Not every detail on a project is decided up front. Maybe you want to offer your client three dishwashers and let them pick the one they want installed. Maybe you’re quoting a repair and you’d rather show a low and a high option than commit to a single number. Selection groups let you bundle a set of scope items together as a single “pick one” choice, present them to your client in their portal, and record exactly what they chose — without the back-and-forth. The same tool also handles the opposite case: getting your client’s explicit sign-off on one specific item.
This article walks through building selection groups in your scope, single-item sign-offs, making a choice on a client’s behalf, what your client sees, and how open choices flow into your pricing and proposals.
What a Selection Group Is
A selection group is a small set of scope items where the client picks exactly one. Think of it as a question with a few possible answers: “Which showerhead would you like?” with a rain shower and a basic shower as the options. The client has to pick one, and can only pick one — you can’t paint a room two colors at once.
Each option in the group is just a regular scope item with its own price, so the choice flows straight through to the project’s pricing once it’s made.
A selection with just one item in it works a little differently: it isn’t a choice, it’s a sign-off. Your client approves or rejects that one item — see Getting Your Client’s Sign-Off on a Single Item below.
Building a Selection Group
Start by checking the boxes next to the items you want to turn into a choice. Then click Make Selection in the toolbar above the scope.
The Make Selection button in the scope toolbar, with two items checked and grouped into a selection
A couple of ground rules when you group items:
Check items that share the same home — either loose items in the same subproject, or items inside the same group. Check two or more for a pick-one choice, or just one for a sign-off. They don’t have to be next to each other in the list. Make Selection only shows up in the toolbar once what you’ve checked qualifies, so if you don’t see it, that’s the reason.
Every line you check becomes its own option. Checking a whole group doesn’t turn that group into one option — each line inside it becomes a separate choice. If one option really needs several lines, see When One Option Needs Several Line Items below.
If the items came from inside a group, the selection sits inside that group. A selection can’t go inside another selection, and change order lines can’t be options.
Once grouped, the items collapse under a header named Selection 1 (the next one is Selection 2, and so on) with a Not Selected badge (a sign-off reads Pending), so it’s always clear at a glance whether a decision has been made yet. Click the name to rename it to something your client will recognize, like “Kitchen faucet” — it saves as soon as you click away, and it’s the name your client sees too. You can drag the whole selection block around your scope just like any other group, and you can drag extra items in to add them as options or drag items out to remove them.
Getting Your Client’s Sign-Off on a Single Item
Sometimes there’s no choice to make — the plans call for one specific item, and you want your client’s explicit OK before you commit to it. Think of a built-in refrigerator with a long lead time and a steep restocking fee, or the exact tile for the primary bath. Getting a clear yes up front saves an expensive surprise later.
To ask for one, check just that item and click Make Selection. With a single item, the selection becomes a sign-off: instead of picking between options, your client clicks Approve or Reject.
A single-item selection named Bathroom tile sign-off, with a Pending badge
A sign-off moves through three states:
Pending — waiting on your client. The project total shows as a range: the low end leaves the item out, and the high end includes it.
Approved — the item counts toward the price in full.
Rejected — the item drops out of the total and shows struck through. That’s your cue to revise it — swap in the right model, fix the price — or replace it, and then ask again.
Your client can’t sign the contract while any sign-off is still Pending. If they try, they’ll see “Please approve all pending selections before signing the contract.” A Rejected item doesn’t hold up signing — rejecting is a response too — it just isn’t part of the price. A soft approval of the proposal doesn’t count as a response.
An approved sign-off, showing who approved it and when, with a Clear Response link
A selection switches between the two kinds as you edit it:
Add a second item to a sign-off and it becomes a regular pick-one choice.
Remove options from a choice until only one is left and it becomes a sign-off. If your client had already picked the option that’s left, it reads Approved; otherwise it’s Pending.
Remove a sign-off’s only item and the selection goes away.
If you meant a one-item selection to be an ordinary scope line, Ungroup it.
When One Option Needs Several Line Items
Each option in a selection is a single scope line. That works perfectly for “which faucet?”, but sometimes an option is really a package — say a “Basic bathroom” option that’s a vanity, a top, and a faucet, against a “Premium bathroom” option with its own three pieces.
If you check all six of those lines and click Make Selection, you get six options, not two, and your client is asked to pick exactly one of them. The price range follows suit: the low end becomes the single cheapest line and the high end the single priciest line, which can look wildly off from what you meant to offer.
