How to set up a client delivery board for agency projects
Most project management tools hand you the same three columns: To Do, In Progress, Done. That works fine for internal projects. For agency work, where deliverables move through briefing, production, internal review, client review and revisions, those three columns hide exactly where things get stuck.
This guide walks through how to set up a client delivery board that matches how agency work actually moves, from brief to delivery.
What is a client project board for agency workflow?
A client project board for agency workflow is a board view where each column represents a real delivery stage in your agency's process. Instead of generic status labels, the columns reflect specific phases like Brief, In Progress, Internal Review, Client Review, Revisions, Approved and Delivered. Each card's position tells you exactly where a deliverable stands without asking anyone.
TL;DR: Replace generic To Do / In Progress / Done columns with statuses that match your agency's delivery process. Use stages like Brief, In Progress, Internal Review, Client Review, Revisions, Approved and Delivered. This makes review loops visible, reduces status update meetings and keeps client deliverables moving.
Why generic statuses don't work for agency projects
The biggest problem with a three-column board in an agency context is that "In Progress" covers too many states. A homepage design that's waiting for the client's feedback and a blog post that a copywriter is actively drafting both sit in the same column. Nobody can tell which deliverables need attention from the team and which are waiting on the client.
This matters because agency work has a specific pattern that internal projects don't. Deliverables go back and forth between the agency and the client. A landing page gets drafted, reviewed internally, sent to the client, returned with feedback, revised and sent again. That loop can happen two or three times before approval.
With only three columns, every card in the review loop lives in "In Progress." The project manager has no way to see, at a glance, how many items are waiting on the client versus how many are blocked internally. The board becomes unreliable and people fall back to Slack messages and spreadsheets to track actual status.
If you're still working with a single board view, the guide on upgrading from basic Kanban explains when it's time to add more structure.
How should you structure a client project board for agency workflow?
Design your columns around the handoff points in your delivery process. Each column should answer one question: who needs to act next? Here are seven statuses that cover most agency delivery workflows.
The seven statuses
- Brief - The deliverable has been scoped and defined. Requirements, references and deadlines are attached. Work hasn't started yet.
- In Progress - A team member is actively working on it. Design, writing, development or whatever the deliverable type requires.
- Internal Review - The work is done and waiting for someone on your team to review it before it goes to the client. This could be a creative director, a senior developer or a project manager.
- Client Review - The deliverable has been shared with the client and you're waiting for their feedback or approval.
- Revisions - The client sent feedback. Someone on your team is incorporating the changes.
- Approved - The client signed off. The deliverable is ready for final delivery or deployment.
- Delivered - The deliverable has been sent, published or deployed. The work is complete.
This structure makes the review loop visible. When cards pile up in Client Review, you know the bottleneck is on the client's side. When cards pile up in Revisions, you know your team is behind on incorporating feedback. When Internal Review is full, your reviewers are the bottleneck.
Worked example: setting up a board for a website redesign project
Let's say your agency just kicked off a website redesign for a client called GreenLeaf Co. The project includes five deliverables: Homepage Design, About Page Design, Product Page Template, Blog Layout and Contact Form.
Week 1 board state:
| Brief | In Progress | Internal Review | Client Review | Revisions | Approved | Delivered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog Layout | Homepage Design | |||||
| Contact Form | About Page Design | |||||
| Product Page Template |
Three designers are working on the first three deliverables. Blog Layout and Contact Form are briefed but not started yet.
Week 2 board state:
| Brief | In Progress | Internal Review | Client Review | Revisions | Approved | Delivered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog Layout | Product Page Template | Homepage Design | About Page Design | |||
| Contact Form |
Now the board tells a clear story. The Homepage Design is with the client. About Page Design came back with feedback and is being revised. Product Page Template is waiting for the creative director's review before it goes to the client. The project manager can see all of this without asking a single question.
Week 3 board state:
| Brief | In Progress | Internal Review | Client Review | Revisions | Approved | Delivered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Form | Blog Layout | Product Page Template | Homepage Design | About Page Design |
About Page got approved after revisions. Homepage came back with a second round of feedback. The board tracks the back-and-forth without anyone explaining it in a meeting.
This is the kind of visibility that a generic three-column board can't provide. You can see the review loop playing out across the columns.
If you're new to custom statuses, the custom statuses guide covers the fundamentals of designing workflow stages.
How do you keep a client delivery board clean as deliverables move through stages?
The board gets noisy over time. Here are practical habits that keep it useful.
Archive delivered work regularly. Once a deliverable has been in the Delivered column for a few days and nobody needs to reference it, close the issue. This keeps the board focused on active work. You can always find closed issues in the list view if you need to look back.
Use labels to categorize deliverable types. If your project includes design work, copywriting and development, add labels like "Design," "Copy" and "Dev." This lets you filter the board view to see just one type of deliverable. When the creative director checks the board, they filter for design deliverables only.
