Finishes

Finishes is the project’s finishes schedule. You define each finish once in the project’s palette, give it a code, then work through the rooms saying which finish or specification goes where. Rooms point at the palette rather than repeating it, so changing a finish once changes it in every room that uses it.

The palette

Every finish has a kind, and its code comes from that kind: P for Paint, W for Wood, M for Metal, T for Tile, S for Stone, L for Laminate, F for Fabric, G for Glass and X for Other. A new finish takes the next free code of its kind, so your second paint is P2, and you can change the code if your drawings already use a different one. Alongside its code a finish has a name, the maker’s reference, the maker, a colour, a sample photo and notes.

The palette is always in view, with the room you’re in first: on a wide screen it sits beside the rooms and on a smaller one in a bar at the bottom of the screen, and Palette opens the full list. Point at a finish to see where it’s used in the room, drag it onto a detail to use it there, or click it to edit it. Each finish shows how many places it’s used in. Editing it changes all of those places at once, which is also why a finish that’s in use can’t be deleted until you take it out of the rooms. Filtering the palette by kind gives you a schedule of just that kind; filtered to Paint, it is your paint schedule.

Your finishes library

The finishes you use on job after job, such as a company spray colour, a carcass decor or a fabricator’s patina, live on the Finishes tab in Library, beside Products, Suppliers and Templates. An entry has the same parts as a palette finish, apart from the code, and saves as you go. The list shows how many projects use each one. Archive takes an entry out of the pickers without changing any project that already uses it, Show archived brings archived entries back into view, and Restore puts one back in use. You can delete an entry only while no project uses it.

On a project, the + on the palette searches your library, with entries of the kind you’ve filtered the palette to at the top, and searches your products as you type. Choosing one adds it to the palette with the next code for its kind; a product asks which kind it is first. Create new finish starts one from scratch, with every field ready to fill in, photo included. Whatever you add is a copy of its name, reference, maker, colour and photo, so editing the library or the product later never changes a project, and the palette shows where each finish came from. To keep a finish you created yourself for other projects, open it and choose Add to library.

Not everything belongs on the palette: a tap or a pendant usually goes in one place. When you click a detail’s value and type, matching library finishes and products are offered for that detail alone, without a code. If it turns out to be needed elsewhere, right-click the detail and choose Add to palette.

Changing the library needs the Library permission. Anyone who can use Finishes can add from the library and from products, and sees products without their prices.

Sample photos

A colour can’t show oak, brass or marble, so a finish can carry a photo of the real sample. Open a finish on the palette and choose Add photo, or add one to a library entry. Wherever the finish appears, in the palette, the rooms, the pickers and the library, the photo shows in place of the colour, and the colour stays as the fallback while a new photo is processing. A finish added from a product brings the product’s photo with it.

Rooms, groups and details

Add room lists your organisation’s room templates, which start out as Kitchen, Bathroom, Bedroom, Living room, Utility room and External, and Blank room. A room takes a copy of its template’s groups and details, so you can tailor it freely, and later changes to the template never reach it. Rooms are tabs along the top, which stay in view as you scroll. A room is made of groups, joinery for instance, and each group of details, such as Door style. To rename or delete a room, a group or a detail, or for anything else you can do to it, right-click it, or click the handle that appears when you point at a group or detail. The ⋯ at the end of the room tabs does the same for the room you’re on. On a phone or tablet, use the ⋯ on a group or a detail. Drag any of them to change the order. Add group adds a group with its name ready to type.

A detail’s value is one of four things:

• a finish from the palette;
• a library finish or product for that detail alone;
• spec text, for anything else, with suggestions as you type drawn from your room templates and from your organisation’s earlier projects;
• a choice, one of a fixed list of options, such as Yes or No for soft-close hinges.

Typing in a detail’s value searches the palette, your library, your products and the suggestions at once. A choice offers its options and nothing else, and an unanswered one is a gap like any other. To make a detail a choice, click its empty value and choose Type at the bottom of the box, or right-click it and choose Change type; it starts with Yes and No, which you can change. Edit options does the same for a detail that’s already a choice. The type can only change while a detail has no value, and you can’t remove the option it’s set to until you clear it. Any detail can also have a note for that place, such as which wall it goes on, whether or not anything is chosen yet; it stays when you change or clear the value.

