The client portal is the part of HomePulse your customers actually use. Everything else you set up is invisible to them, but this is the thing they open on a Sunday night to look at their house.
Choosing what appears
Seven tabs can be switched on or off per job: summary, schedule, selections, my selections, variations, messages and attachments. Turning one off removes it from their navigation and hides the matching card on their summary page, so you can run a job where the client is focused on their selections and not much else.
The Summary page
The portal opens on a summary of their build. Across the top is a banner with four figures: the current phase of construction, the estimated completion date, the next milestone and the date of the last site update.
Below the banner sits the part that does the real work. Action Required lists the things waiting on them, which is outstanding selections, unsigned variations and unread messages. This is what most clients look at first, so a job with a well-maintained Action Required list needs far fewer follow-up phone calls than one without.
The build progress timeline shows where their house is up to, phase by phase, driven entirely by the tasks on your job. If you have not put a schedule on the job this section sits empty, which is one of the better arguments for entering at least a basic programme even if you manage the real schedule elsewhere. A client who can see that frame is done and lock-up is three weeks away stops asking you when frame will be done.
Recent site photos shows the most recent images you have shared. In practice this is the feature that most reduces the "just checking in, how's it going" calls a builder fields, and clients check the photos far more often than anything else in the portal.
Below those are selections progress, showing how far through their choices they are, and a contract variations summary.
Selections
This is where your client can navigate your selection journey and make the choices for their build.
Down the left is a sidebar listing the areas of their build, each with its own progress bar. They pick an area, the main panel fills with the decisions in that area, and they work through them one at a time. Opening a decision shows a grid of product cards, each carrying the photo, the name and a price badge where relevant.
A standard inclusion shows no badge at all. A product with an upgrade price shows the amount. And a product you have marked Price on Application shows a P.O.A. badge instead of a figure, with a note that you will confirm the price.
They can search within the products and filter by supplier and by finish, and clicking a product opens a larger view with the image gallery, the description, the specifications and, where you have attached documents to the item, a Documents tab they can open. A running total upgrades figure appears once they have chosen their first priced or P.O.A. item.
At the end of each group they mark it complete, or use Mark as N/A where it does not apply to their build. Completing takes them straight on to the next decision, with the button naming what is coming next.
My Selections
A separate tab shows your client everything they have chosen, grouped by area, as a running record rather than a set of decisions to work through. It is the screen a client goes to when they want to remind themselves what they picked for the ensuite six weeks ago, and it is the one they tend to show their family.
This is also the view that matches what you see on the builder side, so when a client rings up querying a choice you are both looking at the same thing. Like the other tabs it can be switched off per job.
Locking selections once they are settled
From the Chosen Selections screen on the job you can Lock all selections for the whole job, or lock a single area with Lock area. A locked area shows as Finalised, and an area locked because the whole job is locked shows as Locked by job-wide lock. Both are reversible, with Unlock all and Unlock area.
Once an area is locked, your client cannot change or remove a choice they have already made, and the message they see is "Selections for this area have been finalised and can no longer be changed." That holds in the portal and in showroom mode.
You run the selections meeting, sign off the bathroom, send the order to your supplier, and three weeks later the client changes their mind about the tile while the original is already on a truck. Locking each area as it is signed off closes that gap, and because you can lock area by area you can finalise the bathrooms while the client is still deciding on the kitchen.
Schedule
The build schedule as phases they can expand, with a simple three-dot legend showing what is done, what is underway and what is coming. The phase currently in progress opens automatically, so the first thing they see is where their house is right now.
Photos and files
Site photos in a grid with a lightbox, and documents in a list, both filterable and searchable. This is the best screen in the portal on a phone, because photos are what clients look at on the train home rather than at a desk.
The important thing here is that only the files you have explicitly shared with the client appear. Uploading a file to a job does not publish it to them, so you can keep internal plans, defect photos and supplier documents on the job without a moment's worry, and share only what you want your client to have.
Variations
Each variation appears as a card with a status-coloured border, the amount and the detail. Where one is waiting on them, they get Accept and Decline buttons. Accepting opens a signature pad they sign on screen, which replaces the print, sign, scan and email loop entirely.
Messages
A straightforward chat thread between you and your client, with their messages on one side and yours on the other. The value is not the feature itself, it is that build conversations end up in one place attached to the job rather than scattered across text messages, personal email and whatever was said on site last Tuesday. When a question comes up in six months about who agreed to what, it is all there.
Have a look yourself
The best way to understand any of this is to spend ten minutes as your own client. Add yourself to a test job with a personal email address, send yourself the login, and go through it end to end the way a homeowner would.
What to do next
Inviting your client and sending their login, and What to say when you send the portal for the first time for wording you can copy.
If you would rather sit down with your client and go through selections together in person, Running an in-person selections appointment with showroom mode covers the display mode built for exactly that.
Related articles
Adding your client to a job
Choosing which tabs your client can see
How your client chooses selections
Running an in-person selections appointment with showroom mode
Reviewing and adjusting what your client chose
Site photos, plans and documents