Discover and proposals
Turn a pasted brief into a lead, write a seven-page proposal, share its link, and understand exactly what the client's accept-and-sign records.
4 min readUpdated Oct 17, 2026Applies to YourDesk 1.0.0
On this page
Discover
Discover is where an enquiry becomes a scope.
- Paste the mess: an email, a chat thread or call notes. You can also dictate.
- YourDesk pulls out a proposal-ready brief: a title, the client, the trade, any budget and deadline it can find, and a list of questions to ask in the room.
- Type the client's answers under each question. Each answer is saved with the lead and written into the proposal later.
- Draft the proposal. It opens with the brief, the answers and the fee already in place.
Leads you keep are listed on the same screen; one that is already a proposal shows as "Already on proposals".
A platform admin can switch Discover off for the whole deployment under Ops → Product. It then disappears from the sidebar and the server refuses its research, saved answers and lead conversion. See Configuration.
How smart is it?
- The brief, the questions and the trade are picked out by fixed rules (pattern matching on the text), not by AI.
- The Know their business research notes come from xAI when a key is available (see The Agent). Without a key you get a short set of general notes for the detected trade (hospitality, brand, web or product), not research about that client.
Proposals
A proposal is a seven-page document: Cover, Overview, Scope, Approach, Timeline, Investment, Next. Click a page to write it; the fee is the total of the Investment page's lines. Create one from Discover, from Proposals → New (title, client, contact, fee and a look), or from the New button.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Looks | Eight: Bold, Editorial, Minimal, Studio, Classic, Modern, Ledger and Noir. Your onboarding choice is the default. |
| Voice | Dictate into the page you are on, using the browser's speech recognition. |
| Download PDF builds the file in your browser. | |
| Statuses | Draft, Sent, Pending, Won (accepted) and Lost (declined) |
| Tracking | How many times the link was opened and when it was first opened |
Sending a proposal
Send link marks the proposal as sent and copies its public link, /d/<token>, to your clipboard. It does not email the client. Paste the link into your own email or message. A connected mailbox can also send a follow-up later (below).
Opens are counted every time the link loads, including when you preview it yourself.
What the client sees
The client opens the link with no account and reads the proposal in your chosen look, with your logo and accent colour. At the end they can:
- Accept & sign: type their full name (at least two characters) and confirm.
- Decline: optionally say why.
A declined proposal cannot then be signed, and a signed one cannot then be declined. The link keeps working afterwards and shows the outcome.
What a signature records
| Recorded | Notes |
|---|---|
| The typed name | Exactly as entered |
| The time | Written as text in the server's timezone, for example "17 Oct 2026, 14:05" |
| The device | The first 120 characters of the browser's user-agent string |
| The status | The proposal moves to Won |
That is all. There is no drawn signature, no IP address, no copy emailed to either party and no tamper-evident certificate. It is a typed acceptance with a timestamp, not a certified e-signature service. Whether that is enough for a contract where you work is a question for your own legal advice.
From signature to project
When a client signs, YourDesk immediately:
- finds the client on your desk by company name, or creates it;
- creates a project named after the proposal with the proposal's fee as its budget;
- adds up to eight tasks from the proposal's Scope list (the first one In progress, the rest To do), or "Kickoff", "First pass" and "Review" if the scope is empty.
You are not notified; the proposal shows Won and the project appears on your board. For a proposal you mark won yourself, Create project does the same. If a project with the same name already exists for that client, it is reused.
Automatic follow-up
When you open your desk, any proposal that is Sent or Pending, has never been opened, was sent more than two days ago and has not been chased yet gets one follow-up letter:
- emailed to the client if the studio owner has turned on Email clients automatically (Settings → Workspace → Mailbox, off by default), a mailbox is connected and the client record has an email address, or
- saved as a draft in Client updates otherwise.
Each proposal is chased once. Draft a follow-up, shown on a sent proposal that has not been opened, does the same by hand and sends at once if the client has an email address, whatever the setting. See Automatic reminders and Client updates and mail.