What your clients see

Each person you work with gets one private page from your business. It's where your Asks wait for them, where they read and answer your secure messages, and where their meetings with you are. There's no account and no password: the link in your email is their way in, and anything private needs a code sent to their address.

What's on it

At the top: your business, the address your email came from, and Sign out once they've entered a code. Then three tabs, each with a count when there's something in it:

• To do: everything you're waiting on from them, like documents to upload or a yes to give. The link alone is enough here.
• Conversations: your private conversations with them, newest first. Each one opens like a thread in Rookery: your messages and theirs, with names and times, earlier quoted text folded away, and files that open in a viewer with photos and PDFs. ← Conversations goes back to the list.
• Meetings: what's coming up, at their own time, with Join for a video call, Add to calendar, Change time and Cancel. A time they asked for that you haven't said yes to yet shows as Requested, with Withdraw request (never a code) and no call to join. Past meetings are listed underneath, faded, with requests you declined as Not booked and ones you didn't answer in time as Not answered.

Conversations and Meetings open after a 6-digit code we email to them. So does saying yes to something that comes with files: they open the files, then answer. Keyboard users can press j and k to move through the conversations or meetings, and Enter to open one.

What it never shows

Only what went between you and them. Never your notes, tags, drafts, what the helpers did, or anyone else's mail in the same conversation. Things from your private inbox are on a separate page, never next to your team's.

How they answer

In a conversation they write with the same editor you use: bold, italic, underline, links, lists and quotes, from the toolbar or as they type. They can attach PDFs, photos or Office files (up to 25 MB each, 10 files). Send securely puts the reply straight into your conversation, formatted as they wrote it, with Came through your secure link beside their name. Email me a note that I replied sends them a short note that never includes what they wrote.

While they write, the reply is saved on their device, encrypted. It's cleared when they send it, sign out, or use Clear this page, and never saved on a shared computer.

Replies close when every private message in that conversation has been withdrawn or has expired. Their page then says so, with your address. An expired message shows as expired, with Ask you to send it again.

Changing or cancelling a meeting

• Change time shows your free times in their time zone. The old time is kept until they pick a new one.
• Cancel always asks first. Within 24 hours of the start it emails them a code, and only that code cancels, the same as the link in the booking email.

Old secure links

New secure messages link straight to this page, on Conversations with that conversation open. Links from secure messages you sent before still work: someone who already entered that link's code goes straight in. Anyone else sees that the message has moved to their private page, with Email me my page link, which sends the link to the address the message went to. That way an old or forwarded email never opens the page by itself, even after you make a New link. A withdrawn message's link opens nothing.

Good to know

• Sign out ends their session on every device and clears what the page kept in that browser. On a shared computer they can tick Using a shared or public computer? at the code step, so nothing is kept at all, or use Clear this page at the bottom.
• After the code they stay in for up to 30 minutes, and 10 minutes after they last do something. A minute before, the page offers Stay.
• One small line at the bottom says "With Rookery". There's no sign-up button.
• New link and Turn off on their person page in Rookery control the page. See Asks.