Coming soon: the Business Hub app is being built for iPhone and Android, with the same features on both. It isn't in the App Store or Google Play yet. This article explains how it will work, so you can tell your clients what's coming.
What it is
One free app, listed in the stores as Business Hub. It's a second way into the same business app your clients and your team already use on the web: the same contacts, conversations, opportunities, calendars and tasks, with the same permissions. Nothing is set up twice.
- On the phone: Today, Conversations (emails, texts and calls in one thread), Contacts, Opportunities, Calendars, Tasks, Calls, Notifications and Payments (invoices, text-to-pay and QR codes — see Invoices on the phone).
- Calls on the business number: answer and make calls with the phone's own call screen, showing the business number as caller ID. Incoming calls ring the phone even when the app is closed.
- Your own notifications on the phone: Settings → My notifications sets Phone, Email and Bell for each kind of notification (and "Only mine / All I can see" where it applies), plus quiet hours, without leaving the app.
- Stays on the web: other settings (your phones, integrations, the daily summary and time zone, business settings), the automation builder, imports and website editing.
Who can use it
Everyone who can sign in to the business app on the web: you and your team, and your clients' team members. Client portal people can use it too, for their dashboard: stats, approvals, work done and notifications, exactly what their portal shows them (on every plan with the client portal). See Your clients' dashboard in the Business Hub app.
The client dashboard in the app
- Portal people with no business app get a dashboard: Today, Approvals, Work done, Stats and More, in your portal branding. Stats are real phone screens (website traffic, Google search, Business Profile, Map Pack) with This month / Last month and a 7 / 28 / 90 days / Last month picker. Media, Google reviews (read and, with permission, reply) and Form responses are built into the app too: photos and videos upload from the phone or camera (big photos are made smaller first), videos play in the app, and photos and folders can be moved and renamed (how it works). The rest (all the charts, Google Ads, backlinks, citations, portal-run bookings) opens the real portal page inside the app, already signed in.
- People who are both (a portal person and a member of their client's business) see the business as usual, plus a Your website card on Today and More → Website. Their form responses stay in the business app's contacts and inbox, not in the website screens.
- You can switch the dashboard off for every client (Settings → Olympus) or one client (Client → Settings → Phone app).
- Your own agency's website: if your agency is also one of your clients, switch on Show this client's website dashboard in our Business Hub app in that client's Phone app card. Your team then sees its full dashboard inside your own business in the app, with no portal sign-in. Team members only see it for clients they're allowed to work on. See Your clients' dashboard in the Business Hub app.
Signing in and your branding
- People type their email first (client portal people too). The sign-in screen then shows the look of the business that email belongs to (the logo, colors and app name from Business app branding). If we can't tell, it shows the plain Business Hub look — it never says whether an email has an account.
- They sign in with the same password as the web, or with a sign-in link by email, and can then unlock with Face ID or a fingerprint.
- After sign-in the whole app wears the business's branding. People in several businesses switch between them, as on the web.
Notifications on the phone
The Phone column in My notifications decides what reaches the phone. You can change it in the app (Settings → My notifications: Phone / Email / Bell per notification, and quiet hours) or on the web. Quiet hours and the daily summary work the same as for email. Tapping a notification opens the right screen, and the app icon shows how many are unread.
Installing the app doesn't send a pile of old notifications: only ones from after the phone signed in arrive.
Your phones
Settings → My notifications → Your phones lists the phones signed in to the app. If a phone is lost or changes hands, press Sign out next to it: it stops getting notifications and calls straight away.
Calls in the app
Call or text any number: tap the keypad button at the top of Inbox, Contacts, Today or Calls (or More → Keypad). Type with the keys or press and hold the number to paste one; it's written the readable way as you go, and contacts with that number show underneath. Call rings them from the business number (your own number if one is assigned to you); Text opens their conversation. A number you don't have yet becomes a contact with just the number. Inbox → New message (the pencil button) does the same for texts: type a name or a number and pick who. Before calling or texting is set up, the keypad still opens and says what's missing — for example "This business has no phone number yet — set one up in Settings → Phone & texting" (owners and managers get a button to open it).
A contact on the phone shows Call, Text and Email, the tags, and the contact's Notes (newest first, with Add note; Edit / Delete on your own notes, or on anyone's for owners and managers). Email opens an email screen inside the app when email works in the business: To, From (the business), a subject and the message, with your email signature added; it goes into the contact's conversation like an email from the web. If email isn't set up, Email opens the phone's own mail app instead and says so (owners and managers also get Set up email). The first text to someone who hasn't agreed to texts or texted you first asks you to tick This person asked us to text them (see Texting).
The back button at the top of a screen reads Back.
When a number's call flow rings someone in the app, their phones ring with the phone's own incoming-call screen (the lock screen too), on iPhone and Android alike. Emergency numbers (911) can't be dialed from the app; use the phone's own dialler. Calling has to be connected for the business first (see Calls).