, payments and payment deadlines stay the same. Read the reply before pressing Send; preparing it sends nothing.

Refine

Write the email your way, then press Refine under the message to tidy the wording. Refine works on what you wrote and nothing else. It doesn't write the email for you.

• What it changes. Spelling, capitals and punctuation, plus a greeting and a close. Your facts stay as you wrote them: if a number would change, Refine leaves your words alone and tells you so.
• Pick a tone. Professional, Friendly or Brief. Switching tone starts again from your own words.
• Purple means Refine wrote it. The message has a purple edge while it holds Refine's wording. Change anything and the words are yours again.
• Undo refine puts back exactly what you typed.
• Documents you mention get attached. Write "the moisture map is attached" and the job's moisture map is added to the email, marked with the same purple sparkle. Take it off if it's the wrong one.
• Nothing sends on its own. Read it over, then press Send.

When an email doesn't go

If an address bounces or the mail service refuses the email, the conversation says so, with the reason. Nothing is lost and your draft is kept.

• Fix it right there. The card under the email shows the address it tried. Type the right one in its place and press Fix and resend. The corrected address is saved to the contact it came from, and the email goes out again to that address alone.
• A task is made for you. A "Fix the email address" task is added so it isn't forgotten. It closes itself once the fix goes through.
• Too many or too large attachments. The message tells you the size the mail service allows. Take a file off and send again.

Your signature

Everyone sends from the same job address, so your signature is how clients know it was you. It goes at the bottom of every email you send from a job.

Press Signature at the top of the Communications page to write yours. Leave it empty and emails are signed with your name and branch. It's yours alone and only applies to this company.

Adding attachments to the job

Photos and files that come in by email stay with the email until you add them to the job. On any email with attachments, press Add to job under the message.

• Everything you can add starts ticked. Untick what you don't want, or use Select all and the Photos and Documents toggles.
• Photos go to the job's Photos. Everything else goes to Documents, where you pick a category for each file (it starts as Other).
• Photos and files you add read "Emailed by" and the sender's name. After that they work like any other photo or document.
• Files already on the job show On the job and can't be ticked again, so adding the same attachment twice never makes a copy.
• A file the job can't hold, because of its type or size, says why and stays on the email.

The Communications page

Communications in the sidebar has two tabs. Each sorts what came in by what it needs from you, and the number beside Communications is how many conversations are waiting on your team.

Messages holds your conversations with subtrades about their purchase orders and requests for price.

• Needs reply, Waiting on them and Handled sort every conversation. One stays in Needs reply until someone answers it or presses No reply needed; opening it isn't enough.
• Reply right in the conversation. The subtrade sees it in their portal.
• Turn a message into a task from its menu. The task quotes the message and links back to it.
• Assigned to picks who gets that conversation's emails. Owners and admins see every conversation; everyone else sees the jobs they're on.

Email holds the mail sent to your jobs' addresses, across every job.

• Needs reply is mail someone is waiting on. Press No reply needed when it doesn't need an answer and it moves to Handled.
• Not on a job yet and Held are the two places mail waits for a person, as described above.
• Search by sender, subject or job, and narrow the list to a branch or a job.

A job's own Comms tab shows the same two tabs, narrowed to that job.