Stage automation examples (Advanced): Update client-facing status

Let your pipelines do the work for you: automate updating client-facing job status at any pipeline stage. 

For example, if you receive documents from your client and start working with them, the client-facing job status will automatically change to In progress. Next, when you finish the draft and send documents to the client for review, the status will change to In review. This way, your clients will know what's going on immediately once they log into the client portal.

In this article, you will learn how to set up this automation in pipeline stages, but this approach also applies to setting up this automation in custom job statuses.

Step 1. Create client-facing statuses

Before adding the automation, you must decide which client-facing job statuses you want to assign automatically. You may not want your clients to see updates corresponding to all stages. So, first, review the pipeline you will work with and define the statuses you want to display to clients. These could be different from the stages you have in your pipelines. For example, you can include steps like: Waiting for docs, Preparing and In review.

To edit the list of statuses, go to Templates > Firm templates from the left menu bar and select Client-facing job statuses. Review the statuses there and decide whether to edit them and their descriptions or create new statuses.

Step 2. Add the Update client-facing status automations to the pipeline

It's time to decide how the statuses will change by adding the Update client-facing status automation to pipeline stages. For each of them:

1. Decide if the client-facing status should be visible or hidden
2. If visible, select the client-facing status you want to display at this stage or create a new status
3. Edit the description if you want to tailor it to this particular pipeline. 

Repeat for automations on each stage, then save the pipeline.

If there are stages for which  Update client-facing status automation is not added, the client-facing status settings stay the same as in the previous stage. So, adding automation for each stage is recommended to avoid mistakes. 

Note! For the Update client-facing status automation, it doesn't matter if automove jobs is toggled on for the stage. The automation is triggered automatically and doesn't need actions from the client or the firm to complete. Also, no elements are linked to the job when the automation is triggered.

Step 3. Display client-facing status on job cards

To clearly understand when the displayed job status changes for a client, add it to the job card. 

To do so, access the pipeline settings, then toggle on the Client-facing status in the Job card fields section.

Note! This field will not appear on the job card if client-facing for a stage is hidden.

Show and hide client-facing status when moving or adding jobs

The options you choose in the pipeline settings are the default ones. However, you can always decide:

• Whether the client-facing status needs to be shown or hidden when moving your jobs manually
• Which client-facing needs to be assigned when adding a job manually

If there is an  Update client-facing job status automation created inside a selected stage you are moving jobs to, it is displayed in a pop-up. You can select whether to show or hide the client-facing status that was set in the automation.

Also, you can see the assigned status from the kanban view and show or hide the status by editing a job card on the spot. 

Note that if you automatically assign client-facing status using a job template, the template settings will be applied, and then you will be asked if you want to apply the automation.

How it looks for your clients

Once the job enters the stages, client-facing statuses are updated accordingly. Your client will see it and its description in the Work in progress section on the home page of the client portal and in the mobile app.

If you want to see how exactly your client sees it, log into their account in read-only view.