Customer job tracker for your workshop: they see progress online

Your customers check their job status anytime instead of ringing you to ask where their job has got to.

Who it's for

A small manufacturer or fabrication workshop with a handful of people on the floor, an owner who still quotes and still welds, and someone in the office answering the phone. You take on bespoke work for builders, shopfitters and other trades. The problem bites mid morning, when the office phone goes for the fourth time and every caller wants the same thing: where is my job, and when can I collect it.

The problem today

It is all on the whiteboard and in the job bags. I know where everything is, roughly, but nobody else does. So the phone rings and whoever picks it up has to come out to the floor and ask, or guess, or promise to ring back and then forget. Customers email as well, and chase on WhatsApp, and some of them ring twice in a day. I lose half the morning repeating myself. Worse, when a job slips I do not tell anyone until they ask, so by then they are already annoyed, and the ones who went quiet because they thought we had forgotten them did not come back.

What the app does, screen by screen

1. Customer list — The owner and the office see every customer in one place, with every job they have had and what was said last time.
2. New job — The office opens a job against a customer, writes what is being made, and sets the week it is aimed at.
3. Job card on the floor — Staff move a job to its next stage and add a short note or a photo from their phone as they work.
4. Live jobs board — The owner sees everything in progress at a glance and which jobs are sitting too long at one stage.
5. Customer job page — The customer signs in and sees only their own jobs, the stage each one is at and the week it is due.
6. Documents — The customer downloads their quote, drawing and delivery note instead of asking the office to email them again.
7. Follow-ups — The owner and the office see quotes to chase and repeat work coming due, so nothing goes quiet by accident.

Who uses it and what it keeps track of

• Customers — Company name, the person you deal with, phone, email, address, how they found you, and private notes the office can read but the customer cannot.
• Jobs — What is being made, the customer it belongs to, the stage it is at, the week it is aimed at, who is on it, and the date it was finished. The customer sees only their own jobs.
• Job updates — Each change of stage with the date, who made it, a short note and any photo. The office chooses which notes the customer can see and which stay internal.
• Documents — Quotes, drawings, delivery notes and photos, each tied to one job, visible to that customer and to the office.
• Follow-ups — What needs chasing, which customer it belongs to, the date to do it and whether it is done. Office and owner only.

What it changes for the business

The office stops being a switchboard for the same question. Customers look instead of ringing, and when they do ring it is about something real. Jobs stop going quiet, because a slipped week is visible before anyone has to admit it on the phone. Quotes get chased, so work you had already won stops drifting away. The whiteboard stops being the only record, so when the owner is out on site the rest of the workshop can still answer for itself. Customers who can see progress trust the next quote more.

The one decision that matters

The decision is how much the customer actually sees. One option is full honesty: every internal stage, the real dates, the notes your team writes to each other. The other is a short, plain set of stages and the week you are aiming for, with your team's own notes kept private unless someone chooses to share one. Go with the short set. Internal stages mean nothing to a shopfitter and exact dates become promises you did not intend to make, so every slip turns into the phone call you built this to avoid. Plain stages and an honest target week tell them enough to stop worrying, and leave your team free to write what they like on the job card.

What to build first, and what can wait

Build the customer list, jobs with a handful of stages, the floor job card, and the customer page with documents. That alone kills most of the phone calls. Leave customer sign-off on drawings, deposits and payments, automatic chase reminders and the phone app until the workshop is actually updating jobs every day. If the stages are not being moved, nothing else you add will help, so prove that habit first.

How BooDoo builds it

You describe the workshop and the job stages in plain words and BooDoo builds it, with the database and the sign-in behind it, so the owner, the office, the floor and each customer open the same app and see different screens. The one request gives you a website on its own live address, and an Android app you can publish on Google Play under your own account when the floor wants one. Your own domain can be connected. A WhatsApp button on the job page opens a chat with you. Later you change the stages or the wording by describing the change.

How you'll know it works

Within a few weeks the office notices that the morning calls have thinned out, and the ones that come in start with something other than where is my job. Customers mention the page unprompted, and the whiteboard stops being the only thing anyone trusts.

Build it

Paste this in and it gets built.

I run a small fabrication workshop and I want a website where my customers can sign in and see where their job is up to, so they stop ringing the office to ask. I need a list of my customers with every job they have had with us, private notes, and follow-ups for quotes I need to chase. My team should be able to open a job on their phone on the floor, move it to the next stage and add a short note or a photo. Customers should only ever see their own jobs, a plain stage like in the queue, being made, painting or ready for collection, the week we are aiming for, and their quote, drawing and delivery note to download. Text them when the stage changes, and put a WhatsApp button on their job page so they can message us instead of phoning. I may want an Android app for the workshop later.