The fix is to give each package one line:
Add one scope line per option (“Basic bathroom package”, “Premium bathroom package”) priced at the package total.
List what’s included in that line’s Description — and add photos if you like — so your client can still see every piece.
Check those package lines and click Make Selection.
If what you’re really offering is “this whole chunk of work, or not,” an optional subproject may fit better than a selection — see Client-Selectable Scope Options.
Giving Each Option Its Product Details
Each option can carry its own product details — the brand, a description, where to buy it, and photos. Click into an option to open its drawer and fill in whatever you’d like.
The item drawer showing Seller, Seller URL, Brand, Description, and Photos fields
None of these are required. An option with nothing but a name and a price still shows up as a choice for your client. But the more you add, the richer the choice looks in their portal — a photo of the actual faucet goes a long way toward helping someone decide.
You can expand an option right from the scope using the arrow on its row to peek at its details without opening the full drawer.
The expand arrow on a selection option row, next to the Not Selected badge and the price range
Managing or Undoing a Group
Check the selection header row and open its … menu for the group’s options:
The selection group menu showing Client View, Ungroup, and Delete Group
Client View previews the choice the way your client will see it.
Ungroup turns the options back into ordinary scope rows and removes the choice, leaving the items in place.
Delete Group removes the group and its items entirely. If that was a mistake, click Restore on the bar that appears at the top of the Scope tab. It stays for about ten minutes and undoes your most recent delete.
Once your client has responded — picked an option, or approved or rejected a sign-off — the group settles down: Ungroup and Delete Group are greyed out, and you can’t edit its items until you clear the response (more on that below).
Making the Choice for Your Client
Clients don’t always make their picks in the portal. Sometimes they’ll tell you over the phone, or you’ll just want to dial it in yourself. From the selection’s … menu, choose Client View to open the options and use Select for Client on the one they want.
The Client View for a selection, with a Select for Client button on each option
We’ll ask you to confirm first, since you’re recording a decision on the client’s behalf.
For a sign-off, Client View shows the single item with Approve for Client and Reject for Client instead.
The Client View for a sign-off, with Approve for Client and Reject for Client buttons
Every response — whether the client made it or you did — is written to the project’s audit trail, so the Overview tab and the global audit log both show what was picked, approved, or rejected, who did it, and when.
What Your Client Sees
Open choices show up in the client portal under the Options and Finishes panel, each under the name you gave the selection. Each option appears as a card with its price and any product details you added. Sign-offs show up there too, with Approve and Reject buttons in place of Select.
The client portal showing a selection with two showerhead options, each with brand, description, and price
To respond, your client clicks Select on the option they want — or Approve or Reject on a sign-off — and confirms, and the project total updates. One thing to know: responding requires the client to be signed in to their account. If they’re viewing through a magic link without logging in, they can look over the options, but they’ll need to sign in to respond.
The client homepage also carries a summary of the choices and sign-offs still waiting on them, so even on a big project with lots of decisions, they get a quick reminder of what’s left to weigh in on. While a sign-off is the only thing outstanding, the tag next to their final price reads Awaiting Your Response rather than Pending Selection.
Once a choice is made, the option that was picked is marked Selected and the others are struck through. A sign-off reads Approved, or Rejected with the item struck through. Your client sees only the status — the note of who responded and when stays on your side.
Until construction starts, your client can still change their mind on their own: pick a different option, or switch between Approve and Reject.
Want to see it for yourself? Once the contract’s signed, Client Preview lets you open your client’s live portal and view these choices exactly the way they do — see Previewing What Your Client Sees on an Active Project.
Locking and Reopening a Choice
Each selection stands on its own. If you’ve set up one choice for the living-room paint and another for the kitchen faucet, your client can settle the paint while leaving the faucet open — they’re independent.
Here’s how it shakes out:
Before anyone responds — whether or not the contract is signed — the client can respond, you can respond on their behalf, and you can freely edit the options in the group.
After a response — the selection is locked on your side: you can’t edit its items, ungroup it, or delete it. Your client can still change their response.
Once construction starts — every selection on the project is locked for everyone.
You’re never stuck, though. To edit a selection that has a response, click Clear Response — it’s on the selection’s header, next to the note of who responded, and in Client View. We’ll ask you to confirm, and then the selection goes back to Not Selected (or Pending for a sign-off), ready to edit. Once you’ve made your changes, your client responds again — a cleared response never comes back on its own.
