Keeping customers updated: shared job notes and the Work Recap

On a one-visit job the customer is standing there when you finish, so you just tell them. A job that takes three visits over two weeks is different. Between visits the customer has no idea what you found, what you ordered, or when you're coming back, so they call the office. The office has to dig through notes the technician wrote for colleagues, guess which parts are safe to repeat, and relay them second-hand.

Shared job notes cut out that relay. The technician writes the update once, decides as they write it that the customer can see it, and sends it by text or email before they leave the driveway. Every shared update also lands on the job's Work Recap, a one-page summary of the job the customer can open from a link, the office can print, and the invoice can carry as its second page.

How it fits together

1. Write a note on the job, as you always have, or in the prompt that appears when you mark a visit complete.
2. Choose who sees it. Every note is Private · team only unless you pick Shared with customer.
3. Send it now, if you want: by text, email, both, or neither. A shared note you don't send still appears on the Work Recap.
4. It's logged on the job. Shared and private notes sit in one list, and every text or email is listed under the note it carried, with how it went.
5. The Work Recap collects every shared note, grouped by visit, under the customer's details and the problem they reported.

Private notes stop at step 2. They never appear on anything the customer can see: not the recap, not a text, not an email, and not the AI summary.

Private or shared: deciding what goes where

The rule of thumb: write a shared note as if the customer is reading over your shoulder, because they will be.

Private stays the default on every note, even right after you shared one. That's deliberate: nobody should share something by accident because the last note happened to be shared.

What the customer can't see: private notes, prices, and the AI photo descriptions the system adds to notes with pictures. Those stay internal whatever you choose.

Posting an update from the job page

Open the job. In the Notes card, click Add a note…:

• Type the note, and attach a Photo if it helps. A photo on a shared note is shared with it, which is usually what you want ("here's the corroded element we pulled").
• Who sees it: pick Shared with customer.
• Visit: this defaults to today's appointment on the job. Leave it. Tying the note to a visit is what lets the recap show "Visit 2 · Tue Oct 6" next to the update instead of one undated list.
• Send it now: the job's contacts are listed with their mobile numbers and email addresses. The first mobile number is ticked for you. Untick everything if you only want the note on the recap.
• When a text is ticked, a text preview shows exactly what the customer will receive and how many segments it costs.

The button tells you what will happen: Save private note, Share, or Share and send (2).

Who you can text

A number that has replied STOP is listed but greyed out with Replied STOP, and a landline shows Not a mobile number. You can't tick either. That's the carrier rules talking, not the software being difficult. Use email for those customers, or ask them to text START back to your number.

Texts go to US numbers only. Customers with a number outside the US can still get the email.

At the end of a visit

When someone marks an appointment complete, Suprata asks: "Visit complete. Send Jane an update?" This is the moment that matters most on a multi-visit job, while the details are fresh. The prompt is already set to Shared with customer and to that visit.

• Send update shares the note and sends it to whoever is ticked.
• Save as private note keeps it for your team.
• Not now closes the prompt and records nothing.

The prompt appears when a visit is completed from the job's Appointments tab, the calendar, or a technician's own list on the home screen. It does not appear on the dispatch board, where the office closes out a day's visits in bulk and a prompt per visit would get in the way. It also skips cancelled visits and appointments that aren't attached to a job.

If your team would rather not be asked, turn it off under Administration → Jobs → Customer Job Updates.

What the customer receives

By text:

Ridgeline Plumbing: Update on job #1042. Replaced the lower heating element and the thermostat. Hot water is back, but it's still slow to recover... Full update: https://…

Every text ends with a link to the Work Recap, because that's where the customer sees photos and earlier updates. Long notes are trimmed so the whole text fits in two segments. A text costs one credit per segment, so this keeps a chatty technician from turning one update into a five-segment message. The full note is always on the recap.

Replies come back to your business number and land in the same SMS conversation the office already uses.

By email: the email comes from your company mailbox, with your logo and the business unit's name when you use business units. It shows the full note, the photo, and a See all updates for this job button. Replies go to your normal reply-to address.

