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24. Your Public Website & Live Chat

Turn the data you already keep in Stone Project into a public marketing website, with live chat and a room visualizer on top of it.

You do not build this website. It is generated from records you have already entered — your company profile, your pieces, your material catalog, your facilities, your approved customer reviews. You choose which pages are on, set your colors and logo, and publish.

24.1 Your Website vs the Client Portal — Not the Same Thing

This is the single most common source of confusion, so settle it first. Your company has two public addresses, and they serve different people.

Public Website Client Portal
Who it is for Anyone on the internet — strangers, prospects, people who found you on Google Your existing customers, one at a time
Sign-in None. Everything is open to visitors Required. Each client only sees their own records
What it shows Marketing: who you are, what you fabricate, what is in stock, reviews Their projects, their quotes, their invoices, their files, their messages
What a visitor can do Browse, request a quote, start a chat Approve quotes, pay invoices, download files, message your team
Turned on in Settings > Client Experience > My Website Settings > Client Experience > Client Portal

Both live on the same subdomain. The Publish website switch decides what a visitor gets when they land on the root address:

  • Switch off — the address goes straight to the client portal sign-in page.
  • Switch on — the address serves your marketing website, and the portal sign-in moves to the /login path underneath it.

Turning the website on never hides the portal and never affects your clients' access. It only changes what a stranger sees on the front door.

For the portal itself, see Integrations > Client Portal.

24.2 Turning the Website On

Pro Feature

The public website requires an active Pro subscription.

  1. Go to Settings > Client Experience > My Website.
  2. At the top of the screen you will see a status card reading Your website is offline or Your website is live.
  3. Turn on Publish website.
  4. The card flips to Your website is live and your address appears just below it, with Copy and Open buttons.

Your address is your company subdomain, for example yourcompany.stoneproject.app. If you have never chosen a subdomain, set one first in Settings > Company > Portal Settings — without it there is no address to publish to.

Changes go out immediately

There is no separate "save and deploy" step. Every switch you flip and every field you edit on this screen applies to the live site as soon as it saves. Edit with the site already open in another tab and refresh to check your work.

Previewing before you commit

On a wide desktop window (roughly 1200 pixels or more), the settings screen splits in two: the form on the left, a live preview of your actual site on the right. The preview bar has a Reload button to pull the latest version and an Open button to send it to a real browser tab.

On a narrow window or on a phone the preview panel is hidden — use the Open button on the address row instead.

24.3 Choosing Which Pages Appear

Under Pages you get one switch per page. Turning a page off removes it from the menu and makes its address unreachable. Each page pulls its content from a part of the app you already use — you do not write these pages, you feed them.

Page On by default Where the content comes from
Home Always on Hero image, headline and quick links — from the Branding and Hero sections on this same screen
Inventory Yes Your published pieces, live from the Inventory module. Filters and search update automatically
Materials Yes The curated catalog of stone colors from the global library. A visual browser with no prices — it shows what you can fabricate
Visualizer Yes The room visualizer — see 24.11 Room Visualizer
Gallery No Every piece photo marked visible, grouped by material. Grows as you add pieces
Reviews Yes Approved customer reviews. Star average and testimonials appear automatically — see Customer Reviews & Reputation
About Yes The About text you write further down this screen
Services No The Services list you build further down this screen
Contact Yes Phone, email, business hours and a lead form — from your Company profile and Contact settings
Locations No Your registered facilities — addresses, hours and maps from the Facilities module

Home cannot be switched off. Its switch is fixed on, since a site with no home page has nowhere to land.

A page with no data still shows up empty

Switching Locations on before you have registered any facility gives visitors an empty page. Same for Gallery with no visible photos and Reviews with nothing approved. Fill the source first, then flip the switch.

24.4 Themes and Template

Two separate pickers, and they do different jobs.

  • Themes — a complete preset: layout, the three colors, and the fonts, all in one tap. They are grouped into Sober & elegant and Basic colors. Each card shows the theme name, whether it uses the Default or Bold layout, and its three-color swatch. Tap one to apply the whole package.
  • Template — the layout on its own, without touching your colors. Each card previews the heading font as a large Aa and names the font underneath.

Pick a theme first to get a coherent starting point, then override individual colors below if you want. Both galleries scroll sideways; a scrollbar sits under the cards so you can see there is more to the right.

Themes are disabled while the site is offline

The theme and template cards go dim and stop responding when Publish website is off. Turn the site on first.

24.5 Branding, Hero and About

Colors

Three color slots, each opening a picker where you can tap a swatch or type a hex code such as #1E40AF.