How Open Choices Affect Your Pricing and Proposals
While a choice is still open, the project total shows as a range rather than a single number. The low end uses the cheapest option in each open group and the high end uses the most expensive.
The project total showing a price range while a choice is still open
Say a tile choice offers green at $100, blue at $500, and orange at $300, and the rest of the project adds up to $10,000. Until that choice is made, the project reads $10,100–$10,500. As soon as the client picks blue, the total firms up to $10,500.
A Pending sign-off works the same way, as a choice between having the item and not having it: the low end leaves it out, and the high end includes it. Approve it and it counts in full; reject it and it drops out.
When you send the contract out for signature:
Made choices show only the option that was picked, and it’s baked into the final price.
Open choices are left out of the signing document and don’t count toward the price — it’s up to you to add any contract language you want about open selections.
Sign-offs always appear. A rejected one is struck through and doesn’t count.
A PDF you download is different: it shows every option, so it’s a record of everything you offered. In a made choice the options that weren’t picked are struck through, and each selection is labeled with its status only.
Your client can sign the contract before every pick-one choice is made — the open ones stay open and can be made later, right alongside the rest of the project. Sign-offs are the exception: each one needs an Approve or a Reject before the client can sign.
Selections Inside Optional Subprojects
Selection groups layer neatly with optional subprojects. You can offer an optional “Kitchen” subproject and put a green-tile-versus-blue-tile choice inside it. If the client opts into the kitchen, the choice comes along with it; if they skip the subproject, the choice goes too.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Choices can keep evolving after the contract is signed — you can still add, edit, and remove options as the project takes shape, as long as that particular selection has no response (or you clear it first) and construction hasn’t started.
Selection groups don’t mix with change orders in this version. A change order can’t add or remove a selection group, though you can still edit the options inside an existing one.
Anyone who can edit the scope can build selection groups, and responding in the portal requires the client to be signed in.
When your client responds in their portal, your team’s admins get a push notification in the Eano Pro app.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my client sign the contract before they’ve made every choice? For pick-one choices, yes — any still open when the contract is signed simply stay open, and your client can make them later. Sign-offs are the exception: each one needs an Approve or a Reject first. If your client sees “Please approve all pending selections before signing the contract,” that’s what’s holding them up.
My client picked an option but now wants to change it. What do I do? Until construction starts, they can change it themselves in their portal — pick a different option, or switch between Approve and Reject. If you need to change the options themselves, click Clear Response on the selection’s header (or in Client View) to unlock editing; your client responds again afterward.
My client rejected an item. Now what? Click Clear Response, revise the item — the right model number, a new price — and your client can approve it. A rejection doesn’t stop them from signing, so if the item just isn’t happening, you can also leave it rejected; it doesn’t count toward the price.
Why is my project total showing a range instead of one number? Because a choice is still open. While a selection hasn’t been made — or a sign-off is still Pending — the total shows a range: the low end uses the cheapest option in each open group (and leaves pending sign-offs out), and the high end uses the most expensive. The number firms up as your client responds.
I checked some items but I don’t see Make Selection. Why? The button only appears when what you’ve checked can become a selection: one or more items, all loose in the same subproject or all inside the same group, and none of them already part of another selection or a change order. Uncheck anything from a different subproject or group and it’ll show up.
My price range looks way too low. Is the math wrong? Usually it means the selection has more options than you intended. Every checked line becomes its own option, so if you grouped several lines expecting them to be one package, the low end is now just the cheapest single line. Consolidate each package into one line and make the selection again — see When One Option Needs Several Line Items above.
Can I rename a selection? Yes. Click its name in the scope (it starts out as Selection 1, Selection 2, and so on), type a new one, and click away to save. Your client sees the new name in their portal.
Do the options my client didn’t pick get charged on the final quote? No. Only the chosen option counts toward the price. The signing document shows just the option that was picked; a PDF you download shows the others struck through.
Can my client respond from the link I texted them? They can look over the options from a magic link, but picking, approving, or rejecting requires them to be signed in to their account.
What happens if a selection group only has one option? It’s a sign-off: your client approves or rejects that one item, and they’ll need to respond before they can sign the contract. If you meant it to be an ordinary scope line, Ungroup it (clear any response first).
Who on my team can create selection groups? Building a selection is part of editing the scope, so anyone who can edit it — typically Owners, Admins, Core Members, and Superusers — can do it. Field Workers with view-only access can see the scope but can’t make changes.