The Work Recap

The recap is a one-page, customer-friendly summary of the job:

• Your letterhead (the job's business unit, if you use them)
• The customer, the service address, when the job was opened and its status
• What you told us: the problem as the customer reported it
• An optional Summary (see below)
• Visits: date, time, technician and status
• Updates: every shared note, grouped by visit, with photos

Open it from the job's Print menu → Work Recap. From there you can:

• Print it, for the customer who wants paper at the end of the job.
• Send to customer, which texts or emails them the link.
• Copy link, to paste into your own email or message.
• Turn off link if a link went to the wrong person. Anyone opening the old link sees "This link is no longer active". Sending the recap again creates a fresh link.

The recap shows when the customer last opened it, so you know whether your update was read before they call.

Rewording "What you told us"

The recap starts from the job's Job Details. Intake notes are often written for the team ("cust angry, 3rd callback, check warranty"). Click Edit for the recap to reword it for the customer. That changes only the recap, never the job itself.

Technician names

The recap shows technicians as first name and last initial ("Mike R."). If you'd rather not name staff on customer documents, turn off Show Technician Names on the Work Recap.

The AI summary

If your company uses AI-Assist, the recap toolbar offers Write a summary. It produces three to five plain sentences: what the problem was, what was done on each visit, and what happens next.

It's built only from what's already on the recap: the job type, what the customer reported, the visit dates and the shared notes. It never reads private notes, so it can't leak "customer pushed back on the price". It's told not to mention prices, warranties or staff names, and not to invent anything.

• It's written only when you click, and each summary uses one AI credit.
• Read it before it goes out. Use Edit to fix anything. Once saved, the printed and sent recap show exactly what you approved.
• If someone shares another update afterwards, the toolbar says the summary is out of date and offers Rewrite.
• Untick Show summary to keep it off the recap without deleting it.

Page 2 of the invoice

When a job has shared updates, its invoice can print the Work Recap as a second page. It's a description of the work, not part of the bill. It doesn't change the invoice, and it prints the same on a locked or closed invoice as on an open one.

Work Recap Page on Printed Invoices (under Administration → Jobs → Customer Job Updates) controls it:

• ASK (the default): the invoice shows an Add work recap page box, ticked. Untick it for a customer who only wants the bill.
• ALWAYS adds it to every invoice whose job has shared updates.
• NEVER leaves it off.

The same page appears under the invoice when the customer opens their invoice link, and on Quick Print unless you untick the box. Invoice emails also gain a "See the work we did" link to the recap. Estimates never carry it.

In the customer portal

If you use the customer portal, jobs with shared updates show View updates in the customer's service history, linking straight to the recap.

Stopping sharing

Shared a note by mistake? Use Stop sharing under it. It comes off the recap straight away. A text or email that already went out can't be recalled. The note keeps "Sent earlier, no longer shared" so everyone knows the customer saw it. Notes can't be edited after posting, so post a correction as a new shared note.

Who can do this

Sharing and sending are controlled by the Share Job Updates With Customers permission. When this feature was installed, every role that could already view and edit jobs got it. Anyone without it can still post private notes; they just don't see the Who sees it choice. Remove it from a role under User Management if, for example, you want only senior technicians speaking for the company.

Settings

Under Administration → Jobs → Customer Job Updates:

Common mistakes

• Writing shared notes in shop shorthand. "R&R LWR ELEM + TSTAT, RECOV SLOW, UPR PROB" makes sense to the team and alarms the customer. If the customer reads it, write it for them.
• Sharing the note that has the price in it. Quotes and prices belong on the estimate, where they're tracked and approved. A shared note that says "it'll be about $400" becomes the number the customer holds you to.
• Skipping the end-of-visit prompt every time. If technicians always tap Not now, the office is back to relaying updates by phone. A two-line update takes thirty seconds.
• Texting a customer who asked for email. Untick the text and tick the email. The choice is per update, not per customer.
• Turning off the link instead of stopping sharing. If one note was wrong, Stop sharing that note. Turn off link is for when the link reached the wrong person; it cuts off everything, including the right updates.
• Sending an AI summary you didn't read. It's usually right. "Usually" isn't good enough on a document with your name on it.

Related articles

• Creating your first job
• Jobs vs. appointments vs. reservations
• The Print Work Order
• The job-to-invoice chain
• Setting up SMS via Twilio
• Sending an invoice to a customer