A project has one billing client, or none for internal work. A collaborating client is an additional client attached to the same project. The project settings describe the effect in one line: "Their users can be elevated, and tickets can be billed to them." Use collaborating clients when one body of work serves more than one customer, for example a shared platform where each customer's tickets are billed to that customer.
Before you start
- You need the Owner or Admin role, or you must be a Project manager of the project who is a workspace user. A client user who is a Project manager cannot add collaborating clients.
- The client must already exist under Clients.
- The project's own billing client is never listed; it is on the project already.
Add or remove a collaborating client
- Open Projects, choose the project, and open the Settings tab.
- Under Collaborating clients, tick the clients to add and untick the ones to remove.
- Select Save.
The project header and the Projects list then show "with {clients}" after the billing client.
What changes
- Their users can be elevated. Client users of a collaborating client become available in the Members tab, in the Client users group. See Manage project members.
- Tickets can be billed to them. The Billing client field on tickets in the project offers the billing client, every collaborating client, and Internal work (no client). Inbox triage offers the same choices when routing a message into the project.
- Their client users see the project. A client user whose client collaborates on the project sees it under Projects and can start tickets on it. A ticket they start is billed to their own client.
- Moves keep the billing client. Moving a ticket between projects keeps its billing client when the target project has that client as billing or collaborating client; otherwise the move would reset the billing client, which only an Owner or Admin can confirm.
Visibility on a multi-client project
Visibility follows the ticket's billing client, not the project alone:
| Who | Sees in the project |
|---|---|
| Owner, Admin | Every ticket |
| Workspace Member on the project | Every ticket |
| Elevated client user of client A | Tickets billed to client A |
| Elevated client user of client B | Tickets billed to client B |
| Any client user | Tickets they reported or were added to as a viewer, whatever the billing client |
Tickets marked Internal work (no client) on such a project are invisible to every elevated client user unless they are a viewer or the reporter. To show one client's user a ticket billed to another client, add them as a viewer; a client user can only be added as a viewer on a ticket in a project where their client is billing or collaborating.
Comment audiences apply on top: elevated client users read Shared and Internal comments; Staff comments stay with workspace users.
Rules
- Removing a collaborating client removes it from the pickers. Existing tickets billed to that client keep their billing client, and existing elevations of its users remain until someone removes them on the Members tab.
- A collaborating client's rate card, billing policies, and time banks apply to the tickets billed to it exactly as they do on its own projects. A billing run is per client and picks up that client's entries from every project.
- The client's Documents tab lists the project with the relation "collaborating".
Common problems
"Collaborating clients are added by owners, admins, or a workspace project manager." A client Project manager tried to change the list. Ask a workspace user with the right role.
A client user of the collaborating client still sees no tickets. Either they are not elevated on the project, they have no full login yet, or the tickets are billed to a different client. Check the Members tab and the ticket's Billing client field.
The client is not offered in the list. It is already the project's billing client, or it has been archived.