Demo: Sidebar Creative Agency Operations

Demo: Sidebar Creative Agency Operations Suite

A 40-person digital agency running on spreadsheets and hallway conversations. Seven tools built with Claude Code to change that. Scroll through to see how.

Sidebar Creative is a 40-person digital agency in Portland doing $6.5M in annual revenue. Like many agencies that have grown fast, their operational infrastructure hasn't kept pace. Scope creep is endemic. Resource loading is invisible. Profitability is a black box until quarter-end. And every Friday afternoon, account directors spend 2-3 hours per client manually assembling performance reports in Google Slides.

Tools 1–3 cover project management — timelines, resources, and capacity. Tools 4–7 cover client reporting — status updates, performance trends, health scoring, and automated reports.

See the GitHub repo for brand, data, and related context.

Each tool serves a unique purpose but they all share the same data and inform each other.

Project Timeline Dashboard

Problem it solves: No single view of all active engagements, their timelines, and health status. Partners relied on asking account directors "how's Project X going?" in hallway conversations.

Build a project timeline dashboard for Sidebar Creative. Read the brand definition and client portfolio data. Show all active projects on an interactive Gantt-style timeline with start dates, deadlines, current progress, and RAG status. Include the 8 retainer clients and the project-based engagements. Output as an interactive HTML file.

tools/project_timeline.html Open Full Size →

Resource Allocator

Problem it solves: Resource loading was blind. Some team members were working 50+ hour weeks while others had open capacity. Partners allocated people based on gut feel. Senior staff were on every project because they were the "safe" choice, burning them out while juniors didn't get growth opportunities.

Build a resource allocator for Sidebar Creative. Read the team roster and project data. Show each team member's current capacity — hours allocated vs. available — with visual indicators for overloaded (red) and underutilized (green) staff. Let me drag or reassign team members across projects and see capacity update in real time. Output as an interactive HTML file.

tools/resource_allocator.html Open Full Size →

Capacity Planner

Problem it solves: No way to forecast where bottlenecks would form as projects end and new work comes in. The agency couldn't answer "can we take on a new client next month?" without a week of spreadsheet archaeology.

Build a capacity planner for Sidebar Creative. Read the team roster, current project allocations, and upcoming project pipeline. Forecast team capacity for the next quarter — show where bottlenecks will form, which roles need hiring or contracting, and when bench time opens up. Let me add hypothetical new projects and see how they impact capacity. Output as an interactive HTML file.

tools/capacity_planner.html Open Full Size →

Status Report Generator

Problem it solves: Every Friday afternoon, account directors stopped strategic work to spend 2-3 hours per client manually assembling performance reports in Google Slides — pulling data from GA, social platforms, email tools, and the CRM. That's 16-24 hours of senior account time per month spent formatting instead of thinking.

Build an automated status report generator for Sidebar Creative. Read all project data — timelines, hours burned vs. budgeted, milestones, RAG status. Generate a written weekly status report for each client covering progress, blockers, next steps, and budget health. Also generate an internal roll-up report summarizing all 8 clients for the Monday leadership meeting. Output the reports as markdown files and build an HTML interface to generate and view them.

tools/status_reports.html Open Full Size →

Multi-Client Performance Dashboard

Problem it solves: No way to see performance trends across the entire client portfolio at a glance. Account directors tracked their own clients but nobody had the cross-portfolio view needed to spot patterns — which clients are growing, which are declining, and how metrics compare.

Build a multi-client performance dashboard for Sidebar Creative. Read the 6 months of historical client performance data. Show all 8 clients at a glance — website traffic trends, lead generation, social media growth, email performance, and hours delivered vs. SOW allocation. Let me click into any client for a detailed view. Output as an interactive HTML file.

tools/performance_dashboard.html Open Full Size →

Client Health Scorer

Problem it solves: Profitability was invisible until quarter-end. Two retainer clients were almost certainly unprofitable, but nobody could prove it. Account health was assessed by gut feel, not data. By the time problems surfaced, the client was already shopping for a new agency.

Build a client health scorer for Sidebar Creative. Read the client performance data and SOW terms. Score each client green, yellow, or red based on the health framework — performance metrics, profitability, and relationship signals. Show all 8 clients ranked by health with the key risk factors called out. Flag the at-risk client and the one that recently expanded. Output as an interactive HTML file.

tools/client_health.html Open Full Size →

Automated Client Report Generator

Problem it solves: Every Friday afternoon, account directors spent 2-3 hours per client manually assembling performance reports in Google Slides — pulling data from Google Analytics, social platforms, email tools, and the CRM. That's 16-24 hours of senior account time per month spent on formatting instead of strategic thinking.

Build an automated client report generator for Sidebar Creative. Read the client performance data, SOW terms, and health scores. Generate a polished monthly report for any selected client — executive summary, performance metrics with month-over-month trends, deliverables completed vs. SOW, hours used vs. allocated, and strategic recommendations. Let me select a client and a month, then generate the report. Output as an interactive HTML file that can also export the report as formatted markdown.

tools/client_reports.html Open Full Size →

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