Documents

Documents is your agency's shared drive. Write a buyer's guide once, upload a price list or a signed PDF, keep it all in folders, and anyone on your team can send it to a customer without hunting for the file. A document lives in one place, so a link you sent last month always opens the latest version.

Find your files

Open Documents in the icon bar. The sidebar holds:

• All files: the drive and its folders.
• Shared with me: what colleagues shared with the team or with you.
• Recent: everything by when it last changed.
• Pinned: what your agency pinned, with the pinned documents listed under it.
• Bin: what was deleted in the last 30 days.
• Folders: your folder tree.
• Type: narrow to Documents, Whiteboards, PDFs or Other files.

Above the files are the search (across the whole drive), Grid or List, the View menu to sort, and New. Your storage, "used of total", is at the foot of the sidebar. From 80% full it offers Get more storage to admins, and tells other team members to ask an admin.

Write a document

1. Press New, then Write a document.
2. Type a title, then write. The toolbar above the page has headings, bold and italic, lists, checklists, quotes, links, tables and images. Paste or drop an image to add it.

A few quicker ways to write:

• Type / on an empty line to pick what comes next: a heading, a list, a checklist, a table, an image or a divider.
• Click inside a table to add or remove rows and columns, or turn the header row on and off.
• Hover beside a line to drag it somewhere else or open its menu.
• Headings build an outline of the page, which you can use to jump around a long document.
• At the foot of the page you see your word count and how long the document takes to read, and Shortcuts lists every key.

Share, Download and Details sit in the row beside the title. The document saves by itself as you type: under the title you see when it was edited and Saved. If you go offline, it saves when you are back. If someone else changes the document at the same time, a bar offers Copy my text and Reload, so nothing you typed is lost.

Whiteboards

A whiteboard is a page you draw on: a plan, a viewing route, a sketch of a development, or a board to think through a deal with your team. It lives in your drive like any other file, with the same folders, the same Private, Team and Public link choices, and the same bin.

Create one. Press New, then New whiteboard. It opens in the folder you are looking at. You can also choose New whiteboard from the pencil in the top bar.

Draw. The tool row on the board has shapes, arrows, lines, a pen, text, images and a frame. Draw a shape and double-click it to write inside it, which is how you make a note. Open the board menu at the top left and choose Keyboard shortcuts for every key.

Frames. A frame is a named area that holds a group of things, such as one frame per property or per week. The Frames group in the sidebar lists them as a tree: press a frame to jump to it, and open it to see what is inside, by name. Press an item to select it and bring it into view. The footer has the zoom and steps from frame to frame.

The name and its menu. A whiteboard has no title bar. Its name sits in the top bar, after its folder, and the small arrows beside it open its menu: Rename, Move to and Move to bin. Move to and Move to bin are for the person who created the whiteboard and for admins. A person who may only look sees the name and no menu.

The sidebar. When you open a whiteboard, the sidebar on the left becomes the board's own. Frames lists your frames and what is in them, Library keeps shapes and templates you saved to use again, and History lists the saved versions, each with when and who. Press a version to preview it, or use its ⋯ menu to restore it. Each group folds open and shut, and the sidebar remembers how you left them. Fold the whole sidebar with ⌘B and the board takes the full width. On a phone, open the sidebar from the top bar; Documents at its top takes you back to your files. A person who may only look sees Frames and History.

Find on board. Press ⌘F (Ctrl+F on Windows), or choose Find on board in the board menu at the top left. Type a word to find a frame, a note, a text or anything you added from Fondaro, then press Enter to go to it.

Add from where you find things. Wherever you already narrow down your work, you can send it to a board. On a lead list, tick the leads and press Add to board in the bar above the list. In Search or My listings, tick homes and press Add to board in the bar at the bottom. On the deals board, hover a deal and tick the box where its face was (or Cmd, Ctrl or Shift click it, or press X), then press Add to board in the row above the board. One lead, home or deal has Add to board on its own page and in its preview: in the row of keys at the top, or in the ⋯ menu on a lead's page. Choose a board, or New board, and you stay where you are; the message that appears has Open to go to the board. Several things arrive as cards in a new frame named after the list they came from, up to 50 leads or deals and up to 24 homes at a time, to the right of what is already on the board. Someone working on the board at the same time sees them arrive and loses nothing.

