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Working with clients: a complete guide

The challenge of client work

Client work has a specific collaboration problem. You're working closely with someone who isn't part of your organisation, who has limited time to learn new tools, and who needs to see progress and respond to questions without wading through your internal working materials.

Most people handle this with a combination of email, shared folders, and whatever tool the client already uses. The result: project materials scattered across three places, important conversations buried in email threads, no clear record of what was decided, and a lot of friction every time you need to hand something over or get something back.

A shared client workspace solves this. One place where your working materials live, where the client can see what's relevant to them, where feedback happens on the actual work rather than in a separate thread, and where the history of the project is preserved without any manual archiving.

Two types of client workflow

Before setting up any shared space, it's worth thinking about which direction work primarily flows in your engagements.

Inbound flow (client-side push). The client submits requests, briefs, or materials, and you fulfil them. Designers receiving creative briefs, developers getting feature requests, writers receiving content briefs, support teams handling client tickets. The client initiates; you deliver.

Outbound flow (provider-side push). You create and deliver content, lessons, reports, or updates, and the client reviews and responds. Coaches delivering programmes, consultants presenting findings, educators running cohorts, agencies delivering campaign materials. You initiate; the client receives and responds.

Many engagements have elements of both, but one usually dominates, and knowing which one helps you design the right structure for the client space.

Setting up the client space

The simplest approach is to create one shared space or folder per client that contains everything for that engagement. The client gets access to their space and nowhere else, which keeps your internal materials separate and your other clients' work private.

Inside the client space, the structure you need depends on the workflow type.

For inbound (client submits, you deliver)

A simple flow that works well:

Inbox. Where the client puts new requests, briefs, or materials. They add to this; you process it.

In progress. Work you're actively working on. You move items here when you pick them up from the inbox.

Review. Work ready for the client to look at. You move items here when something is ready; the client knows to check here.

Revisions. Feedback the client has left on a deliverable. The client moves items here when they want changes; you pick them back up and return to in progress.

Done. Completed deliverables. Either party can archive items here when everything is signed off.

This structure works for designers, developers, copywriters, video editors, and anyone whose work follows a request-to-delivery cycle. The stages are always visible even when they're empty, which means the client can always see where things are in the process without asking.

For outbound (you deliver, client responds)

Content or lessons. Where you put materials for the client to work through: exercises, reports, programme materials, research.

Client submissions. Where the client uploads their responses, completed exercises, or questions. They add to this; you review it.

Feedback. Where you post your responses, notes, or follow-up materials. The client checks here after submitting.

This structure works well for coaches, educators, consultants delivering programmes, and anyone whose work follows a deliver-respond cycle.

Labels and instructions

Use emoji labels generously. They make sections immediately recognisable at a glance (📥 Inbox, ✅ Done) and make the space feel less intimidating for clients who aren't used to working this way. A client who sees 📥 Inbox immediately knows where to put something.

Add a short note to each section explaining what it's for. Even if you've explained the flow, clients forget. A one-line description under each section heading ("Put new requests here. Include as much context as possible.") means they don't have to remember the full explanation or find an email you sent weeks ago.

Sharing and permissions

In Fabric, you can share any space, folder, or individual item with someone by link or by email invitation. When you share a folder, the person gets access to everything inside it, so be deliberate about what's in the shared space before you send the link.

The permission levels you'll use most for clients:

Viewer. They can see everything in the shared space but can't add, edit, or comment. Use this for deliverables you're presenting for approval, or for reference materials they need to access.

Editor. They can add content, leave comments, and annotate directly on files. Use this for active collaboration where you want the client to contribute, upload materials, or leave feedback on specific items.

Leave your working materials, internal notes, and work-in-progress you're not ready to share outside the client's folder. Keep the shared space to what they actually need to see.

Publishing for client-facing work

For work that needs to be more formally presented (a completed report, a resource library for a client's team, a press kit, a project handover document), Fabric's publishing feature turns any folder into a publicly accessible webpage in one click.

Published content gets its own URL that you can share without requiring the client to have a Fabric account or log in. You can password-protect it if the content is confidential. The client visits the URL and sees a clean, searchable presentation of whatever you've published.

This is useful for: delivering a finished project as a polished handover rather than a shared folder, creating a client-facing resource library that doesn't require ongoing access, or producing a living document (like a campaign report) that updates automatically when you update the Fabric content.

Using templates across clients

If you work with multiple clients doing similar work, templates save significant time. Create the ideal structure for your client space once, duplicate it for each new client, rename the relevant sections, and share. Each client gets a consistent, well-organised space without you having to rebuild it from scratch.

Keep a master template in your personal workspace and duplicate it at the start of each new engagement. If you improve the structure based on experience with one client, update the template for future use.

Keeping things organised across multiple clients

As your client roster grows, the challenge shifts from setting up individual client spaces to keeping track of everything across all of them.

A few things that help:

Tag active client work in your task system. Your task management should reflect what's outstanding across clients: deliverables due, feedback waiting to be reviewed, follow-ups to make.

Use Fabric's search across all client spaces. When you need to find something (the brief from three months ago, the specific feedback on the second revision, a reference the client shared early in the project), searching by meaning across your whole workspace is faster than navigating individual client folders.

Archive completed projects cleanly. When an engagement ends, move the client folder to an archive rather than leaving it in your active workspace. The materials are still searchable and accessible, but your active view stays focused on current work.

Annotation and feedback on files

For design work, documents, and PDFs, Fabric allows comments and annotations directly on the file rather than in a separate thread. The client can point at a specific element and leave a note; you can respond in the same place. This keeps feedback attached to the actual work rather than requiring you to interpret email descriptions of what needs changing.

This is particularly useful for creative work where "the heading in the top right" or "the chart on page four" needs a visual reference that prose descriptions don't convey well.

Who this applies to

This setup works for anyone whose work involves delivering things to clients: designers, developers, marketers, copywriters, photographers, filmmakers, consultants, coaches, educators, researchers, personal assistants, lawyers, architects, and anyone else who juggles multiple client engagements and needs a cleaner way to manage them.

The underlying principle is the same regardless of what you do: one organised space per client, a clear flow that both parties understand, and a separation between what the client needs to see and what they don't.

Frequently asked questions

Does my client need a Fabric account?

For link-shared content and published pages, no: anyone with the link can view. For spaces where you want the client to contribute (adding requests, leaving feedback, uploading files), they'll need to create an account, though a free account is sufficient for most collaboration needs.

How do I keep client work separate from my personal workspace?

Create a dedicated space or top-level folder for client work. Within that, each client gets their own folder. This keeps client work in one place and makes it easy to archive completed engagements without disrupting your personal workspace.

What if I need to share sensitive materials?

Published pages can be password-protected. Shared folders require an account login. For highly sensitive materials (legal documents, financial information, confidential client data), invite-only sharing with specific email addresses gives you the most control over who has access.

How do I handle clients who don't want to use a new tool?

For clients who prefer email, you can use email-to-note to forward their emails directly into the relevant client folder, keeping everything together on your end even if they're working from email. Published pages they can view without any account are another option for one-way delivery of materials.

What's the best way to present a finished project?

Use the publishing feature to create a clean, URL-accessible presentation of the deliverables. The client gets a polished view of the completed work at a shareable link, without needing to navigate your workspace. You can password-protect it and include analytics to see whether they've accessed it.