Colab Statuses, Closing, and Reopening

What the Statuses Mean

Every Colab has a status, shown as a colored pill. It tells you where the lead or job stands. This applies on both plans, Basic and KeyBolt Pro.

• Needs customer (amber). A new lead that isn't tied to a customer in your records yet. New inbound from an unknown number or email starts here.
• Open (blue). Tied to a customer and still active. This is the working state for most Colabs.
• Job Created (green). You converted it into a job.
• Estimate Created (teal). You converted it into an estimate.
• Closed (gray). The work is done.
• Cancelled (gray). No work happened (wrong number, spam, customer backed out).

Converted Colabs (Job Created and Estimate Created) stay active so you can keep talking to the customer about the work. They aren't 'done' just because they converted.

Closing vs Cancelling

Both move a Colab off your active list and into the Closed tab, but they mean different things:

• Close means the work is finished and handled.
• Cancel means nothing came of it. Use this for spam, a wrong number, or a customer who never booked.

Owners, managers, and dispatchers can close or cancel a Colab using the buttons in the top action bar.

Picking a Reason

When you close or cancel, KeyBolt asks for a reason. Picking one is optional but recommended. Choices include 'Booked through another channel', 'Spam or robocall', 'Duplicate of another lead', 'Wrong number', 'Outside our service area', 'Service we don't offer', 'Customer not ready to book', 'Price was too high', 'Couldn't reach the customer', and 'Other'. There's also a free-text Notes box for anything your team should know.

If the lead came from Google Local Service Ads (a KeyBolt Pro feature), the reason matters: some reasons tell Google the lead was booked, and some, like spam or wrong number, automatically request a credit refund from Google so you don't pay for a junk lead. The reason picker shows a short hint under each choice telling you what it will do. On the Basic plan there's no LSA, so the reason is just for your own records.

Converted Colabs Auto-Close When Paid

When a Colab is converted to a Job and that job's invoice is paid, the Colab moves to Closed on its own. You don't lift a finger. The timeline logs an 'Invoice paid, Colab auto-closed' event.

Undoing a Conversion

KeyBolt won't let you Close a converted Colab by hand. The lead was already booked, and closing it with a reason like spam would send Google the wrong signal about work you actually took. Cancel still works, and you can still Archive it to get it out of your Inbox. If you converted by mistake, delete the linked Job or Estimate first. That returns the Colab to Open, and then you can close, cancel, or reconvert it. See Convert and Merge Colabs.

Clearing Several at Once

From the Inbox list, owners, managers, and dispatchers can select Colabs with the row checkboxes. A bar appears with three actions. Merge joins two or more into one conversation. Report junk closes them as spam and takes them out of your Inbox. Archive files them away without closing them, and you can restore those later. Close and Cancel are done one Colab at a time, from inside the Colab.

If some can't go through, KeyBolt tells you how many did and why the rest were skipped.

Archiving a Colab

To get a Colab out of your Inbox without closing it, open it and tap Archive, or select it in the Inbox list and tap Archive in the bar that appears. It moves to the Archived tab, filed in a folder under that customer's name. Nothing is deleted and you can tap Restore any time to bring it back. A converted Colab can be archived too, with no need to delete the linked Job first.

Archive is the reversible one. Close and Cancel are not. If there is any chance you will want the conversation back, archive it.

Closing Is Permanent

There is no reopen button. Once you close or cancel a Colab by hand, you cannot put it back yourself. Nothing is deleted and the whole history stays on the Closed tab, but you cannot add to it again. If there is any chance you will want the conversation back, use Archive instead.

New messages behave differently by channel. If the same customer texts you again a short time later, KeyBolt attaches it to a Colab that's still Open, and if there isn't one it starts a fresh Colab rather than reopening the finished one. That keeps a brand-new request from getting buried inside a job you already wrapped up. An email reply is different: because a reply to a message you sent is clearly part of that thread, KeyBolt puts it back in the same Colab and brings the Colab back to Open so you can answer.