Manage client work in a flexible project tracker

When you work with lots of different clients, you often end up with information scattered across tools. Conversations happen in Slack or email, clients share Google Docs or PDFs, and you track projects in a chaotic spreadsheet.

When crucial information is spread across tools, team members waste time searching for information, and project managers have to piece together updates from different sources.

Notion acts as a single hub for all your work. You can build a simple project management system and connect everything: briefs, meeting notes, client feedback, documents, and much more.

In Notion, you can manage the entire customer lifecycle, from prospecting with sales to engaging in project work.

Just create your project tracker database and customize it according to how you operate.

Notion allows you to view your data in many different ways. When you create a database, you’ll be able to choose from seven different layout options: Board, Calendar, Timeline, Gallery, Table, List, or Chart.

But, you aren’t limited to a single database layout. You can change the layout at any time, or keep several saved views with different layouts and switch between them.

Some helpful layouts for project management:

• Client-facing deadline calendar— Keep clients on the same page about deadlines and deliverables with a shared Calendar layout. Instead of emailing back and forth for status updates, clients have full visibility and can leave feedback as needed.

• Internal tasks on a Kanban board— Your internal task tracker could be a Kanban board where tasks are organized by status (e.g., To Do, In Progress, Review, Completed), making it easy for your team to track progress and update task statuses with a simple drag-and-drop.

• PR Campaigns over time — Track outreach, media pitches, and campaigns in a Timeline view with clear start and end dates to see how different projects overlap.

• Content calendar for clients— Use a

  Board view grouped by content type to organize blog posts, newsletters, and social media posts by publish date. Share with your clients so they can review drafts and provide approvals.

• A table of all your projects— In a Table, categorize all projects by status, priority, and deadlines, giving your team an at-a-glance summary of all ongoing work and upcoming deliverables.

Notion databases are living records of all the work happening at your company.

Instead of a static spreadsheet, you can organize the information in a database according to what you want to see.

To do this, you need to add database properties—labels you use to categorize entries by status, date, person, etc.

Then, you can sort, group, filter and resurface information in countless useful ways.

For example:

• Updating status by drag and drop— On a Kanban board, you can group the items by their

  Status (Up Next, In Progress, To Review, etc). Not only does this show you where all work stands, it also makes it easy to update project status with drag and drop.

• Group projects by assignee— Use Person properties to assign team members to a project. In a

  Board or Table, you can group projects by Assignee, giving you an understanding of what’s on everyone’s plate, at a glance.

• Rank projects by priority or deadline— Sort allows you to change the order in which projects appear. So, you can rank projects from high to low priority, or by order of deadline to see most urgent projects first.

• Organize projects by type— Using the Select property, you can give your projects different categories according to the type of work involved. Then, you can group the database by type to see what everyone is working on.

You can create several different saved views of your project tracker, each with unique settings, and then tab through them to see your information in different ways.

Notion helps you organize and standardize your work through templates, so you can establish consistent approaches across departments and get projects off the ground faster.

In your project tracker, create database templates for different types of work you do often. Customize those templates so that when you create a new entry from a template, some properties are already filled out and there is an outline ready on the page.

You could create templates for:

• Structured campaign briefs— A brief outline including objectives, key messaging, deliverables, and timelines.

• Drafting social posts– A format for drafting captions, visuals, hashtags, and checklists for social media content.

• Consulting project proposal– A standard document for scoping out client projects, detailing objectives, deliverables, and pricing.

• Workshop and training outline– Plan training sessions, learning objectives, modules, and exercises.

• Brand guideline details– Typography, color palette, logos, and brand voice for client branding projects.

All database pages are fully customizable, so you can get to work on your project directly in the page itself.

Anytime you need to scope a new project, do this directly from the project tracker by creating a new entry from a template.

You can have any number of templates saved in your project database: a scope of work for a consulting project, concept for brand development, a marketing strategy, or product launch campaign.

In Notion, work and project management are intertwined.

While some project trackers simply link out to other tools, Notion consolidates all your work in the project page of your database.

This saves everyone the hassle of searching for information, and with everything stored in the project page, nobody has to wonder where relevant documents can be found.

In addition to setting up templates for types of projects you do often, you can incorporate diverse elements on page using Notion’s many different types of blocks.

You can:

• Arrange text with headers, columns, bullets, checklists— Drag and drop blocks of text into columns, use headers to separate different sections, and add bullets or checklists to organize your ideas and list action items and tasks.

• Insert images, videos, and files on a page— You can insert images, videos, or files directly into a Notion page. This creates transparency and allows your team members to easily access reference materials from a project page.

• Embed files from other tools— Notion has a variety of embed options. Embed Slack messages, Figma files, Google docs, Loom videos, Miro boards, and more directly onto your Notion page where everyone can access them.

• Create databases inside a page— Nest a database inside a page by choosing the Inline database

  block. You might use a database to store meeting notes about a project or reference materials from your client.

• Customize pages with icons, emojis, and a cover image— Make pages more memorable and easy for team members to find what they need.

Pages are visually appealing by default, so you don’t have to spend much time formatting them to share with your team.

Each client you work with has different requirements, guidelines and processes.

Notion will help you collaborate more effectively with clients and make sure you have all relevant information at hand.

When it comes to tracking projects, you could have one central tracker for all your projects, tag each project with the relevant client, and then create client-specific views.

Alternatively, give each client their own project or task tracker and share this with them in the client portal. This approach allows you to tailor the tracker according to each clients’ requirements and processes.

Notion can be your hub for managing entire client workflows.

Connect all the moving parts of your work, automate repetitive actions and visualize information in different ways.

Here’s how an advertising agency (or any professional services team) might scale their project management system in Notion:

• Collect client requests with Forms– Instead of managing messy email chains, use Forms to intake campaign briefs, creative requests, or client feedback directly into your project tracker, so nothing gets lost.

• Automate workflows– Use database automations to ping team members when project statuses change, or assign a new task owner when a project’s status changes.

• Get a clear view of data with a dashboard —Build real-time dashboards using the Chart database layout

  to track campaign milestones, ad performance, team workloads, or project timelines, giving team members and clients instant clarity.

• Connect work for an integrated system– Link client projects to meeting notes and documents with a Relation

  property, ensuring everyone always has full context and easy access to relevant information.

• Work more efficiently with AI– Notion AI can help you draft project briefs, summarize client meetings, and pull insights from past campaigns so your team can focus on creative strategy.

• Create a wiki where team members can find information— A wiki or company home page lets you arrange all the information your team members need daily in an easy-to-navigate format.

• Track company or client goals and milestones — You can manage milestones and KPIs in Notion to help your team stay on track and see how their work fits in with larger goals and client results.