Features
Everything you need. Nothing you don't.
Sideline does one job completely: client requests, from "can you also…?" to "done." Here's the whole tour.
Open requests 34
+ Submit- Jul 25
#486NEW
Product photos, new colorways
- Jul 24
#198BLOCKED
Summer can label revisions
- Jul 28
#734NEW
Tag articles on people pages
- Jul 30
#831IN PROGRESS
Homepage hero, spring refresh
Collect
Every request arrives complete, in one place.
Custom intake forms
Ask for the brief, files, deadline, and priority up front, so clients can't send you half a request. Each agency shapes its own form.
New request
Lantern Studio · Alpine Supply Co.
What do you need?*
Details*
12 SKUs from the spring line. Same lighting setup as the winter shoot, white sweep, plus one lifestyle angle each.
Priority
Needed by
Attachments
Drop files or browse
Grace K. · email
can you refresh the homepage hero?
Refresh the homepage hero
#848 · notes.pdf · in the queue, not your inbox
Email in, too
Clients who live in their inbox can keep emailing. Their messages become requests in the queue instead of threads in yours.
Files 4,182
every client, every request- Open in thread
teal-colorway-04.jpg
#846 Product photos · Grace K. · 2h
can-label-v3.ai
#198 Summer can label · Dana R. · Jul 12
teal-swatch-ref.png
#712 Brand guidelines · Maya R. · Mar 4
hero-brief.pdf
#847 Homepage hero · Grace K. · Feb 20
Opens the request at the message where it was shared, so you get the conversation, not just the download.
Every file you have ever exchanged
Every file ever exchanged with every client, in one searchable library. Click any file and its request opens at the exact message where it was shared, so you get the context, not just the download.
Prioritize
The hours you spend delegating, triaging, and chasing, handed back.
Requests triage themselves
Auto-assignment rules send every request straight to the right people the moment it lands, notified and ready to start before you've even read it.
Delegating stops being part of your day.
Client settings
Auto-assign new requests to
Product photos, new colorways
No triage meeting, no forwarding, nothing waiting to be delegated.
✦ Smart Focus
Product photos, new colorways
Client replied 2 hours ago and it's due today, so this is the one that moves first.
Homepage hero, spring refresh
Trade-show banner, print-ready
Ranked per person, and it tells you why. You choose what it weighs most.
Smart Focus ranks the day for youAI
Everyone opens Sideline to a queue already ranked, with the reason in plain English: "client replied 2 hours ago and it's due today." You can tune what it weighs.
Nobody starts the morning curating a board.
Product photos, new colorways
Your statuses, your words. Drag to reorder in settings.
Your workflow, in your words
Rename statuses to the phases your studio actually works in: Concepting, With Client, Awaiting Print. The board, the filters, and your client portal all follow.
Open requests
Sort: Custom orderDrag in the list or on the board. Everyone sees the same order, including your client.
Drag the queue into the order you want
Reorder work by dragging, in the list or on the board. The order is shared, not personal, which is the interesting part: invite a client in and they can drag their own requests to tell you what to do first. You stop guessing at their priorities, and they stop sending "actually, can you do this one first" emails.
Your client sets the order. You just work down the list.
New
Update footer links sitewide
In progress
Email template for July
Landing page copy, v2
Email template for July newsletter
NEWList, board, and calendar views
Triage in the list, run the week on the board, spot pile-ups on the calendar. One queue, three lenses.
Priority
HIGHDue
Today, 5:00 PM
Assigned to
MMaya R.
Labels
DesignRetainer
Priorities, labels, assignees, due dates
Every request carries an owner, a priority, and a deadline. Labels slice the queue however your studio thinks.
Collaborate
Client conversations and team talk, side by side, never mixed up.
"Write for me"AI
Jot the gist and one click turns it into a complete, well-worded client update, drawn from what's already in the thread. Even the hard ones: "need three more days" comes out as a delay note that keeps the client calm.
When you don't have the words, Sideline does.
need three more days
Write for meHi Grace, a quick update on timing. We want the teal reshoot to be exactly right, so we're taking three extra days; new delivery is Thursday. Everything else stays on schedule.
Even the emails you've been putting off.
Grace K. Client
These look great, can we brighten the teal one before Friday?
Dev P. Your team
On it. @Maya can you grab the reshoot tomorrow AM?
MMaya was notified, no forwarding, no CC chains.
Threaded comments with @mentions
Discuss work on the request itself. Mention a teammate and they're in the loop, no forwarding.
Internal noteTEAM ONLY
Budget's flexible per their CFO, quote the full rebuild, not the patch job.
Your reply · client sees this
We'd love to, let me put a proper proposal together this week.
