Gap between guest projects and company projects (Fibery contractor challenges)

1

I love Fibery and one of the things that drew me to it was the access templates and extended access capabilities.

For context my current db/access looks like this:

  • Client Company/Org (guests invited here with extended access to everything below)
    • Project(s)
      • Task(s)
    • Client Resources (documents)

I noticed that there is a gap in the experience as a freelancer/contractor.

Here are 2 scenarios that are possible for Fibery:

1 . Architect + Guest access

I as the Fibery architect/contractor want to manage projects and let clients see progress. They can’t quickly add projects/tasks themselves, but they can edit tasks once they exist.

Pro

  • Guests are free and unlimited
  • Guests can update existing tasks/projects

Con

  • Guests can’t easily add entities
  • They either fill out a form connected to the database or they ask me to add a task (this feels like middle management)

I know there is other roles so why not turn them into an editor? That requires a paid seat which leads to the next thing.

2. Fibery for company/org

Paying for seats/users makes sense in a company makes sense. You have a marketing agency and you are a team of 5 and you all regularly need to manage work. And it’s reasonable to assume that you’ll all be working together for the foreseeable future.

You still need to give access to third parties or stakeholders. Some stakeholders only need to see progress and other stakeholders may also be contractors that are contributing to a project. Now the third party contractor needs the ability to manage their own work related to the project.

They are in the same position as the guest in scenario 1. They can edit existing stuff but can’t add their own tasks/projects.

The problem is that Guests are rarely view only

In both of the previous scenarios the project management feels 1-way. Only the architect can create projects and delegate.

But it feels like a guest (a client or another contractor) should be able to more easily add entities. They also play a role in managing the project

  • A client has a few more requests/thoughts/ideas they want to discuss. They add it to the board

  • Another contractor you’re working with ran into some issues, but they solved them. They add a few tasks to the board and mark as complete for visibility.

What is fair for Fibery?

If I could wave a magic wand, guests would be able to CRUD, not just RUD. But then what makes them different from an editor (or any other role requiring another paid seat)

As the contractor it also feels weird paying for seats for people that aren’t actually employees/staff.

I know there has been previous discussions around pricing/tiers/free plans etc.

The number of databases doesn’t seem like a problem. I could get far with the database hierarchy above.

What if guests were still free but had a limit to how many entities they could create or have active?

It feels like there needs to be some way to account for the “frequency/intensity/duration” of a project and guests activity

  • Intensity/Frequency = how fast and how many entities are being created?
  • Duration = how long has a guest been part of the entity/workspace?

At a certain point it seems fair that a guest crosses the threshold from a temporary collaborator/stakeholder to long term relationship (long-term contract, full-time team member etc) and they should be paying.

TLDR; Pricing is hard, guest access is hard, contractor and project management is tricky

2 Likes
2

I feel the same pain.

I created spaces for clients as well, to delivery materials, plans, checklists. There are sometimes they need to edit or create. There’s no easy way.

To solve that friction, I like the suggestions that @Ryan_Dejaegher gave.

The link below shows another example on how Whimsical to deal with guests. They limit per plan.