Working assessments

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What an assessment is for

An assessment is the work you do before you can put a number on a job. Use one to schedule a property visit or request photos so you can price the work accurately. Two things land on your Assessments screen:

• Leads from your booking form arrive here automatically, carrying the customer’s own words. See Contact form.
• Assessments you create yourself, from the Assessments screen, the + Quick Actions menu, or a customer’s page.

Once you know what the work is worth, the assessment turns into a quote. See Managing quotes.

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The Assessments screen

Open Assessments from the navigation drawer. The header shows how many assessments are open, and an Add button starts a new one. Open assessments are grouped by what stage they’re at, newest activity first: Each row shows the customer’s name, their words (or the property address), and a date line for that stage — when the lead arrived, when you asked, or when the visit is booked. Tap anywhere on a row to open the assessment.

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Show closed

Finished assessments live behind the Show closed toggle at the bottom of the screen. They’re one flat list, most recently resolved first, each row wearing its own outcome:

• Quoted — you built a quote from it
• Closed — you closed it without quoting (with the reason you typed, if you gave one)

Tap Show more if the list is longer than the first page.

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Creating an assessment

Tap Add on the Assessments screen — or New Assessment in the Quick Actions + menu. The flow opens in place over whatever page you were on, so backing out leaves you where you started.

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Asking for photos

Choosing Ask for photos opens the What do you need from them? screen. Type your question — or leave it blank to send the suggested one — and tap Get the link. A send modal opens with the question and the link already written into a text message.

• Send text (or Send SMS, depending on your account) sends the message when a phone number is on file — see Texting your customers
• Copy Message copies it to your clipboard so you can paste it anywhere

The assessment moves to Waiting on customer, and its page shows a You asked card with your original question and when you sent it.

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What the customer sees

The link opens a single page with your business name at the top, the property address, your question, and a line saying when you asked — Asked today, Asked yesterday, or Asked 4 days ago. There’s no login and no app to install. Below the question they get:

• A Tap to add photo tile — tapping it opens their camera roll, and they can pick several photos at once
• One text box, Anything they should know, for anything they want to type
• A Submit button

Each photo they pick becomes a thumbnail with a small remove button, so they can drop one before sending. A pick of two photos stages two tiles: Picking again adds to what’s already there rather than replacing it. After they tap Submit the page confirms it — “Sent to [your business]. You can add more below if you forgot something.” — and the photos they already sent stay on screen as thumbnails they can’t remove. The form stays open underneath, so a customer who forgot the side gate can send it a minute later without a new link.

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If a staged photo says “Error Loading”

Before a customer taps Submit, the tiles are their own phone or computer previewing the file it picked. Some browsers can’t preview an iPhone HEIC picture, so that tile reads Error Loading instead of showing the photo: Nothing is wrong. The photo is staged and will send. Once they tap Submit, ProBase has converted it and every sent tile shows the picture: Full-size camera shots are fine too — a customer sending pictures straight off a recent phone doesn’t need to shrink them first, as long as each one is under 12 MB. Their phone makes a smaller copy before sending, so a few shots go up quickly even on a phone signal.

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If something goes wrong on their end

The page explains problems in plain language and never loses what they’ve already added:

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Sending the link again

If they haven’t replied, open the assessment and tap Send the photo link again. It’s the same link and the same question — nothing they already sent is lost. When their photos and answer arrive, the assessment moves to Ready to quote and the reply appears on the assessment page under From [their name]. Tap any photo to open it full size.

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Once you’re done with the assessment

The link stays open while the assessment is live, so the customer can keep adding. As soon as you quote the work or otherwise close the assessment out, the same link stops accepting photos and shows a thank-you instead — “Thanks — [your business] has what they need.” — with your phone number underneath in case they have anything else.