Add on the board. Press the Add to board key at the end of the tool row, or press B, or choose Add from Fondaro on an empty board. The search window opens ready to add: type a name to find leads, deals and homes (your own listings first, then the sites Search opens with for your agency), or pick one of your Lead lists, Searches, Reports widgets or teammates. Press Enter to put it in the middle of your view, selected. What you see on the board is the real thing and stays up to date. Each person sees it with their own access, so a teammate who cannot see a lead sees "You can't see this lead" instead of its name.

What each item shows. A lead list shows its first ten leads, and Open list takes you to the full list; to lay a list's leads out as cards, open the list, tick them and use Add to board. A saved search shows the sites it looks on and how many new homes it has. Press a card, then press it again, to open that lead, deal or home beside the board. When you export the board as an image, each item becomes a plain summary card, because an image cannot hold something live. On a Public link, people who are not signed in see the homes you added from your own listings, and from agencies on the Fondaro network that show their page to everyone, with photo, price, bedrooms and area. Homes from other sites, and every lead, deal, teammate, list, report and saved search, show as Only visible in Fondaro and are never sent to a public link.

Templates. On an empty board, pick a template, or add one any time from Library in the sidebar. Pipeline planning gives you one lane per deal stage with your open deals in it, and each lane shows the total value of the deals inside it, for the deals you can see. Move a card to another lane to plan: the deal itself does not change stage. Listing launch has frames for photos, portals, an open house and ads, and a space to add a home with Add to board. Weekly team gives each teammate a lane with up to eight of their open leads. Blank with frames is three empty frames. On a board that already has content, a template is added to the right of it, never over it.

Images. Drop or paste an image onto the board. Images count toward your storage like any other file in Documents. When storage is full the image is not added, and an admin can choose Get more storage.

Save. The board saves by itself a moment after you stop. At the top right of the board a quiet word says Saved, Saving or Save failed. (When others can work on the board with you, see "Work on a board together" below.) If someone else changed the whiteboard at the same time, a notice at the top of the board offers Reload to load their version. The drive shows each whiteboard as a small picture of how it looked when it was last worked on; anything from your CRM on it appears there as a plain card without names.

Work on a board together. Open the same whiteboard as a teammate and you both draw on it at once. You see their pointer with their name, and what they have selected. Their faces sit at the top right of the board, left of Share; open them to see who is editing, viewing or idle. Because your changes are shared as you make them, the word beside them then says Saved, Saving, Reconnecting or Offline with how many changes are waiting, and there is no save to wait for: if your connection drops, keep drawing and everything is sent when it is back. Remote changes never enter your undo, so Undo only takes back your own work. If two of you move the same shape at the same moment, the later move stays. Press a face and choose Follow to watch what that person is looking at; pan or zoom yourself to stop, or press Stop at the top of the board. Press Present to ask everyone on the board to follow you: they see "Maya is presenting" with a Follow button, and you stop with Stop presenting. Someone who may only look sees the others' pointers and can follow, but cannot change the board.

Share. Press Share, at the top right of the board, to switch a whiteboard between Private and Team, or to make a Public link. Only the person who created a whiteboard, or an admin, can share it. Anyone who can see a Team whiteboard can edit it; a person who may only look gets it view only.

Export. Press Export to download the whole board, your selection or one frame as a PNG or an SVG image. Turn on Editable to include the board in the image, so the file opens back as a whiteboard.

Upload files

Press New, then Upload files, or drop files anywhere on the page. They go into the folder you are looking at.

When your storage is full, uploads and pasted images stop. Reading, editing, moving, sharing and deleting keep working, and emptying the bin frees space at once. Admins can choose Get more storage; other team members are told to ask an admin.

Organise with folders

• New › New folder makes a folder. Anyone in your agency can.
• Drag a file onto a folder, in the drive or in the sidebar, to move it. Or use Move to in its ⋯ menu.
• Tick several files (or Shift click a range) to Move, Download or Move to bin them together.

Everyone sees every folder; each file inside keeps its own visibility.

