Review, publish and share with the client
How a quarterly business review is submitted, approved, published to the client with a private link, sent as a pre-read e-mail and tracked, and which notification e-mails QBR Studio sends along the way.
Written By Chris Scaminaci
Last updated About 4 hours ago
Before a client sees a quarterly business review, the owner submits it, a reviewer approves it, and the owner publishes it. Publishing gives the client a private link to a branded page with PDF and PowerPoint downloads. This page covers those steps, the pre-read e-mail you can send with the link, what the client sees, how to see whether they read it, and the e-mails QBR Studio sends to your own team.
Before you start. The QBR Reporting module must be on and your role must be Administrator, Service Desk Manager or Customer Success. The actions below are buttons in the toolbar of the review workspace; see Editing a review. Which buttons you see depends on the review's status and on your part in it.
What you can do at each step
The next step in the workflow is the highlighted button. When you cannot take an action, the button is missing or the panel says why.
Submit a review for approval
- Finish editing, then select Submit for review.
- Add a note for the reviewers if you want to. The dialog says who will be asked to approve it: the reviewers, or the owner when there are none.
- Select Submit.
The review moves to In review. The reviewers are e-mailed a link when e-mail is set up. A version of the review is saved when you submit. The owner, the reviewers and administrators can keep refining a review that is in review; other people cannot.
Approve a review or send it back
Reviewers see a banner that says the review is waiting for them. Read the slides and the Review tab, and clear every unverified number, as Editing a review describes.
- To approve, select Approve, add an optional note and select Approve again. Approving saves a version, adds the review's recommendations to the decision log and lets the owner publish.
- To send it back, select Request changes, write what needs to change in What needs to change, and select Request changes again. The note is required. The review returns to the owner as Changes requested, the owner is e-mailed the note, and the note is added to the review as a comment.
These rules decide who may approve:
- When a review has reviewers, they approve it. An owner who is not listed as a reviewer does not.
- When it has no reviewers, the owner approves it.
- Administrators can always approve.
- Two settings in QBR settings, on the Workflow tab, change the gate. A report must be approved before it can be published turns the approval step on or off. Owners may approve their own report, when turned off and the review has reviewers, means that a reviewer who owns or submitted the review cannot approve it, so another reviewer has to.
Editing an approved review moves it back to Draft, and it needs approval again.
Publish to the client
- Select Publish. The dialog is titled Publish to the client.
- Under Keep the link open for, set how many days the link works, from 1 to 365. The default is the lifetime your administrators set in QBR settings, 30 days unless they changed it. The dialog shows the date the link will stop working.
- Select Publish.
The dialog then shows the Link with a Copy button. Send the link to the client yourself, or use Send pre-read below. The review is read-only while it is published.
A review that allows client decisions says so in the dialog; you can change that setting in Details. Publishing adds the review's recommendations to the decision log.
Anyone who has the link can open the page, the PDF and the PowerPoint until the link expires. They do not need to sign in, and the page is kept out of search engines.
Manage the client link
Select Client link on a published review, or Expired link when the date has passed.
Only the owner, a reviewer or an administrator can change the link. A client who opens an expired, replaced or unpublished link sees a page that says This link has expired or is unavailable and to contact the account team. Archiving a published review also stops its link.
Send a pre-read
A pre-read is an e-mail with the link, sent before the meeting so the client arrives with questions.
Before you start. The review must be published and its link open. The button needs e-mail to be set up for your organisation, even when Client e-mail is set to Your Halo mailbox (recommended). When it is not, the dialog says so, Send pre-read is unavailable, and you can copy the client link and send it yourself.
- Select Send pre-read.
- In Recipients, enter the client's addresses separated by commas or new lines. You can send to up to 25 people at a time.
- In Message, optionally write a short note that appears above the link, for example what you want them to look at first.
- Select Send pre-read.
The e-mail is addressed to the client's team, opens with a heading such as Your Q3 2026 business review, shows your note (or a short standard invitation), the meeting date and the date the link works until, and has an Open your review button. It carries your brand: your logo or company name, and your colours. The sender name is the one set in QBR settings, or your company name. Through your Halo mailbox the subject is set by your HaloPSA e-mail template; through the QuantumOps sender the subject is the review's title.
How it is sent is a setting under Client e-mail on the Workflow tab of QBR settings:
- Your Halo mailbox (recommended): the e-mail goes out from your own address through HaloPSA, and replies land in HaloPSA. It is sent as the report owner's HaloPSA agent, or as the agent chosen under Send as Halo agent when the owner has none. If neither exists, the send is refused and says so.
- The QuantumOps sender (donotreply@qops.app): replies go to the report owner.
QBR Studio tells you how many people the e-mail went to. Sending the same pre-read to the same people twice within a couple of minutes sends it only once.
What the client sees
The link opens a page branded with your logo, colours, font and footer, with the client's name and the period. It needs no sign-in.
- The toolbar has Scroll and Slides to read the review as one long page or one slide at a time, Full screen, and download links for PDF and PowerPoint. In slide mode, Previous and Next move between slides.
- Slides you hid from the client are left out. The PDF on the page is rebuilt from the current version of the review the next time someone downloads it.
- When client decisions are allowed, each recommendation that is still open shows Accept, Defer and Decline. The client selects one, chooses an option when several are offered, enters Your name and, if they like, an e-mail address and a note, then confirms. The card then shows who decided.
- A client can decide only while a recommendation is undecided or deferred. Once it has moved past that, the card shows the decision and who made it, and the buttons are gone; your team records any later change.
Client decisions are recorded as the client's own and, by default, e-mailed to the owner. They appear in the decision log; see Recommendations and the decision log.
See how the client used the review
Once a review is published, or has been presented, a strip under its title shows page views, visitors, downloads, how many times it was presented and when it was last viewed, or Not viewed yet until the client opens the link. Select it to open Engagement.
Reading time is measured only on the published page. The Home page also shows page views, PDF downloads and the last view for each report.
Notification e-mails
QBR Studio e-mails your own team at these points. Each e-mail goes out once for the event it describes. Most subjects end with the review's title; the reminder adds is not approved yet, and the client-decision subject names the client and the recommendation.
These e-mails need e-mail to be set up for your organisation. When it is not, QBR settings says E-mail is not configured. and nothing is sent. After an action such as submitting or approving, QBR Studio tells you whether the e-mail went out, for example Emailed 2 reviewers. or No e-mail went out: e-mail is not configured.
Save, archive and delete
- Save as template (in More actions) creates a template from the review's slides and block settings. The client's numbers and text are left out, so every review made from it builds its own. Name it under Template name, select Create template, and the template opens in the template editor. See QBR templates.
- Archive hides the review from the active list; Restore brings it back as a draft. Archiving a published review stops its client link.
- Delete, then Delete review, removes the review with its versions, comments and files permanently. A published link stops working. This cannot be undone.
Related pages
- Editing a review: the workspace and the Review tab you clear before approving.
- Presenting and exporting a review: present the review and download the PDF or PowerPoint yourself.
- Recommendations and the decision log: what happens to the client's decisions.
- QBR settings: approval, link lifetime, client decisions and client e-mail.
- QBR schedules: drafts that arrive in review on their own, and their reminders.
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