New conversations, owners and a project's vendor thread

What it is

Request quote asks contractors for a price. Real work needs more people than that: an insurance adjuster, an electrician whose report you're waiting for, the owner of the unit the work is in. New conversation writes to any of them from the card, with the same form as Request quote but without the quote wording. Replies come back to the card, as they do for a quote request.

Each unit can keep a short list of its owners (name, email, phone, and a note of their consent to share their contact details with contractors), so the manager and council can reach them and write to them from the card.

On a project, a contractor working on several items answers everything in one email. Their conversation stays on the project, and each message can be linked to the items it is about, so every item shows the messages about it.

Starting a new conversation

1. Open the card and choose New conversation beside Request quote under Contractors, or New conversation… in the card's ⋮ menu. It opens in the card's Conversation tab, which shows from then on.
2. To: tick anyone in your contractor directory: a contractor, an insurer or adjuster, or another contact. Below them, under Owners, tick an owner of one of the card's units (on a project, of its items' units too). Up to 10 people in all.
3. With two or more, choose Separate conversations (the default: each gets their own and they never see each other) or One group conversation (everyone in it sees each other's email addresses and replies).
4. Copy council members, Subject and Files to share work as in Request quote. The message starts empty apart from a greeting: nothing from the card or a report is put in it. Files go to directory contacts as their own private link; an owner never gets one.
5. Choose Send.

A directory contact you write to joins the card's Contractors list as Contacted, so you can set what you're waiting on from them (an adjuster's report, an install date). Nobody is marked Requested: use Request quote to ask for a price.

New conversation works on a project without a budget (Request quote doesn't, since its items are quoted) and on a Done card. It doesn't work on a draft or an archived card.

Owners of a unit

A card that names a unit (its own unit number, or a location's) shows Owners on its Content tab: the owner contacts of that unit. A project shows the owners of its items' units too. A contact belongs to the unit, so it shows on every card naming that unit.

• + Owner contact adds one: the unit (one this card names), the name, an email and a phone (both optional), and Consent to share their contact details, a note of what the owner agreed to, for example "Agreed by email, Apr 24, to share with Brightline".
• Edit and Remove change or remove a contact. Messages already sent to them stay with the card's conversations, kept two years like all correspondence; the conversation no longer knows them as an owner.
• Each contact shows who added it and when, and who changed it last.
• A unit keeps up to 10 owner contacts, each address once.

Owners are kept apart from the contractor directory. Request quote never lists them, Pleno won't save an owner contact's address to the directory from + New contractor, Add people, Share or Also on the email, and an owner never gets a Pleno login from this. An owner on the To or Cc of an email you send from your own mailbox with the Pleno address copied, or of a reply, is never added to the conversation: they're listed under Also on the email as an owner contact, to write to with New conversation. That holds even when a contractor in the directory has the same address, while Request quote and Add people add that contractor. On the Contractors page, adding a contractor with an owner contact's address, or giving one that email, asks first; confirmed, Request quote lists them and they join conversations as that contractor. Their phone number and email are visible to every council member, so a council member arranging a visit can call them.

An owner and a contractor in one conversation

An owner's address and replies reach everyone in a group conversation. So an owner shares a conversation with a contractor (or anyone else outside the council) only when you choose One group conversation, and only once their consent is noted on their contact. Until it is, New conversation says so and sends nothing; write to the owner on their own, or add the note in Owners first. The group warning names whose address the others will have.

A conversation with an owner in it can't take another company through Add people while the owner's consent isn't noted, and the same holds when you approve a held message from someone new. With their consent noted, adding anyone else outside the council, or approving a held message from someone new, asks first, group conversation or not: it names the owner whose address and replies will reach them. The same goes for approving an owner's own held message into a conversation with others in it. Add people never adds an owner: start a new conversation with them. Pleno knows an owner by their address too, so an owner who writes in from their listed address, or whose contact was added after they joined, counts as one.

While an owner is in a conversation with anyone else outside the council, their consent note can't be cleared and their email can't be changed on their contact; their name and phone can. Removing the contact is always possible.

When the owner replies from their phone with photos in the email, the photos are filed in the card's Documents like any reply's files.

A project's vendor thread

Start one conversation with a vendor on the project itself, not one per item. Under each message on a project's Conversation tab:

• About: lists the items the message is linked to. × beside one unlinks it.
• Pleno suggests items from the message's own words, with no AI, so on every plan: an item's card number (MNT-061), one of its unit numbers, or most of the words in its title. Each suggestion says why. Link links it; Not this turns it down, and it isn't suggested again for that message.
• Link to an item… (or Also link to an item…) links another of the project's items.

Linking or unlinking never moves a message out of its thread, and each link and unlink is in the item's Logs. An item's Conversation tab shows the project's messages linked to it first, under From the project, newest first, with who wrote each one, in which of the project's conversations, its text and the names of its files (the files are on the project). Open the project opens its threads, and Unlink from this item takes a message off the item. If the item was on another project before, the links made there stay as a record, listed under that project, and can't be unlinked from the item.

A message waiting for approval can't be linked. An archived project's or item's links stay as they are.

The type of an emailed file

Files that come by email are given a type from their name: Quote, Scope of work, Report, Invoice, or none (photos and anything else). It shows beside the file in Documents and under the message it came with. That goes for a contractor's reply and for anything sent to your Pleno address: a forward, a note, a council post. Files you upload in Pleno have no type.

A changed scope (or quote, or report) is filed as a new file beside the old one, never in its place, so both versions stay on the card.

Who can do it

• The property manager (with or without delegated admin), the president and the vice-president start new conversations, add, change and remove owner contacts, and link and unlink a project's messages (not during the 90-day read-only overlap after a term ends, nor while billing makes the account read-only).
• Every council member reads owner contacts, every conversation and what each message is linked to.
• Residents never see owner contacts, contractors or conversations.
• During a support session, Pleno staff see who is in a conversation, an owner's name and email among them, but never the unit's owner list, phone or consent note, nor what a project's messages are linked to, and can't start a conversation or change anything here.

See Permissions by role.

Limits and things to know

• New conversation has the same limits as Request quote: a monthly limit on new conversations, at most 20 new outside addresses a day, a daily safety limit, up to 10 people outside the council in a conversation, and only once your strata plan's lot count is confirmed. Owners count like anyone outside the council.
• A unit is matched by its number as cards write it ("1204", "Unit 1204" and "#1204" are one unit). Cards don't name a building, so if two buildings use the same unit numbers, write the unit the way your cards do (for example "1204-B").
• Owners are listed only on cards that name their unit. To keep an owner's contact for a unit no card names yet, add the unit to a card's location first.
• Suggestions read the message's own text, not the earlier mail quoted under it, its subject or its files. A unit number of one character is never suggested on its own (it is as often a date or an amount).
• The installed mobile app doesn't show owners, conversations or links yet.

Related

• Requesting quotes and contractor conversations
• Projects
• Calls, visits and Waiting on
• Permissions by role