Setting the work date after a quote is accepted
Once the customer accepts your quote, you tell TradesOps when you'll do the work. The AI parses your natural-language reply into a scheduled job.
What happens when the customer accepts
Customer taps Accept quote on their /q/<token> page. TradesOps:
- Marks the quote as accepted.
- Seeds one draft invoice per stage of the payment schedule.
- Pings you in Telegram (or shows a Set the work date panel on the quote's desktop detail page).
You now owe the customer a date.
Setting the date from Telegram
The Telegram bot posts something like:
📅 Book Sarah in Sarah accepted the £6,000.00 quote from Your Business. Reply to this message with the work date and time — anything the AI can read works.
Reply with any natural phrasing. Some examples that work:
Wed 15 Jul 9amnext Tuesday afternoon16 July, full dayw/c 22 July, probably MondayFirst week in August, weather permitting
The AI parses your reply into an ISO datetime (London time), infers a duration if you didn't specify (default 4 hours), and creates the job.
If the AI can't confidently parse ("sometime next month, TBC"), it comes back and asks you to be more specific.
Setting the date from the dashboard
Open the accepted quote at /dashboard/quotes/[id]. There's a Set the work date panel with the same natural-language input. Type your date, click Book job. Same code path — the same AI parses your reply and creates the job.
What the customer sees
Once TradesOps has your date, it emails the customer a job confirmation:
Your job with Your Business is booked in.
Wednesday 15 July, 09:00 Estimated 5 hours on site. Agreed price: £6,000.00
If you mentioned conditions ("weather permitting", "assuming materials arrive on time"), the AI captures them in the internal notes field and shows them at the bottom of the customer email.
Editing the date later
/dashboard/jobs/[id] → Update job section. Change the status to In progress or Completed, and edit internal notes.
Editing the scheduled date itself is a minor gap — currently you'd need to cancel the job and set a fresh date. Change-the-date-in-place is a fast-follow. Email help@tradesops.uk if this hurts you.
What if the customer wants to reschedule?
Reply to their email chain directly asking for a new date. Once agreed, update the job internally (or cancel and re-book if the reschedule is significant). The customer's confirmation email doesn't automatically re-send when you change the date.
Weekend / evening jobs
The AI parses evenings and weekends fine. But if you routinely work outside your standard working hours, remember to set them in Settings → Operations — that's what controls the customer-facing slot picker (for the earlier quote-visit booking, not the job date).