---
canonical_url: "https://buildwithwave.com/docs/jobs/job-workspace"
title: "Inside a job"
description: "A map of the job workspace: the tabs, Wave's chat beside them, the job bar, the Job actions menu, keyboard shortcuts and the phone layout."
group: "jobs"
lane: "reference"
status: "published"
publishedAt: 2026-09-26
updatedAt: 2026-09-26
sidebarOrder: 30
tags: ["jobs", "workspace", "tabs", "reference"]
relatedSlugs:
  - "jobs/job-details-and-contacts"
  - "reference/estimate-anatomy"
  - "estimates/estimates-on-one-job"
  - "get-started/use-wave-on-your-phone"
sidebarLabel: "Inside a job"
---

The job is the main record in Wave. Open any job from the Jobs board or the search box and you land in its workspace: a row of tabs, the job bar, and Wave's chat beside whatever tab you are on.

## The tabs

| Tab | What lives there |
| --- | --- |
| **Overview** | The job title and number, the customer, property, loss and claim details, the contacts, the assigned team, and the Loss description and Project notes that print on the estimate. |
| **Notes** | The team's log: notes, visits, file uploads, schedule changes and edits, filterable by type and by person. Notes stay inside your team and never print. |
| **Estimates** | The job's estimates. With no estimate yet, the tab says so and points you to Wave. With two or more, a strip at the bottom switches between them. |
| **Files** | Every photo, video and PDF on the job, grouped by room, with an Unsorted section for anything not placed yet. |
| **Drying** | The job's drying log, on Basic and above and during the free trial. The log is AI-generated from the estimate and local weather, so techs should verify readings daily. On Starter the tab is not shown. |

Contacts, notes, files and scheduling work on every plan.

## Wave's chat beside the job

On a desktop, Wave's chat sits in a rail beside every tab. It is one conversation per person for the whole job, including every estimate on it, and Wave reads the job's details and notes before it answers, so it does not ask again for what your team already wrote down.

Use it to start an estimate, change lines, add a note, book a visit or ask a question about the job. To move the rail to the other side, open **Job actions** (⋮) and choose **Switch sides**. To get more room, choose **Collapse chat**, and **Expand chat** to bring it back.

## The job bar

The bar with the tabs also holds the job's controls, from left to right:

- **Export** opens the one Export dialog for the PDF, the Xactimate export (.ESX) and QuickBooks. It shows on every tab once the job has an estimate.
- **Undo and redo arrows** step through edits on the Estimates and Drying tabs. They are not shown on a phone.
- **Teammate avatars** show who else has the job open.
- **The status pill** shows the job's stage (New, Estimating, Sent, In Progress or Completed). Click it to move the job. A cancelled or archived job shows that instead and can't be moved.
- **Job actions** (⋮) opens the menu below.

The job title and job number sit at the top of the Overview tab. Click the title to rename the job.

## The Job actions menu

The top of the menu controls the chat (Switch sides is desktop only). The rest act on an estimate, not on the job:

- **Lock estimate** or **Unlock estimate**
- **Duplicate**, a free copy that stays on this job
- **Estimate history**
- **Delete**, which asks first, names the estimate it removes, and says when the job's drying log goes with it

These act on the estimate on screen. On tabs that don't show an estimate, they act on the job's most recent one. To cancel, reopen or archive the job itself, see [Cancel, reopen or remove a job](/docs/jobs/cancel-reopen-archive).

## Jump between tabs from the keyboard

Inside a job, hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and press a number:

| Keys | Opens |
| --- | --- |
| ⌘1 | Wave chat |
| ⌘2 | Overview |
| ⌘3 | Notes |

Click Estimates, Files or Drying to open those tabs.

⌘K opens search and the command palette from anywhere. See [Keyboard shortcuts](/docs/reference/keyboard-shortcuts) for the full list.

## On a phone

The tabs collapse into a view menu at the top of the job: Chat, Overview, Notes, Estimates, Files and Drying. Chat opens the same conversation the desktop rail shows.

When Wave is waiting on your answer, the Chat row in the menu gets a dot. While an estimate is being built, a **Chat** button sits beside the menu; after that, a chat bubble with a pulsing dot appears whenever a question is waiting. Tap either to jump straight to the question.

Estimate lines show as cards you tap to edit. The undo arrows, the status pill and drag-to-select aren't shown on a phone. See [Use Wave on your phone](/docs/get-started/use-wave-on-your-phone).

## When a teammate is on the same estimate

Avatars in the job bar show who else is in the job. On the Estimates tab, a line a teammate is editing is marked, and hovering it shows their name. You can't open that line for editing until they finish, so two people never overwrite each other's change.

If your company's job records are ever temporarily read-only, a banner says so: job, contact and schedule changes are paused, and estimate tools keep working. An archived job is read-only too.

## Terms you'll see

- **Job**: one loss at one property. It holds the customer, the details, the notes, the files, the schedule and the estimates.
- **Stage**: where the job sits on the board. The job's first estimate moves a New job to Estimating, and finishing that estimate moves it to Completed, unless someone has already moved the job further along.
- **Estimate**: one kind of work on the job, such as water mitigation or repairs. A job can hold one estimate per kind of work, and each new estimate uses one credit.
- **Job notes**: the team log on the Notes tab. Wave reads them. They never print.
- **Project notes**: notes on the estimate itself, edited on the Overview. They print on the estimate PDF.

## Related

- [Job details, contacts and team](/docs/jobs/job-details-and-contacts): everything on the Overview tab
- [The Estimates tab](/docs/reference/estimate-anatomy): how an estimate reads line by line
- [Several estimates on one job](/docs/estimates/estimates-on-one-job): adding and switching between estimates
- [Export reports](/docs/estimates/export-pdf): what the Export button builds
- [Use Wave on your phone](/docs/get-started/use-wave-on-your-phone): the phone layout in full