Keep briefs complete before moving to In Progress. A card should only leave the Brief column when it has enough information for someone to start working. If the brief is missing references or specs, the card stays in Brief. This prevents cards from bouncing between Brief and In Progress.
Review the board weekly. Spend five minutes at the start of each week looking at the board with the team. Are any cards stuck in Client Review for more than a few days? Flag them and follow up with the client. Are cards in Internal Review backing up? The reviewer needs to catch up.
Pairing statuses with custom fields for tracking effort, priority and deliverable phase gives you even more context on each card without cluttering the board.
Why do review loops cause the most delays in agency projects?
Review loops are where agency projects lose the most time. A deliverable goes to the client, sits in their inbox for days, comes back with vague feedback, gets revised, goes back to the client and sits again.
With a generic board, this entire cycle is invisible. The card stays in "In Progress" the whole time. Nobody can see that the project is stalled because of client review delays.
When you have separate Client Review and Revisions columns, the pattern becomes obvious. If the same card has bounced between Client Review and Revisions three times, that's a signal. Maybe the brief wasn't clear enough. Maybe the client's stakeholders aren't aligned. Either way, you can see it on the board and address it before it derails the timeline.
Some teams add a count to the card description each time it enters revisions. "Revision round 2" or "Revision round 3" makes the cost of unclear feedback visible to everyone, including the client.
How do you set up per-client project boards for different agency workflows?
Each client engagement is different. A branding project for one client might need stages like Concept, Refinement, Presentation, Final Artwork. A content marketing retainer for another client might need Draft, Editor Review, Client Approval, Scheduled, Published.
This is why per-project custom statuses matter. If your tool forces every project to use the same workflow, you're back to generic columns that don't match the actual process.
In Eigenfocus, each project has its own statuses. You open project settings, define the stages and the board columns update immediately. No admin permissions needed, no global configuration to worry about.
Your website redesign project uses Brief through Delivered. Your content retainer uses Draft through Published. Your branding project uses Concept through Final Artwork. Each board reflects how that specific type of work actually moves.
If you run the same type of project often, you can clone an existing project to use it as a template. The statuses come along with the clone, so you don't have to set them up from scratch every time.
How do you handle multiple deliverable types on one client board?
When a single client project includes design, copy and development work, the same board needs to work for all three. The statuses above (Brief through Delivered) are general enough to cover different deliverable types.
The key is using labels to distinguish between them. Label your cards "Design," "Copy" or "Dev" and use the board's filter to focus on one type at a time. The designer sees only design deliverables. The copywriter sees only copy tasks. The project manager sees everything.
You can also display custom fields on board cards to show priority or effort estimates at a glance. A card in Internal Review with a "High Priority" badge gets attention faster than one without it.
For a deeper look at when to use labels versus custom fields versus statuses, see the labels vs custom fields vs custom statuses guide.
How do you get the team to actually use the board?
The best board setup is useless if the team doesn't keep it updated. A few things that help:
- Make the board the default view. If team members open the project and see the board first, they're more likely to drag cards when work moves forward.
- Update the board during calls, not after. When you're on a client call and they approve a deliverable, move the card to Approved right then. If you wait until later, you'll forget.
- Don't add statuses you don't use. If your team never does a formal internal review, remove that column. The board should reflect what actually happens. Five honest columns beat eight aspirational ones.
Common questions about client delivery boards
What statuses work best for an agency delivery board?
A seven-status workflow covers most agency projects: Brief, In Progress, Internal Review, Client Review, Revisions, Approved and Delivered. This structure makes handoff points and review loops visible. Adjust the count based on your actual process. If you never do internal reviews before sharing with clients, remove that column.
Should every client project use the same board setup?
Not necessarily. Different project types have different workflows. A website build has different stages than a monthly content retainer. Per-project statuses let you match each board to the actual delivery process for that engagement.
How do I see where work is stuck on a client delivery board?
Look for columns with too many cards. If Client Review has five cards and nothing else is moving, the client is the bottleneck. If Revisions is full, your team needs to catch up on feedback. The board makes bottlenecks visible without needing to ask anyone.
Can I use the same board to track both internal and client-facing work?
Yes. Use labels to separate internal tasks from client deliverables. Filter the board to show only client-facing work when you need a clean view for status updates. The same statuses work for both because the delivery stages are the same.
How often should I clean up a client delivery board?
Archive completed deliverables weekly. Move anything that's been in Delivered for more than a few days to closed status. This keeps the board focused on active work and prevents old cards from creating visual noise.
Set up your client delivery board
Define your agency's delivery stages, set them as custom statuses and start moving deliverables through the board. Each client project can have its own workflow in Eigenfocus, so your boards actually reflect how work moves.
See how other teams use Eigenfocus for agency project management or explore the custom statuses guide for more on designing workflow stages.