Slot Used for
Primary color The main brand color across the site — also the default color of your chat widget bubble
Secondary color The supporting color in the theme
Accent color Highlights: star ratings, callouts, the large heading letters in some templates

Images

Field What it is
Logo Your company logo, shown in the site header
Hero image The large background photo at the top of the Home page
Social share image The picture that appears when someone pastes your address into a text message, WhatsApp, or a social post

For each one, tap Upload to pick a file from your device, or the trash icon to clear it back to the default.

Hero text

Field Notes
Hero title The big headline over the hero image. Left empty, your subdomain is used
Hero subtitle One or two supporting lines under the headline

About text

The About field takes plain text or basic HTML and fills the About page. Write your company story, how long you have been fabricating, what you specialize in. Ten lines of edit space, so it is meant for a real paragraph or three — not a slogan.

24.6 Building the Services List

The Services section is a list you own — it is not derived from anything else in the app.

  1. Scroll to Services and tap Add service.
  2. Enter a Title (up to 120 characters) — for example, "Kitchen Countertop Fabrication".
  3. Enter a Description (up to 500 characters) describing what the customer gets.
  4. Tap Save.

To reorder, drag a row by the handle on its left. To change one, tap it or use the pencil icon. To remove one, use the trash icon. Every one of these actions saves immediately.

The list is what feeds the Services page — remember to switch that page on under Pages, since it is off by default.

24.7 The Quote Button

Under Quote widget, the Show quote button switch puts a Request a Quote button on your Home page and keeps a quote entry point available site-wide.

When a visitor taps it, a quote form opens in an overlay on top of your site — they never leave the page and never have to create an account. They can sketch a basic layout, pick a material and leave their contact details.

Each submission lands in your app as a new project in the Lead stage, so it shows up in your pipeline like any other opportunity.

Same engine, two places

This is the same quote widget you can embed on an outside website through Settings > Client Experience > Quote Widget. On your Stone Project site it is already wired up — the switch is the only setup.

24.8 Search Visibility and Analytics

The SEO section controls how your site presents itself to search engines and link previews.

Field What it does
Meta title The title line in Google results and the browser tab
Meta description The grey summary text under your title in search results
Social share image The preview picture for shared links (same field described in Branding)
Google Analytics ID Your measurement ID, in the form G-XXXXXXXXXX

Paste your measurement ID into Google Analytics ID and your site starts reporting into the Google Analytics property that owns it. You get the ID from your Google Analytics account, not from Stone Project. Leave the field empty if you do not use Analytics.

24.9 Custom Domain

By default your site lives on a Stone Project subdomain. You can serve it from your own domain instead — for example www.yourcompany.com.

  1. Scroll to Custom domain on the Website settings screen.
  2. Type your domain and tap Save domain. Its status shows as Pending verification.
  3. Two DNS records appear: an A record (points the domain at our servers) and a TXT record (proves you own it). Each has a Copy button for its type, name and value.
  4. Add both records at your domain registrar — the company you bought the domain from.
  5. Come back and tap Verify DNS.

Once verified, the status changes to Verified and the SSL certificate is issued automatically on the first visit, so your site is served over https without any extra step from you.

DNS is not instant

If verification fails on the first try, that is normal. DNS changes can take several minutes — sometimes longer — to spread across the internet. Wait and tap Verify DNS again rather than re-entering the domain.

Remove takes the custom domain off and reverts the site to your Stone Project subdomain.

24.10 Live Chat Widget

A chat bubble in the corner of your site, so a visitor can ask a question without picking up the phone.

Access: Settings > Client Experience > Chat Widget.

Already installed on your Stone Project site

The chat widget is built into your generated website. Turn it on here and it appears — no code, no copy-paste. The embed snippet further down that screen is only needed if you also want the chat on a separate website you run elsewhere.

Setting it up

  1. Turn on the enable switch at the top. The subtitle confirms Chat widget enabled.
  2. Choose a Position — Bottom left or Bottom right.
  3. Set the Primary color of the bubble and header.
  4. Choose a Theme — Light, Dark, or Auto (follows the visitor's own device setting).
  5. Tap Save.

The four messages

Message When the visitor sees it
Welcome title The heading at the top of the chat panel when it opens (up to 100 characters)
Welcome message The opening line inside the panel, before anyone has typed
Offline message Shown instead of a live chat when you are outside business hours
Thanks message Shown after a visitor submits the offline form

The widget decides online versus offline from your Business Hours — see Company Management > Business Hours. Outside those hours, visitors get a short message form rather than a dead chat window, and their message reaches you as a lead.

Behavior

Setting Effect
Auto-create lead from new chats On by default. Each new visitor chat also creates a project in the Lead stage, so a conversation cannot get lost between the chat list and your pipeline
Hide "Powered by Stone Project" Removes the badge from the bottom of the chat panel
Assigned users Tick one or more active team members. When a new chat starts, one of them is picked at random to handle it

If you leave Assigned users empty, nobody is picked for new chats. Tick at least the people who actually watch the chat during the day.

