Clients, Jobs & Proposals

Cabora has a built-in CRM for managing clients and a Jobs system for grouping multi-room projects under one client umbrella. This guide covers the full workflow: adding a client, creating a job, sending a proposal, tracking feedback, and moving a project through its lifecycle.

Projects vs. Jobs

Project Job
What it is A single room design (kitchen, bath, etc.) A container grouping multiple room projects for one client
When to use Single-room work Any time a client has two or more rooms, or you want one proposal covering multiple rooms
Plan required Any Studio or Shop

A Job wraps one or more Projects. When you send a proposal from a Job, the client sees all rooms in one link and one PDF.

Adding a client

Clients are managed from the Clients view in the dashboard sidebar.

  1. Click + Add Client.
  2. Fill in the client's details:
Field Notes
Name Required — the client's name or company contact
Company Optional
Email Optional but needed to send proposals and messages
Phone Optional
Street Address / City / State / Zip Optional — appears on proposal PDFs
Notes Internal notes visible only to your team
  1. Click Save. The client appears in your Clients list.

A completeness indicator shows how much contact information you've filled in — green means complete, amber means some fields are missing.

Creating a Job (multi-room)

  1. From the dashboard, click New Job (or + New and choose Job).
  2. Give the job a name (e.g., "Smith Kitchen Remodel" or "Johnson Full Home").
  3. Assign a client by selecting them from the client dropdown, or add a new client inline.
  4. The job opens in the Job view, showing an empty room grid.
  5. Click + Add Room to create the first room. Each room is a standard project — you design it the same way as a single-room project.
  6. Add as many rooms as needed. Each room shows as a card in the job view with its own status.

Tip: The Job view shows an aggregated quote — total cost across all rooms, price per linear foot, total cabinet count, and total room count. This is what appears on the proposal PDF.

Project status lifecycle

Every project (and every room in a job) moves through a six-stage lifecycle. The current status appears as a colored badge in the project header and on the dashboard card.

Status What it means
In Design Design is in progress; the project is editable
Client Review You've sent the design to the client; awaiting their response
Specs Approved Client has approved the design
In Shop Cabinets are being built
Installation On-site installation is underway
Complete The job is finished

Changing status:

  1. Open the project or job.
  2. Click the status badge in the header.
  3. Select the new status from the dropdown.

Status also changes automatically in some cases — for example, when you send a proposal link the status automatically moves to Client Review.

Sending a client proposal

  1. Open the job or project you want to share.
  2. Click the Send button in the top bar (in a Job, this is the main "Send" or "Share" button).
  3. The Send Proposal modal appears:
    • Client email — required; validated automatically
    • Client name — optional; auto-fills if you've assigned a client
    • Personal note — up to 280 characters shown to the client on their share page
  4. Click Send Proposal Link.
  5. The client receives an email with a secure link to their review page.
  6. The project status updates to Client Review automatically.

The client's review page shows:

  • AI renders of the design (if generated)
  • Elevation drawings they can click to annotate
  • A proposal PDF download (if configured)
  • Approve and Request Changes buttons

When the client responds:

  • Approve → status moves to Specs Approved
  • Request Changes → status returns to In Design; their comments appear in your activity panel

Activity panel — notes and messages

The activity panel is the side panel with the notes icon, accessible from the project or job view.

Viewing the activity panel

Click the notes/activity icon in the toolbar. The panel has three sections:

Status — Quick-access buttons to update the project status without going to the header badge.

Notes — Private internal notes visible only to your team, not to the client.

  • To add a note: click Add note, type your note, and save.
  • Notes show the creation date and can be deleted individually.
  • Notes are private — the client never sees them.

Message client — Send a direct email to the client from within Cabora.

  • Shows the client's email on file.
  • Type a subject and message body.
  • Click Send email to send.

This is useful for following up on feedback, sending revised quotes, or scheduling installation.

Tracking client feedback

When a client leaves comments on a share link (either general feedback or annotations pinned to specific cabinets), those comments appear in your project.

On Shop plan, client annotations are pinned to the specific cabinet they clicked on — clicking that cabinet in the editor highlights the attached feedback.

To mark feedback as resolved:

  1. Open the comments/feedback panel (comment icon in the toolbar).
  2. Find the comment.
  3. Click Resolve. Resolved comments are hidden from the active list but not deleted.

Managing shares and resending

Share links are managed from the Job view, not from inside the project editor.

  1. Open the Job from the dashboard.
  2. The Job view shows all active share links, whether the client has viewed each one, their response status, and when each link was last sent.
  3. Click Resend to resend the email if the client lost it.
  4. After making revisions, send a new link from the Job — this is the best way to let the client know the design has been updated.

If you're working on a single-room project that isn't part of a Job, use the Share with client section in the project notes panel (the notepad icon at the lower right of the editor) to send a share link directly.