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Scheduling an on-site visit

Choosing Schedule on-site visit — or tapping Schedule a visit on an assessment page — opens the When will you go? sheet. The sheet opens on tomorrow at 9:00 AM for 30 minutes — your business’s tomorrow, not the calendar’s somewhere else — so booking a quick look at a property is usually two taps. Change any of it:

• Date and Start time — the date can be today or later; a day that’s already gone is refused
• Duration — 30, 45, or 60 minutes
• Crew (optional) — only appears when you have more than one crew; leave it Unassigned to decide later

Under the date, ProBase tells you what’s already booked that day — or Nothing else booked this day — so you don’t double-book yourself. Tap Book visit. ProBase then offers to confirm the time with the customer: a pre-written text you can send with Send text (or Send SMS on accounts where your phone does the texting) or Copy, or skip with Done. The assessment moves to Visit scheduled and a Visit card appears on its page showing the date, time, duration, and crew. Tapping that card opens the visit’s own appointment page — that’s where the visit’s checklists, notes, and photos live, and where Reschedule and Cancel visit are.

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Cancelling a visit

Open the visit’s page from the assessment’s Visit card, tap the outlined ⋯ More button beside the main action and choose Cancel visit. The assessment stays open — the visit card keeps showing so you can see what happened.

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Completing a visit

After you’ve been to the property, open the assessment and tap Complete visit. If the visit has a checklist, the checklist step opens first — answer the required questions and tap Continue. Then write what you saw:

• Notes (optional) — Only you see these notes — they carry into your quote.

Finish with one of three choices:

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The assessment page

Everything about one assessment lives on its own page, read top to bottom.

• The lead’s own words — when the assessment came from your booking form, the customer’s message sits above everything else
• The header — the current stage as a pill, the customer’s name (tap to open them), the property address, and their phone and email so you can chase without detouring
• You asked — your photo question and when you sent it, while you’re waiting on a reply
• Visit — the visit’s date, time, duration, crew, and status; tap through to the appointment page
• From [their name] — the customer’s answer and photos
• Outcome — on a resolved assessment: what it became, and when
• Notes — your own notes on the assessment, plus any notes written during the visit. Tap Add a note to write one, or a note to edit it
• History — a plain dated list of everything that has happened
• Actions — the buttons that make sense for the stage you’re at

The From [their name] card is where the reply lands: their pictures as tiles, their message underneath, and when it arrived — Sent today. Tap a tile to see the picture full size before you price anything.

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What you can do at each stage

Create quote skips straight to a draft quote — the assessment already knows the customer and the property, so there’s nothing to re-pick. Your notes, the customer’s words, their answer, and the photos all ride along on the quote page while you build it. See Adding services to the quote. The moment you tap Create quote, the empty draft is already a real quote — it appears on the Quotes screen straight away as a Draft reading No services yet, with no amount against it until you price something. Nothing is lost if you get called away mid-quote. Adding and saving services still leaves the assessment open — it’s the send that resolves it. Once the quote goes out, the assessment’s outcome card reads “You sent the quote — assessment resolved as Quoted”.

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Closing an assessment

Not every lead becomes work. Tap Close assessment in the header of an open assessment. You can type a Reason (optional) — e.g. Price shopper — then confirm. The assessment moves out of your active list and stays readable under Show closed, with your reason on the row.

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Archiving the customer too

If the person has no active job and no other open assessment, ProBase asks whether to archive them as well. Closing a request isn’t the same as burying a person, so it always asks — Archive [name] or No, keep them. If you later work an assessment belonging to an archived customer, ProBase asks before restoring them.

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Assessments on the customer and property pages

An assessment also opens from inside the customer’s record, keeping the Customers / customer / property trail so you can carry on where you were.

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Assessments on HomeBase

HomeBase surfaces assessments that need you as one Assessments row in its Action needed section. The count is the total, and the line underneath splits it by stage — for example 1 new, 1 ready to quote, 1 waiting on photos:

• New — leads waiting on you
• Ready to quote — assessments where it’s your turn
• Waiting on photos — you asked three or more days ago and nothing has come back

The row opens the Assessments screen. See HomeBase.

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Next steps

• Managing quotes — build, send, and close out the quote an assessment becomes
• Creating quotes and assessments — where each flow starts
• Contact form — the booking form that feeds leads in
• Checklists — standard questions to answer on an assessment visit