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Composite scenarioAgency operations

Harborline Creative

Give clients one place to send requests, approve work, and pay.

Clients get a simple portal. The agency keeps managing delivery in ClickUp, without exposing internal notes or assignments.

Example business

Team
14 people
Active clients
28 accounts
Agency work stays in
ClickUp

Realistic example, not a client claim. The company name, team size, people, and records are fictional.

How it works

The new workflow, step by step

See what moves between tools, what stays private, and what happens when something fails.

  1. 01

    Client portal

    Each client can send requests, review deliverables, approve work, and check invoices in one place.

    Custom app

  2. 02

    Request automation

    The system checks the client, request type, files, and priority before creating the task.

    • n8n
  3. 03

    Internal delivery

    ClickUp receives the task. Estimates, assignments, and team notes stay private.

    • ClickUp
    • Google Drive
  4. 04

    Client update

    The approved status, due date, and client-safe comments sync back to the portal. Stripe supplies the invoice status.

    • Stripe

What was going wrong

The tools worked. The process between them did not.

Clients had no reliable place to check requests, deliverables, approvals, or invoices. They asked for updates in Slack and email, while account managers copied those updates out of ClickUp by hand.

01

Requests arrived through email, Slack, and calls. Someone had to copy each one into ClickUp.

02

Approvals were buried in message threads, with no clear reviewer or approval date.

03

Account managers spent time turning internal updates into client-safe messages.

A typical request

What happens from start to finish.

  1. 01

    Client lead

    Submits a homepage revision request with a marked-up file.

    The portal confirms the request and files it under the correct client account.

  2. 02

    Account manager

    Checks what the request includes and assigns the work in ClickUp.

    The portal shows the agreed status and due date. Internal estimates and discussion stay in ClickUp.

  3. 03

    Client approver

    Reviews the uploaded deliverable and approves it in the portal.

    The approval, reviewer, and date sync to ClickUp, then the request closes in the portal.

Rules and safeguards

Rules your team no longer has to remember.

  • Each client can see only their own account.
  • Only approved fields can move from ClickUp into the portal.
  • Internal comments, time estimates, and team assignments never leave ClickUp.
  • If a sync fails, the account manager sees it and can retry it.

What gets easier

  1. 1

    Clients know where to send a request and where to check its status.

  2. 2

    The delivery team keeps working in ClickUp.

  3. 3

    Account managers step in only when something needs attention.

Connected tools

  • ClickUp
  • Google Drive
  • Stripe
  • n8n

Try the workflow

Try the client portal yourself.

Open a fictional Acme workspace and try the main actions yourself. Nothing you change is saved.

Try the sample app →Talk through my workflow