Every estimate in Beam has an activity timeline at the top of the Estimate page. It's the fastest way to answer the question you're probably asking a day after you hit send: did they actually look at it?
The timeline tracks five milestones, and each one fills in on its own as it happens. Anything that hasn't happened yet stays greyed out.
Note: The timeline only tracks what happens inside Beam. If you sent the estimate PDF to your client externally, the Estimate sent, Email viewed, and Estimate page viewed steps will stay greyed out even though your client may have it in hand.
Where to find it
- From the Projects page, open the project you want to check.
- Select Estimate in the left sidebar.
- Open the estimate. The activity timeline sits at the top, just under the estimate amount.
What each milestone tells you
Estimate created logs the moment the estimate was created and who created it. This one is always filled in.
Estimate sent logs when the estimate went out through Beam, and who sent it.
Email viewed logs when your client opened the estimate email. You'll see the date and time of their most recent open plus how many times they've opened it total.
Estimate page viewed logs when your client opened the estimate itself in their client portal. Same format, most recent view plus a running count.
Estimate approved logs the approval and who gave it. If your client approved it in their portal, you'll see their name as it's written in Beam. If someone on your team marked it approved manually, you'll see that person's name instead.
Email viewed and estimate page viewed are tracked separately on purpose. A client who opened the email twice and never clicked through is in a very different spot than one who's been back to the estimate page five times.
When the timeline fills in out of order
The five milestones sit in a fixed order, but they fill in whenever they happen. That means the timeline isn't always chronological top to bottom.
The most common example is an estimate you never sent through Beam and then marked approved yourself. Estimate approved fills in second, right under Estimate created, while Estimate sent and both view steps stay greyed out below it.
How this connects to your project status
Beam moves the project along automatically as the estimate progresses:
- Created or sent, not yet approved: project stays in Estimating
- Approved, either by your client or manually: project moves to Active
- Rejected: project moves to Lost
You can always change a project status by hand, but you don't have to. These moves happen on their own.
If your client rejects the estimate, the activity timeline disappears from view. You can get it back. See How do I reset a rejected estimate?
Note: Email opens are tracked with a small invisible image, which some email clients and privacy settings block. Estimate page viewed is tracked directly when the page loads, so it isn't affected. If Email viewed stays empty while Estimate page viewed is filling in, your client is definitely looking at the estimate.