Sending a request from the portal

A customer presses + New request and is taken through a few short steps, one question at a time. Which steps a form asks is set per form in the portal settings, so the form a plumber uses need not ask what a lift company’s does.

Down the right, Your request lists what they have answered so far, each with Edit.

#	Step	What it asks
1	What is this about?	Which request form. Skipped where you have only one.
2	Contract	Only for a signed-in customer with active contracts, on a form that asks it.
3	What do you need?	The services, with a quantity against each, and up to five photos.
4	Tell us a bit more	Your own questions from the form — dropdowns, dates, numbers and the rest.
5	Address / site	Only where the customer has more than one site.
6	Where is it?	The place inside the address. Off by default — see location.
7	When should we come?	The days and parts of the day you are open, worked out below.
8	All set?	The estimate, the booking amount, and the button that sends it.

New request → What do you need?

New request → When should we come?

New request → All set?

The days and times they are offered

This comes from Settings → Company → Availability, so the portal offers the hours you actually work.

• With no availability set, the parts are Morning 8–12, Afternoon 12–4, Evening 4–7, and Any time.
• With availability set, each part is cut to that day’s hours. Open 9 to 7 gives 9–12, 12–4 and 4–7; a Saturday that closes at 2 has no evening at all.
• Closed days cannot be picked, and a few hours off close the parts they fall in.
• Today stays available only while an hour of a part is left. At three in the afternoon the evening can still be picked and the afternoon cannot. After you close, the first day offered is tomorrow.
• Booking lead time, where you have set one, moves the first day that can be chosen.

A part that has passed is greyed rather than hidden, so the customer can see why their day starts where it does.

Sending it

All set? totals the services — with tax where the services carry it — and shows the booking amount if the form asks for one. The button reads Send request, or Send & pay where there is money to take.

On Send & pay a new tab opens straight away, before the request is saved, because a browser will block a tab that opens later. The payment page loads into it once the request is through. On a phone it opens in the same tab.

If the payment page cannot be opened at all, the request is still sent — the customer is told “Request sent. The payment page could not be opened: use Pay on the request.” Nothing is lost, and the money can be taken from the request card.