“We were drowning in client portals. Our promise is efficiency, but our own process was anything but. With Crust AI, we built a single, unified hub that’s easier for our clients and a game-changer for our team. We’re saving time, money, and delivering a better experience.”
David L
Founder
,
FlowState Labs
The Problem
FlowState Labs is a fast-growing no-code agency that prides itself on delivering sleek, efficient solutions for its clients. As their client roster grew, so did the complexity of their project management. To maintain their core value of transparency, they provided each client with a dedicated portal built in Stacker. While this worked initially, it quickly became a major operational bottleneck.
"With more than ten active clients, each with multiple projects, we were managing a dozen different portals," says David, the agency's founder. "The subscription costs were adding up, but the real cost was time. Our project managers were spending hours every week just logging into different systems to post the same updates. It was inefficient, error-prone, and ironically, completely against the 'flow state' we promise our clients." They needed a centralized solution that would scale with their business, not slow it down.
The Solution
FlowState Labs used Crust AI to build a single, intelligent "Client Hub" that completely replaced their fragmented system. This unified portal serves all of their clients, yet provides a completely secure and personalized experience for each one.
From the client's perspective, the experience is seamless. They log into the FlowState Hub and are greeted by a dashboard that exclusively displays their projects. For each project, they can clearly see:
A visual progress bar showing the percentage of completion.
The current status, such as "In Development" or "Awaiting Feedback."
Direct, one-click access to key deliverables like Figma mockups, staging site URLs, and video updates on Loom.
For the FlowState team, the solution is revolutionary. They now manage all project data from one central Airtable base. When a project manager updates a status or drops in a new link in Airtable, the Client Hub instantly reflects that change for the relevant client. There is only one snippet to maintain. Using simple AI prompts, they designed a dashboard with features like progress bars and conditional highlighting—elements that would have required custom development on other platforms.
The Impact
By consolidating their portals into one Crust AI Snippet, FlowState Labs unlocked significant savings in time, money, and mental overhead.
"The results were immediate," David notes. "We instantly saved over $300 a month by canceling our multiple Stacker subscriptions. But the real win is efficiency. A project update round that used to take our team two hours now takes about ten minutes."
The strategic benefits have been even greater:
Simplified Management: The team now focuses on managing projects, not portals. This newfound efficiency has allowed them to increase their capacity for client work without increasing headcount.
Enhanced Client Experience: Clients love the clear, consolidated view. The visual progress bars and direct links make them feel more connected to the project's lifecycle, improving trust and reducing back-and-forth communication.
A Scalable Foundation: The agency can now seamlessly onboard new clients without the headache of building and maintaining yet another separate portal.
How Can You Replicate?
Building a multi-client dashboard is a core use case for agencies and consultants looking to scale efficiently.
Centralize Your Project Data: Use a tool like Airtable to create a single "Projects" table. This table must have a field that identifies which client the project belongs to (e.g., a "Client Name" or "Client Email" field).
Start with a "Multiple Items Snippet": This snippet type is designed to show a list of records, which is perfect for displaying all the projects belonging to a client.
Implement User-Based Permissions: This is the key to making one portal work for everyone. Configure the snippet's "User-based permission" to filter the view based on the client's identifier. When a client logs in, Crust AI will only show them the projects that match their name or email.
Add Visuals and Actions with AI: Use Crust AI’s prompt-based builder to create a data-rich, intuitive interface:
"For each project, display a progress bar that reflects the value in the 'Percentage Complete' numeric field.""Add a button labeled 'View Mockup' that links to the URL in the 'Figma Mockup URL' field.""If the 'Status' field is 'Awaiting Feedback', highlight that project's card with a yellow border to draw attention."