Embedding it elsewhere

The Embed snippet at the bottom of the screen is for an outside website. Copy it and paste it just before the closing </body> tag of that site's HTML. Your own Stone Project website needs none of this.

24.11 Room Visualizer

Let a visitor drop your materials onto a real kitchen or bathroom photo and see the surface change instantly. It is a browsing tool, not a quoting tool — but it keeps people on the page and pointed at the materials you actually carry.

Access: Settings > Client Experience > Visualizer.

  1. Turn on the enable switch.
  2. Under Categories, choose which room types are offered — kitchen, bathroom, or both.
  3. Under Available scenes, tick the specific photos visitors can try. Each row shows a thumbnail, the scene name and its category.
  4. Tap Save.

Empty means everything

Leaving Categories or Scenes with nothing selected does not hide them — it offers all of them. Only start ticking boxes when you actually want to narrow the list.

The visitor picks a scene, taps a material swatch, and the countertop in the photo repaints with that material.

Showing it on your site

The Visualizer is one of the pages under Pages on the Website settings screen, and it is on by default. Switch it off there if you do not want it.

Embedding it elsewhere

Under Allowed external origins, add the domains that are permitted to embed the visualizer — for example example.com. Tap Add origin for each one. Leaving the list empty allows any site to embed it.

Below that, the Embed snippet is ready to copy, and Preview opens the standalone visualizer in a browser tab so you can check it before it goes out.

24.12 Live Visitors — Who Is on Your Site Right Now

Access: Live Visitors in the left sidebar, under CRM.

This is the other half of the chat widget: instead of waiting for a notification, you watch the traffic as it happens.

Browsing strip

Across the top, a green pulsing dot and a card for each anonymous visitor currently on your site — even the ones who have not said a word. Each card shows the host and the page title. Tap one to see the page address, where they came from (referrer), their language, timezone, screen size, when they were first seen, and whether they have a chat open.

The buckets

Below the strip, four counters — On chat, Waiting, Served, Today — and then tabs that split every chat conversation into groups. The screen refreshes itself every 30 seconds, so conversations move between tabs on their own as time passes.

Tab What lands here
All Every conversation, regardless of bucket
On chat A live back-and-forth — activity within the last 5 minutes
Waiting The visitor spoke last and is waiting on you. This is the tab that costs you money if you ignore it
Served You replied and it went quiet — between 5 and 60 minutes ago
Closed No activity for over an hour, or you closed it by hand

Each row shows the visitor's name, the last message, how long ago it was, and chips for the page they are on, their language, and their email and phone if you have them. A red badge shows unread count. Tap a row to open the conversation and reply.

Moderation

The three-dot menu on each row gives you:

  • Close chat — files the conversation into Closed.
  • Reopen chat — brings a closed one back.
  • Ban visitor — blocks that email address from starting new chats on your widget. You can record an optional reason. Available only when the visitor gave you an email.
  • Unban visitor — lifts the block.

Nothing set up yet?

If the chat widget has never been turned on and there is no chat history, this screen shows an install prompt with a button that takes you straight to the Chat Widget settings instead of four empty tabs.

24.13 Troubleshooting

"I published, but my site does not come up"

Visitors landing on a site that is not fully published get a plain page with your company name and a link back to the portal login, not your marketing site. Four conditions have to be true at once. Work down the list:

  1. Publish website is on. The status card at the top of My Website must read Your website is live, not Your website is offline.
  2. You have a subdomain. No subdomain means no address to serve. Set one in Settings > Company > Portal Settings.
  3. Your company is active. A suspended or deactivated company will not serve a public site.
  4. Your company is approved. Accounts still waiting on approval cannot publish. Check your company status in Settings > Company.

If you are using a custom domain and the Stone Project subdomain works but your own domain does not, the site is fine — the DNS is not. Go back to 24.9 Custom Domain and re-check both records, then tap Verify DNS.

"I changed a photo and the site still shows the old one"

Your edits take effect on the live site the moment they save — there is no publishing delay to wait out. So if you are still looking at the old image, it is almost always your own browser holding a cached copy.

  1. Hard-refresh the page. On Windows, Ctrl + Shift + R. On Mac, Cmd + Shift + R.
  2. If that fails, open the site in a private or incognito window, which starts with no cache at all.
  3. Inside the settings screen, use the Reload button on the preview panel rather than trusting what is already drawn there.
  4. Check on your phone over mobile data. If the new image shows there, the site is correct and only your desktop browser is behind.

If the image is genuinely missing rather than stale — a broken-image placeholder instead of the old photo — re-upload it from the Branding section. A broken image is a different problem from a cached one.