Client sign-off without twenty emails

Why the thread grows to twenty emails

An approval by email fails in a predictable order. The first message carries a download link to a large file. The second asks which version is current. The third has notes typed as minutes and seconds by hand. Around message twelve a colleague of the client is copied in and answers on an older version. Nobody can say afterwards who approved what, and the studio finds out it is on round three of the two it quoted when it prepares the invoice.

None of that is carelessness. It is a channel that has no idea of a version, a decision or a deadline. In Tasked the client walks through one door, sees one thing, says one of two words, and everything after that is recorded and moves on its own. The six pieces linked from this page each cover one part of that.

One door instead of a login

A client in Tasked never creates an account. The studio issues a door for them, of four kinds: a code the client types, a link that carries its own token, a phone number that receives a one-time code by SMS, or an email address that receives one. A link or a code can additionally demand the one-time code: six digits, five minutes, five attempts.

A door expires after 30 days unless the studio sets another number, up to 365 days, or explicitly chooses no expiry. Revocation takes effect immediately. The credential is stored only as a hash; there is no button to show it again, and a lost code means a new door.

Each door carries five switches: view, comment, approve, upload and download. A new door is view-only, and the page never shows a button the door cannot use. Who may approve and how the portal knows explains the switches and the scope of a door.

Watching the cut and pointing at a second

The client watches a preview rendition in the browser, on a phone or a desktop, with nothing to install. The master file is never served on the preview path; downloading it is a separate permission. Until the preview is ready the page says why: still loading, still being made, or held while the malware scan has not cleared the file.

A note can be pinned to the playhead. It is stored as milliseconds, shown as hours, minutes and seconds next to the text, and clicking it seeks the player to that moment. In the studio's task thread the same note appears with its time in front of it. The client marks a second; frame-accurate marks at the source frame rate, drawing on stills and PDFs, and turning a comment into a task with an owner and a due date belong to the studio's review room.

The client sees only what was sent to them. Stages collapse into six plain words - intake, in progress, waiting for you, revising, delivered, on hold - so a client never reads the studio's internal stage names.

The decision, and what it moves

From the portal a client can approve or request changes. A change request must say what should change; the page refuses an empty one before it is sent, because a request nobody can act on is another round trip. The note can be up to 4,000 characters.

The decision is written as a decision row marked as coming from the portal, with no user id, so the studio's feed can always tell a client's approval from one a producer entered on their behalf. The workflow engine moves the task to the next stage by the board's own rules, the studio's people get a notification naming the cut and the verdict, and if the task has a review room open, the room hears the verdict too.

If the board's rules refuse the move - a condition on the exit transition, a stage that no longer accepts it - the client is told that the studio needs to look at this one and has been notified, and the studio sees it in the feed. The board is the studio's to fix.

When the client goes quiet

Most approvals never get a due date typed on them; a producer sends a cut and nobody writes a deadline. So the approval SLA is a clock that starts when the approval opens. The default target is 72 hours, with a warning 12 hours before it, and a job checks every pending approval every 15 minutes.

When the target passes, the reminder goes to whoever the approval is waiting on. For a client-facing approval that is the client's door with approve permission, by email and by SMS where the door has a phone, pointing back at the portal and saying how many days it has waited. No credential is re-sent. An approval is reminded at most once every 12 hours, and at most 50 approvals per studio are nudged per run.

A typed due date always wins over the default target, and a separate job every five minutes reminds approvals whose due date has arrived or is within the next hour. The approval SLA and what happens when it passes goes through both clocks.

Rounds agreed, rounds used

A project carries the number of revision rounds agreed with the client: 2 by default, 0 if nothing is included, up to 50. The product counts the rounds actually used, where one round is one review of one version that came back asking for more work. A plain approval is not a round.

When used passes agreed, the board shows how many rounds are billable, an audit row is written for every extra round, and an event fires so an automation can tell the producer and email the client. Tasked does not charge anyone for the extra round; the studio does, on its own invoice, with a record to point at. Agreed revision rounds versus what actually happens explains why the count is derived rather than stored.

What remains afterwards

Every step above writes to an audit log that has no update or delete path in any scope. A decision row says approved or changes requested, with the comment; a portal row names the door, the session and the review round; the session carries the IP address and browser. The studio side shows, per door, first opened, last seen, distinct devices and approvals recorded.

When a workspace is deleted, the data is exported, marked deleted and destroyed after 30 days, and the audit trail survives stripped of identifying detail. What an approval record is worth walks through the record, and A client portal with no account covers the door from the client's side.

Clients are not seats and are free on every plan. Tasked runs on a free Trial, Starter at $29 a month, Professional at $99 and Business at $249, priced on the studio's work rather than on the people looking at it.

Questions that keep coming up

Does the client need to install anything or create an account?

No. The door is a link, a code, or a one-time code by SMS or email, and the page runs in the browser on a phone or a desktop. No password exists.

Can the client reject a cut from the portal?

From the portal the two choices are approve and request changes, and a change request has to say what should change. A reject verdict is recorded by the studio in its own review room.

How long does the client have before a reminder goes out?

72 hours from the moment the approval opens by default, checked every 15 minutes; a typed due date wins. The reminder reaches the client's door by email and SMS, at most once every 12 hours.

How does the studio know which version was approved?

A decision closes one review round, and a round is one review of one version. The portal shows the version number, and the audit row names the round the decision closed.

What does the client see besides the cut?

Only what the studio sent through that door: the item, its status in six plain words, the notes thread, and the upload and download areas the door allows. No other projects, no client list, no staff names.