Keeping your customer up to date with project updates

Project updates (formerly: Bouwjournaal) is a photo timeline per project that takes your customer along with the progress of the job — without needing phone calls or separate WhatsApp messages. Indispensable for work your customer can't see for themselves, as at a construction company or a roofing company.

Posting an update

1. Open the project and go to the Project updates tab.
2. Click New update.
3. Add up to 12 photos (png, jpg or webp, max 15 MB per photo).
4. Optionally write a short description of what's been done.
5. Turn Visible to client on or off (on by default) and optionally mark the update as a Milestone.
6. Click Post.

An update must contain at least text or a photo. An update you start but don't finish is automatically cleaned up after 24 hours.

Visible to the customer or internal

Every update gets a label: an eye icon with "Customer" (visible) or a lock icon with "Internal". Internal updates are never visible to the customer, not even via the shareable link — handy for photos or notes meant only for your own team.

When you post an update that's visible to the customer, everyone with portal access to this project gets a push notification — at most once per project per 24 hours, so the customer isn't flooded when you post several updates in a row.

The first update: Situation at the start

If a project comes from an accepted quote that belongs to a request, one update is already waiting for you: Situation at the start. It contains the photos from the request — the customer's and those from the site visit — plus the notes you added to the request with the type Site visit. If there are more than 12 photos, they are split over several updates.

That update is always Internal. Photos from a site visit can show measurement notes or other people's belongings, so sharing them is a deliberate choice: set it to visible yourself if your customer may see it.

How your customer follows along

There are two ways, working independently of each other:

• Via the customer portal — does your customer have portal access (see Adding and managing a customer)? Then after logging in they see the timeline of their project(s) straight away.
• Via a shareable link, without logging in — on the Updates tab, click Share link to generate a unique link. You can email this link from the app (with a preview of the email beforehand), send it via WhatsApp or share it another way. Anyone with the link sees the timeline, without needing to log in.

Via the shareable link, the customer only ever sees the updates set to visible to client. Links you've already shared keep working.

Managing the link

On the Updates tab you can:

• turn the link on or off with Link active, without changing the link itself,
• generate a New link — the old link then stops working immediately.

An inactive or revoked link shows the customer a friendly notice that the link is no longer active.

Who can edit an update?

Only the person who created an update, or an administrator, can edit or delete it afterwards. A colleague can't simply change someone else's update.

Frequently asked questions

• Where has the Bouwjournaal gone? It's now called Project updates. It works exactly the same, and links your customer already has keep working.
• Can I also add videos or PDFs to an update? No, project updates only support photos.
• My customer doesn't have login details — can they still follow along? Yes, use the shareable link; no account is needed for that.
• Does my customer get a notification for every photo? No, at most one push notification per project per 24 hours, even if you post several updates.
• Could my customer still see internal updates if they guess a photo link? No, internal updates are always shielded, even via the shareable link.