Declining, waitlisting and archiving

Turning work down is part of the job, and doing it badly costs you more than doing it at all. Maelo's decline flow exists so that saying no takes ten seconds and still reads like a human wrote it.

Open the request and press Decline. You get a message box, a row of quick fill options, and a preview of the exact email your client will receive. Nothing sends until you press Decline Request.

You do not need to write the greeting. Maelo adds it for you, so start your message with the substance.

Under Quick fill are your decline templates. Out of the box you get Not my style, Fully booked, Budget mismatch and Other, each with a written message ready to go. Tap one and it drops into the box, where you can edit it before sending.

Those messages are yours to rewrite. Edit in Settings takes you to Settings, Policies, Decline Reasons, where you can change the wording, add your own reasons and delete the ones you never use. Doing this once means every future decline sounds like you.

Insert field drops in details like the client's name or the piece they asked about, so a template can still read as personal. Preview email shows you the real thing, with your branding, before it goes.

The request's status becomes Declined and it moves out of your Inbox into the Archive tab. Nothing is deleted. If the client comes back in six months, the whole conversation is still there.

On the client's side it does not say declined. Their hub shows Not Available, with a note that you are unable to take the request at this time. Whatever message you wrote sits alongside it.

There is a Waitlist tab on the right of your tab bar, and it is marked Soon. It is a placeholder for work in progress, and nothing lands in it yet.

Archiving is how you tidy your inbox without losing anything. Right click a request on desktop, or press and hold it on your phone, and choose Archive request. It leaves every working tab and appears in Archive. The same menu offers Unarchive request to bring it back.

Archiving does not change what a request actually was. A completed job you archive is still completed, and still counts towards your revenue figures. That split is deliberate: archive is about your attention, not your books.

For a clear out, use Select request to tick several at once and archive the lot together.

Delete request only appears on requests you have already archived. That is on purpose. Deleting takes two decisions, so you cannot wipe a live enquiry with one mis-click.

• •Archive the request first.
• •Open its menu again and choose Delete request.
• •Confirm, and it is gone.