Clients never see the hatched notes. Say the honest thing.
Internal notes (the lock icon)
Team-only notes sit right in the thread, visually unmistakable. Your team can riff and share what they really think, without clients ever seeing it.
Reply to Grace K.
Polishwe fix teal photo tomorow morning, send you eod. also banner is almost done i think. ok?
Thanks for the feedback! We're reshooting the teal colorway tomorrow morning and will have the updated photos to you by end of day, with the trade-show banner right behind them.
Same message, your agency's voice. Optional, agency-controlled.
One-click PolishAI
Wrote it in a hurry? One click fixes the spelling, grammar, and tone before it reaches the client, without changing what you said. Optional, agency-controlled.
Thanks, these are approved! 🎉
Grace K. · Alpine Supply Co. · just now
Suggested
Mark this request FINISHED?
One click accepts. Ignoring costs nothing, and nothing ever changes on its own.
Suggested actionsAI
A client writes "thanks, these are approved," and a quiet chip appears: mark it finished? Sideline infers field updates from the conversation, status, due date, priority, and you accept or ignore with one click.
The fields keep up with the conversation. You just say yes.
Keep clients in the loop
Transparency without a single status email.
One page that shows clients everything
"Portal" is honestly too big a word. Clients get a bird's-eye view of everything you're doing for them, every request, every status, current without anyone asking. And it's dead simple: a magic link, no password, nothing to learn, only their own work, never another client's.
Nobody emails "any update?" to your whole team again.
Your requests
ALPINE SUPPLY CO.- READY FOR REVIEWProduct photos, new colorwaysJul 25
- IN PROGRESSHomepage hero, spring refreshJul 30
Only their requests, never another client's. No password, a magic link.
Product photos, new colorways
Care about it? Follow it. Done caring? One click stops the emails, actually stops them.
Follow / unfollow
Anyone can follow a request they care about and get updates, and actually stop getting them with one click. Your notifications behave.
Sideline
New message from Grace K. on #846, Product photos
"These look great, can we brighten the teal one?"
View requestFollowing this request · unfollow with one click
Notifications done right
Assignments, status changes, and replies land as clean emails people can act on, not a firehose they filter to trash.
Content-free notifications
Keep message content out of email entirely
New message from Grace K. on request #846
View in SidelineBodies, attachments, even titles. Everything stays inside Sideline.
Private by design
Flip one switch and emails carry no content at all, no message bodies, no attachments, not even request titles. People get pinged and read the work inside Sideline, so client material stays in one controlled place instead of scattering into personal inboxes.
Client work stays where you can protect it.
White label
Lantern Studio
logo · everywhere your clients look
Accent color
Your domain
Clients sign into your studio, not a tool your studio bought.
White labelingCOMING SOON
Completely customize the look and feel: your logo, your colors, your own domain, and email notifications that carry your branding instead of ours. Sideline disappears into your system instead of sitting beside it. In development now, and included in the $49 plan, not gated behind a premium tier.
My Team
Invite- GKGrace K.Active
- TLTom L.Invited
Clients add their own colleagues, so you stop being their IT department.
Clients manage their own people
Clients invite their own colleagues and remove people who leave, without emailing you first.
You stop being their IT department.
Connect it to your AI
Everything your agency knows, on tap for your AI tools and agents.
Your whole agency, available to your AI
Every request, every client conversation, every logged hour becomes context your AI tools can use. Ask "which Alpine requests have been sitting more than a week?", have an agent build your morning digest, or pull last month's hours straight into a client report.
Wherever you are, you have the whole picture.
Which Alpine requests have been sitting more than a week, and who owns them?
Sideline · via connector
- #812 Brand guidelines refresh11 days · Maya R.
- #798 Q3 social templates9 days · Dev P.
Your queue, answerable in plain language, scoped to what you can see.
AI Connectors
Connector URL
app.sideline.io/api/mcp
Can AI tools make changes?
Sign in, approve, done. No API keys to paste.
Connects to the tools you already use
Claude and ChatGPT connect with one URL and a sign-in: no API keys, no scripts. Make and Zapier plug in with a token, for scheduled digests and automations that run while you sleep.
This person can see
Enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface.
It only sees what you can see
Your connection runs on your login and your permissions, nothing more. When someone leaves the team, their connection shuts off with their account.
Connector permissions
Account Owner onlyRead requests, time & reports
always on
Update status, priority, due dates
opt-in
Draft replies
a human still sends them
- n/a
Send messages to clients
not a permission that exists
Writes are opt-in and stop at the fields. Sending is yours alone.
You decide what it can touch
A fresh connection can only read. Allow writes and they stop at status, priority, due dates, and drafted replies that wait for a human to hit send. Messaging your clients is never on the table.