Click a value, type, and Enter saves it. Add detail adds one to a group, and Add another like this adds one straight after the detail you’re on.

Gaps

A schedule rarely starts complete, so Finishes keeps the gaps easy to find. A detail with no value is a gap, and Decide later marks one you’re leaving open on purpose, with a note of what you’re waiting on, set when you click the value: the client’s choice of tile, say. Each room’s tab counts how many of its details are specified, Gaps only lists the details still to settle from every room on one page, and search looks across every room at once. Either one swaps the room tabs for a line saying what you’re looking at; Show all rooms takes you back.

Everything saves as you go. On a completed project the schedule stays readable but nothing can be changed, and Finishes appears only for roles that include the Finishes permission.

Sharing a room with your client

Your client never sees the schedule you’re working on. They see the version of each room you last shared with their portal, and a room can go out with gaps, so you don’t have to wait for it to be finished.

Start by choosing what goes in. While you work on the schedule nothing shows what your client gets, so it stays out of the way; open the panel described below and every detail gets an eye you click, green when it’s shared, with Show to client and Hide from client in its right-click menu too. Only a detail with a value can be shared, and the eye on a group’s heading shares every detail in that group that has a value. Visible to client doesn’t show a detail to anyone straight away, because it only means the detail goes out the next time you share the room or send an update.

A room you haven’t shared yet says Not shared with your client yet above its groups, and Share Kitchen next to it opens the panel where you share it. The panel tells you how many details will be shared and how many aren’t, and each count opens into a list where Hide or Share changes one detail; Share them marks the rest in one go, and you can add a note for your client before you choose Share with client.

Sharing doesn’t email or notify anyone, so tell your client yourself when there’s something new to look at.

To check what your client has right now, preview their portal and open Finishes there.

Sending updates

Once a room is shared, the line above its groups says which version your client has, for example Your client has the 7 Nov version, and anything you change afterwards waits until you send it. A shared detail with a new value, label or note counts as an update, and so does a detail you’ve shared since, or one you’ve hidden, cleared or deleted since; details that aren’t shared never count, because your client wouldn’t see them either way.

Changing a palette finish counts in every shared room that uses it, which is why opening a finish on the palette tells you how many shared rooms it’s in. The line above a room’s groups then ends with Send 3 updates, which opens the panel; with nothing waiting it says See what you’ve sent instead.

Under its updates, the panel of a shared room also says how many details are shared and how many aren’t, with Hide and Share on each detail in those lists, so you can change what goes out from a phone as easily as from the schedule. The panel lists each update with what it was and what it is now, and pointing at one picks out its detail in the schedule. While the panel is open, every detail with an update carries a small dot, and so does the tab of every room with updates waiting. Undo puts a detail back the way your client has it, so one shared since is hidden again and one changed, hidden or cleared since gets its old value, label and note back. It isn’t offered where the update came from somewhere else, such as a palette finish you edited or a group you renamed, because putting the detail back can’t undo that, so change the finish or the group back instead.

Send to client sends everything listed, with a note if you add one, and your client’s portal shows the room as it is now with your note. They see only the latest version, so tell them what changed in the note if it matters.

Sent before, at the bottom of the panel, lists everything you’ve shared or sent for the room with its date, who sent it and its note, and each one opens into its own list of updates. Take back on the latest one returns your client to the version before it, or takes the room off their portal if it was the first share; your schedule doesn’t change, so you can send it again whenever you like. Deleting a room that’s been shared takes it off the portal too.

Sharing, sending, Undo and Take back need the Client portal permission. Without it you can work on the schedule as usual and see what’s waiting to be sent, and the panel shows which details are shared, but you can’t change what’s shared or delete a room that’s been shared. On a completed project nothing more can be shared, sent or taken back, and what your client already has stays on their portal.