Pin a document

Choose Pin to sidebar in a file's or folder's ⋯ menu. It is pinned for everyone in your agency, up to five documents. Click a pinned document in the sidebar to read it beside the page you are on; Enter opens it in full and Esc closes it. You can pin your own documents; admins can pin anyone's.

Choose who can see a document

Only the person who created a document, or an admin, can edit, share, rename or delete it. Anyone who can see it can read it, attach it to a lead and send it.

Share a document by link

1. Open the document and press Share.
2. Pick Public link, and optionally an expiry date.
3. Press Create link. It is copied for you.

Anyone with the link can read it, with no sign-in. Links do not expire unless you set a date. Revoke link switches it off at once; sharing again makes a new link, so remember to send it. Share pages are never shown in search engines.

Attach a document to a lead or a listing

• On a lead's page, press Attach a document in its Documents section.
• On your own listing, use its Documents tab.
• From the document, choose Attach to lead or Attach to listing in the ⋯ menu.

Attaching never gives anyone access they did not already have.

Send a document in an email

In a lead's email, press Insert:

• Link puts a share link in your email. If the document has none yet, Fondaro asks before making one public.
• Attach file sends the file itself, up to ten files and 20 MB in total. Pick from your documents, or press Upload from computer at the top of the list. Written documents go as a link.

You can also drag files from your computer straight onto the email. A file you upload this way is saved in Documents, private to you, so you can find it and send it again later.

A link is usually better: the email stays small, and the link keeps working as you update the document.

Version history

Documents and whiteboards keep their earlier versions from the last 90 days, up to the last 50 of a document and the last 20 of a whiteboard, so you can look back and undo a bad edit. Each version shows when it was saved and what made it: a person's edit, Ask Fondaro, the API, or a restore.

• A document: open its ⋯ menu beside the title and choose Version history. Press Preview to read a version, and Restore to bring it back.
• A whiteboard: open the History group in the sidebar. Press Preview to see a version, and Restore to put it on the board.

Restore asks you once. It never throws anything away: what the document or board says now is saved as a version first, so you can come back to it from the same list. Only people who can edit a document or whiteboard see its history.

Download a document

Press Download. A written document offers Download as PDF or Download as Word; any other file downloads as itself.

See a document's details

Press Details for its visibility and link, the leads and listings it is attached to, and Members: colleagues you add to it one by one or as a team.

Delete and restore

Move to bin takes a file or folder out of the drive, with Undo. A binned file's link stops working until it is restored. In Bin, press Restore to bring it back, or Delete forever. Anything left in the bin is deleted for good after 30 days. Admins see the whole agency's bin.

Ask Fondaro in a document

Select some text, or leave nothing selected to work on the whole page, then press Ask in the toolbar. In a document you share with colleagues, Ask Fondaro also appears over selected text. Pick Improve, Shorten, Fix spelling, Translate (it asks for the language) or Make it formal, or use Change to type your own request. Ask switches the box to a question about the page, and you get a written answer.

Ask Fondaro does not rewrite your text behind your back. Each change appears in the page as a suggestion, a paragraph at a time as it is written. The changes wait in the column beside the page, or under it on a narrow screen. Step through them and Accept or Reject each one, or use the menu to Accept all. Only what you accept becomes part of the document: the saved text never includes a suggestion you have not accepted. If a colleague has the document open, they see "Ask Fondaro suggested {n} changes" too, and anyone who can edit the document can accept them. In a document only you have open, changes you have not decided on are gone if you leave the page.

You need to be able to edit the document to use Ask in it. If a request is cut off or you press Stop, the changes so far stay for you to review. Each request counts as AI usage on your plan, the same as any other request to Ask Fondaro, and it uses the model you chose for Ask. Ask Fondaro keeps your links, images and code as they are and does not add facts or prices of its own, so read each suggestion before you accept it.

Use Documents with Ask Fondaro

Ask Fondaro can find and read your documents, and write, edit, share or attach one. Every change, sharing included, waits for your approval.

On your phone

The iPhone app lists your documents under Account › Documents. Open one, share its link or the PDF, and see its details. Writing, uploading, sharing and deleting stay in the dashboard.

Documents comes with every plan and the free trial.