Ansdell
Hub
The internal operations portal that runs a busy plumbing merchant’s back office — cases, quote and order pipelines, tasks, and a calendar in one place, with an AI layer that turns inbound emails and WhatsApp messages into tasks automatically.
The back office,
under one roof.
Behind Ansdell’s public shop sits the Hub — the system the team actually works in every day. It pulls cases, quotes, orders, tasks, and scheduling into one place, and adds an AI layer that reads inbound emails and WhatsApp messages and turns them into tasks automatically. (Screenshots are from an isolated demo database — no real customer data.)
Staff Dashboard
A role-aware "Today at the Hub" home screen — active cases, tasks assigned to staff, and the day ahead.
Cases Workflow
Group related work into a case and track it from first contact through to resolution.
Quote Pipeline
A Kanban board from new lead to won, with automated follow-up reminders so quotes never go cold.
Order Pipeline
Supplier orders tracked through their own board, with line-items and supplier codes.
Tasks, Calendar & Recurring
Personal task lists, a calendar view, and recurring jobs that generate themselves.
AI Ingestion
Inbound emails and WhatsApp messages are read by AI and turned into the right task automatically.
The whole day,
on one screen.
The Hub opens on "Today at the Hub" — a role-aware dashboard showing active cases, the tasks assigned to each staff member, and a "My Day" panel with anything overdue or due today.
It replaces the morning huddle around a whiteboard with a single, always-current view of what the business needs to do today.
Every job,
in one thread.
A single customer job often spans a quote, an order, and several tasks. Cases tie all of that together, so the full history of "Mrs Ashworth’s kitchen refit" lives in one place instead of scattered across inboxes and notebooks.
Each case tracks its own status and the tasks hanging off it — nothing gets forgotten because everything has a home.
Pipelines that
chase themselves.
Quotes move across a Kanban board — new lead, drafting, sent, follow-up due, won — each carrying a value and an automatic follow-up date so warm leads are chased on time, every time.
Supplier orders get their own board with line-items, supplier codes, and costs, so the team always knows what’s on order and what’s outstanding.
Quote pipeline with automated follow-ups
Supplier order pipeline
Nothing slips
through the cracks.
Day-to-day work is organised as tasks with priorities, assignees, and due dates, and laid out on a calendar so the week is always visible at a glance.
Recurring jobs — the daily till reconciliation, the weekly stock check — generate themselves on schedule, so routine work never depends on someone remembering.
Task management
Calendar view
Built to keep
improving.
Recurring tasks are defined once and spawned automatically — daily, weekly, or monthly — keeping the routine running without manual effort.
A built-in feedback board lets the team log bugs and feature ideas straight into the system, so the Hub keeps evolving around how the business actually works.
Recurring jobs
Team feedback board
Emails and WhatsApps,
turned into tasks.
The headline feature runs quietly in the background. Inbound emails and WhatsApp messages are read by an AI layer (Claude, with an OpenRouter fallback) that understands them and creates the right task automatically — so a customer message becomes an action item without anyone retyping it.
It runs on a dedicated Fly.io worker with a daily cron, so the main app stays fast while the automation saves the team hours of manual triage every week.
Email → task
Inbound emails are parsed and converted into actionable tasks.
WhatsApp → task
Customer WhatsApp messages become tasks automatically.
Claude AI, with fallback
An AI layer understands messages, with an OpenRouter fallback for resilience.
Background worker + cron
Runs on a dedicated Fly.io worker with a daily scheduled run.
Tech Stack
A Next.js portal on Supabase with a separate AI worker — an operations tool built to be used all day, every day.
Frontend
Next.js 14 · Tailwind CSS
Database
Supabase — Postgres + Auth (RLS everywhere)
AI
Claude + OpenRouter — email/WhatsApp ingestion
Worker
Fly.io — background processing
Resend
Automation
Vercel Cron — daily task & follow-up runs
Want a portal like this?
If your team is drowning in inboxes and spreadsheets, a custom staff portal — even one that reads your messages and creates the tasks for you — can transform how the business runs. Get in touch and let’s scope it.