Time tracking & reporting
A proper time tracker built in, and numbers that make renewals easy.
Stop paying for a separate time tracker
A real timer lives on every request. It belongs to the person rather than the browser tab, so it keeps running when you move from laptop to phone and back. Log time as you work or add it afterwards, per person and per client, with no second app to open and nothing to reconcile on Friday afternoon.
One less subscription, and the hours land where the work is.
Laptop
01:24:07
Phone
01:24:07
Tablet
01:24:07
One timer, per person, on the server. Start it anywhere, it keeps running everywhere.
Time log
client view- Today2h 10m
#846 Product photos
Maya R.
- Today1h 25m
#851 Landing page copy
Dev P.
- Jul 233h 40m
#846 Product photos
Maya R.
- Jul 220h 55m
#839 Menu reprint
Dev P.
Live, plain, and always current. The "what are we paying for?" email stops getting written.
Clients see the hours in real time
Your client opens their portal and reads the time log in plain terms: who worked on what, for how long, as it happens.
Insights · Alpine Supply Co.
2h 14m
avg first response
23
requests / month
214
completed all time
activity, last 6 months
Your client sees these numbers in their own portal, all year long.
An insights report that sells the renewal
Busy clients rarely realize how much you do for them. The Insights report shows them, right in their own portal: how fast you respond, how many requests you've handled for them, and how active your team has been, kept current all year.
Walk into renewal conversations with receipts.
38
closed
148
hours
96
% on time
Reports you can actually hand over
Requests by status, priority, client, and teammate, plus a time report you filter by client, member, and date range. Export any of it to CSV for your invoicing, your accountant, or a client who wants the detail.
Retainer · July
Tidewater Brewing26.5 of 40 hrs
Monthly retainers and prepaid hour blocks
Custom rules on every retainer
Rollover, alerts, and live balances
Your clients see their balance too, if you want them to.
Retainer management
Monthly retainers and prepaid hour blocks, with custom rules on each one so they match how you actually bill. Logged time draws the balance down automatically, rollover works the way you set it, and your clients can see exactly where their hours went if you want them to.
Standards & security
Built for how agencies actually staff
Your clients hired your agency, and that is what they should get: one brand, one standard, one accountable team, whether the work is done by an employee or a specialist you bring in for six weeks.
One brand on every message
Everyone on an account works under your studio's name, and personal contact details stay private, so clients deal with your agency rather than a chain of individuals. With content-free notifications on, client material stays in your workspace instead of landing in personal inboxes at all.
Zero accounts to provision
Specialists sign in with the email they already have. No Google Workspace seat, no Slack account, no forwarding aliases, no permissions spreadsheet, and nothing left provisioned when the work is finished.
One standard of communication
Your agency-wide AI instructions set the tone once, then one click of Polish cleans grammar, spelling, and phrasing on every reply, so every client hears the same professional voice from your studio no matter who is at the keyboard.
Your client list is not public to your team
Most workspace tools hand every person you invite a full directory: everyone who works there, every client, every project. Sideline makes that a choice. Decide whether Team Members can open the client list, the team roster, or agency reports at all, and scope anyone, including a Manager, to a named set of clients. The rest of your book of business is invisible to them, not filtered behind something they could widen.
Permissions that cannot be widened sideways
Most permission systems leak through delegation: give someone the power to add teammates and they can quietly grant access they never had. In Sideline a Manager can only hand out the client access they already hold, so a Manager scoped to three clients staffs those three and no further. Widening anyone is an Account Owner's call, enforced on the server rather than greyed out in the interface.
Access that ends when the work does
Bring a specialist in for one project and deactivate them when it ships. Access ends immediately, bringing them back is one click, and the request history, files, and client relationship stay with your agency.
Do the math on a five-contractor bench: no Workspace seats, no Slack seats, no setup hours, no offboarding risk. Those seats alone run $110 to $185 a month. Sideline is $49, flat, whoever you bring in.
What we build, and what we don't
One question decides what we build next: will it make your day calmer? Fewer bottlenecks, fewer headaches, fewer things to babysit, for you, your team, and your clients.
Calm is the test
If a feature doesn't make the queue calmer for your team and your clients, it doesn't ship, no matter how good it would look on a pricing grid.
Nothing to build or babysit
You could assemble something like this in Notion or Airtable, then spend weekends maintaining it and teaching every client how it works. Sideline does the job out of the box: nothing to configure into existence, nothing to explain.
It has to work for all three of you
Owner, team, client. Every feature has to remove friction for all three at once, or it doesn't get built.
Your queue isn't going to calm itself
14 days free with your real requests. Migration included, no credit card, calmer by Friday.
Start free