Client Protection

Client protection keeps your book of business with your business. The people you choose find and open your clients one at a time, never copy them in bulk, and are paused automatically if they open far more than their work needs. Adding a company someone else already handles is checked first, and your Do Not Contact list is respected everywhere. It works the same way for every company.

Where to Find It

Owners and admins open Settings, Permissions, Client Protection (action core.guard.overview). Which people it covers is set by their permission group: each group has a Client Protection part with four switches (see Access and Permissions, "Permission Groups"). The starter groups Account Manager and Project Manager turn it on.

What a Permission Group Can Protect

• Browse all client records: when it is off, lists of accounts, contacts, and websites show only the ones the person owns, is assigned to (an account's Project manager), or works on, a page of 25 at a time. Anything else is found only by typing (below) and opened one at a time.
• Export and bulk copy: when it is off, there are no exports, reports, print-all, duplicate scans, or statements, and an AI agent working for the person opens one record at a time and cannot list or search.
• Watch for unusual activity: when it is on, every client record the person opens is in the Activity Log with what it was, when, and the device, and opening too many pauses their access (below).
• Open accounts only through their work: when it is on, an account or contact opens only through a ticket, project, or task they work on, or one they own. They can still find one by typing to pick it, for example for a new project. They also add only to existing clients they work on: never a new company, and every contact, project, or ticket they add goes under a client they work on.

Owners and admins are never limited.

Type to Find

For someone who may not browse client records, every client, account, contact, and project picker is a search box: nothing is listed until they type at least 2 letters, and it shows at most 8 matches. The matches come from the server with the same rules as everywhere else, and never say how many records there are. Any other search they make, such as searching tickets, needs at least 2 letters and shows at most 8 results, one page only.

Working Access

Work gives access, and the end of the work ends it:

• Opening a ticket, or being assigned a ticket, project, or task, gives the person Working Access to the account and the requester it is for: contact names, email addresses, and phone numbers, the account's websites and services (without prices for anyone who may not see them), its files, past tickets, and projects.
• Working Access lasts while the work is open, and for a grace period after it closes: 7 days unless you change it.
• A ticket shows its account beside it, with its people, websites, services, and open work.
• Records opened through work never count toward the unusual activity guard.

The Unusual Activity Guard

The guard counts the different accounts and contacts a watched person opens without work. When they open more than:

• 40 accounts in an hour,
• 100 contacts in an hour,
• 150 accounts in a day, or
• 5 blocked company checks in an hour,

their access to client records pauses at once. They see a calm notice that says it paused and that an owner or admin was told. Every owner and admin gets a notification in Needs You Today. Turn Back On beside the person on the Client Protection tab, or on their access, ends the pause with one click (action core.guard.unpause), written in the Activity Log.

Change the limits and the Working Access days under Unusual Activity and Conflict Reviewer (action core.guard.settings.save). The tab also shows, for each protected person, what they opened this hour and today.

Conflict Checks

When someone with client protection adds or changes a company, contact, lead, or proposal, it is checked against every account in your workspace, including ones they cannot see. It matches on:

• the website or domain (without www),
• the email domain (never free email such as gmail.com or yahoo.com),
• the exact email address,
• the company name, compared without punctuation and words like Inc and LLC, as a whole ("Client Co." and "ClientCo"), and closely enough to catch small differences, and
• the phone number.

A match with an account someone else handles blocks the change with a card that says nothing about the client: "This company can't be added right now. Please contact your Conflict Reviewer for clarification on whether to continue pursuing them. Don't reach out to them until you hear back."

• A record added under an account the person has access to (one they own, are assigned to, or work on) is never a conflict with that account or its own records: a contact at clientco.com added under ClientCo is fine.
• Anything else that matches is: another account, or an account they have no access to. A deal or contact put under someone else's client is a conflict too.
• With no account named (a new company or lead), only their own records never match.
• Ask on the card sends the Conflict Reviewer the full details with an optional note (action core.guard.ask).
• The Conflict Reviewer, and owners and admins, see each blocked check with what it matched under Blocked Company Checks (action core.guard.reviews.list), and choose Continue (that person may go on with that company) or Stop (it stays blocked, with an optional reason sent back) (action core.guard.decide). The person sees the answer in their notifications.
• Each blocked check is in the Activity Log and counts toward the unusual activity guard.
• The Conflict Reviewer is a person you choose under Unusual Activity and Conflict Reviewer: an owner or admin, the first admin until you choose.

People without client protection can already see every account, so they are held only to Do Not Contact.

Do Not Contact

The Do Not Contact list holds companies, websites or domains, email addresses, and phone numbers, each with a reason: Banned, Do not solicit, Legal hold, Former client who asked not to be contacted, or Other. Nobody may add one to the CRM, write a proposal for one, or send one a proposal or an email. Owners and admins add and remove entries (actions core.guard.dnc.add and core.guard.dnc.remove), and may override an entry for themselves with a reason (action core.guard.override), written in the Activity Log.

The Outbound Guard

Right before a proposal or an email goes out, every recipient is checked against Do Not Contact and, for someone with client protection, against accounts someone else handles. A scheduled send is checked against Do Not Contact when it goes.

Remove Access

Remove Access, on a person's access in Permissions (and Remove on the Staff page), ends their access in one step (action core.guard.remove_access): their sign-in is turned off, so every open session ends at its next step; every AI agent they connected is disconnected; every API key they made is revoked; they leave every group; and any pause ends. Their passkeys and sign-ins live with Client Login, so the workspace asks it to end them too: every Client Login session on your account ends, every passkey of theirs stops working, and any emailed sign-in link not used yet expires. They also come off your account's authorized contacts, as on the account's Team page, so they cannot ask for a new sign-in link; it is recorded in your account's authorization history as done by you. Giving access back means an owner or admin adds them again. If any of that cannot be done, the message after Remove Access says so; their access to the workspace is off either way. Nothing is deleted: everything they made and own stays, and so does their contact. Type their name to confirm. It is written in the Activity Log.

Your Own Notifications

Notifications about client protection (a pause, a check to review, an answer) show in Needs You Today on Home and under Your Notifications on Your Profile, each with Mark Read (actions core.guard.mine and core.guard.notices.read).

For AI Agents

AI agents never change client protection, Do Not Contact, or anyone's access. An agent working for someone with client protection has their limits: it opens one record at a time, and everything it opens counts as theirs.