Three kinds of channel, all attached to the project: chat for talking, product selection for approving room by room, and a design board you can draw on. When the client says yes, that yes is on the record — and seven approved items become an invoice from the same screen.
kinds of channel — chat, product selection, and a design board you can draw on
Flagged
every channel a client can see says so, in red, before you type
7 of 10
approved, counted at the top of the channel — and invoiceable from there
0
decisions that exist only in somebody's text messages
Three channels
"Chat" doesn't cover approving a sofa
So there are three kinds, and you pick which one you're making. Each is a channel — named, colored, attached to a project, with the clients you choose given access.
Talking, with the record attached
Normal messaging for the team and the client — except a product, an invoice, or a link dropped into the conversation arrives as a card, not a dead URL. The rug in the message is the rug on the project.
Products, invoices and estimates embed as live cards
Files and links collect in their own tabs, per channel
Jump straight to the project's budget, WIP, or documents from the side panel
A selection channel groups products by room and gives the client an approve or decline on each one, with a comment box for the ones they want changed. The counts sit at the top, and the approved items become an invoice without leaving the screen.
Grouped by room, or by whatever grouping suits the project
Every decision stamped with who made it and when
"Create invoice (7)" — the approved ones, in one step
A canvas with the floor plan on it. Drag the project's products onto the plan, sketch, annotate, and let the client approve a piece while looking at where it goes — with a running board total in the corner.
The project's product list sits alongside, ready to drag on
Draw, arrow, and comment directly on the plan
Board total, and how much of it is approved, always visible
designDesign board · 5 products$11,582.72
$2,204.80 approved
Client facing
You always know who's in the room
The most expensive message in a design firm is the one sent to the wrong audience. Any channel a client can see carries a red banner at the top, so nobody discovers it after typing something about margin.
!Client facing — a client has access to this channel. Be mindful of shared content.
Clients are added per channel, and adding them grants portal access
Team channels and client conversations are listed separately in the sidebar
Channels hang off a project, so the context is never ambiguous
Members and access are visible from the channel's own panel
Mentions
Type @ and the whole studio is in reach
Not just people. Narrow it to one project or search across all of them, then mention a contact, a product, a financial record, or a task — so you can put an actual invoice into a sentence rather than describing which one you mean.
All projects
Contacts 11Products 30Financials 49Tasks 30
Marisa K.Client
Finn Spindle Dining ChairDining Room · $1,983.80
INV-0040Invoice · unpaid
Confirm millwork lead timeTask · Sourcing · due Aug 12
@INV0040
Mention a contact, a product, a financial record, or a task by name
Talking to the team? Tag the task you mean, and the thread stays attached to the work
Drop a product in as a tag — a clickable link — or as an embedded card with its image, room and price
Highlight any text in a message and tag it, filed under chat, invoices, estimates or products
Links shared in a channel collect in their own tab, with who shared them and when
Six months later, "which rug did she approve?" is a search rather than an archaeology project.
The connected record
Nothing said here stays only here
Approvals reach the product
An approval in a selection channel is the product's approval — the same state the estimate and the purchase order read from. It isn't a second copy of the truth.
Seven approved becomes an invoice
Create the invoice from the channel and only the approved items go on it. No re-selecting, no cross-checking a list against a thread.
Files land in the project
Anything shared in a channel collects in that channel's Files tab, and documents can be pushed through to the project's own document library.
Client conversations sit on the contact
Every thread with a client is reachable from their record, so a new person on the team can catch up without being forwarded six months of email.
Adding a client grants the portal
Bringing someone into a channel gives them portal access at the same time, so there's one act of granting rather than two systems to remember.
Walter can read across it
Because the conversation lives with the records rather than in someone's inbox, it's part of what the AI can answer from.
Set it once, per firm
Replies should come back to you, not to your software
The quiet failure of most design software is the email nobody answered because it arrived from noreply@. A client hits Reply, the message goes nowhere, and three weeks later somebody discovers the estimate was never actually declined — it was answered into a void.
Set the From name and address once. Clients see your studio, replies route straight back to you, and default CC lines put your bookkeeper on every invoice without anyone remembering to add them. Templates carry the wording, with variables filled at send time.
For the parts that matter, yes — approvals, selections, and the decisions you'd otherwise have to find later. Email still exists, and Workroom has a connected email add-on, but a decision made in a channel is on the record rather than in a thread.
How do I stop the client seeing something internal?
Client-facing channels are flagged in red at the top, and team channels are listed separately from client conversations. Clients are added per channel, so access is explicit rather than assumed.
What's the difference between a selection channel and an estimate?
An estimate is a document you send. A selection channel is a working conversation where the client approves or declines item by item, comments on the ones they want changed, and you invoice the approved ones when they're settled.
Can the client draw on the design board?
They can comment on products placed on the board and approve them in context. The drawing tools are for the studio composing the space.
Do channels have to belong to a project?
Linking to a project is optional but recommended — it's what gives the side panel its shortcuts through to budget, WIP, documents and finances. Standalone team channels work too.
Customer — Elite Design Assistants
“Within the chat, you’re able to filter just links or just attachments — for when you need to find something again.”
Elite Design AssistantsVirtual design assistant
See the connected workflow
Run the project. See the real margin.
We'll show you a product going from a message, to an approval, to a line on an invoice — without anyone retyping it.
