Illustrative example — this shows how a job like this typically runs, not a specific client engagement. Figures are representative, not measured outcomes.
Giving a Facilities Management Company's Clients a Reason to Stop Calling
How a client-facing portal, built on top of a job management system nobody wanted to replace, cut status-update calls to almost nothing.
Where they started
The company's internal job management system worked fine for staff, but clients had no way to see it — every status check, invoice query or request for a compliance certificate meant a phone call or an email to whoever happened to be free. Notes and instructions on a job lived in whichever staff member's inbox had last touched it.
Replacing the internal system was off the table — staff already knew it, and re-training the whole team wasn't worth the risk. What was needed was a client-facing layer that read from the existing system without staff having to change how they worked, on a system that had never been built with anything else in mind.
What the client-facing side was missing
From the first read-throughA job's status, an approved quote, an overdue invoice — all sitting in the internal system, none of it visible to the client without asking.
Instructions and notes on a job lived in individual staff inboxes, so a staff member being off sick could stall a client's request with no one else aware it existed.
Built years earlier with no safe way for other software to reach its data — the first job was making the data reachable at all, without touching the system staff relied on.
They needed a window other people could look through, not a system to relearn.
How the four weeks ran
Done in 4 weeksA safe way to read the old system
Built a one-way sync that mirrors job, invoice and compliance data out of the legacy system on a short delay, without touching how staff use it day to day.
The client portal
Built a portal where a building manager logs in and sees live job status, invoice history and current compliance certificates for every site they manage.
A shared thread per job
Added a message thread tied to each job that both staff and the client can see, so a request or instruction survives a staff member being away.
Rolled out building by building
Onboarded buildings in batches rather than all at once, trained the internal team on the new client-facing side, and handed over documentation for the sync layer.
What was handed over
- A safe, one-way sync out of the existing job management system
- A client portal showing live job status, invoices and compliance certificates
- A shared message thread tied to each job, visible to both staff and client
- A staged rollout plan and documentation for the sync layer
What we built it with
We pick tools with low ongoing licence costs, solid privacy, and no lock-in — so you can take the work elsewhere if you ever want to.