Customizing Your Agency OS

Make Agency OS fit your agency's workflows, terminology, and tools.

Agency OS comes with proven defaults that work on Day 1 — and Build Mode lets you adapt everything to your exact needs when you're ready. No code required.

When to customise

Make it yours early. Agency OS is designed to be customised. The sooner it reflects your terminology, your workflow, and your tools — the faster your team will adopt it. Start with the changes that matter most and build from there.

Good places to start:

• Rename pages to match your terminology ("Engagements" instead of "Projects")

• Hide pages your agency doesn't need

• Add fields specific to your service type or client mix

• Connect the tools you already use

Customise faster with AI. Upload these guides to Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini and ask for step-by-step help with any change. It's the fastest way to learn Build Mode without trial and error.

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Accessing Build Mode

1. Look for the Build Mode toggle in the bottom-left corner

2. Click to turn it on — the interface shows customisation options

3. Turn it off when you're done to return to normal use

In Build Mode you can: add/edit fields, create new tables, modify views and layouts, set up automations, configure permissions, and customise pages.

You can't break it. Changes in Build Mode can be undone, and your data is always safe.

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Shaping Agency OS to fit your agency

Agency OS ships with every page you might need. That doesn't mean you have to use all of it. The fastest way to make the template feel like your system is to strip out what doesn't apply — before your team ever logs in.

All of this happens in the left-hand panel in Build Mode, which shows your full page structure at a glance. You can rename pages, reorder them by dragging, and hide or delete them in a few clicks.

Hide vs. delete — which to use:

• Hide — removes the page from navigation, data stays intact. You can unhide at any time. Use this when you're unsure.

• Delete — permanent. Use this only when you're certain a page doesn't apply to your agency.

When in doubt, hide. It costs nothing and keeps your options open.

How to hide or delete a page:

1. Turn on Build Mode (toggle, bottom-left)

2. In the left panel, hover over any page name

3. Click the ⋯ menu that appears

4. Select Hide or Delete

To reorder, drag pages up or down in the left panel. The order here is what your team sees in navigation.

Some hidden pages exist to power click-through navigation inside the app — not everything in the hidden list is optional. If you're unsure what a page does, hide it rather than delete it.

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Common customisations

1. Adding custom fields

On Projects:

• Service line (Web, Branding, Marketing, Strategy)

• Lead source (Referral, Website, Event)

• Contract value

• Project risk level

On Companies / Clients:

• Account tier (Standard, Strategic, Enterprise)

• Annual contract value

• Decision maker

On Tasks:

• Difficulty level

• Design mockup URL

• GitHub issue link

How to add a field:

1. Build Mode → Data tab

2. Select the table (e.g. "Projects")

3. Click + New field

4. Choose field type: Text, Number, Date, Single/Multiple select, Boolean, Relationship, Formula, and more

5. Configure name, required status, and default value

6. Save

2. Customising task workflow stages

The default workflow is: To Do → In Progress → Done

Common custom workflows:

Design agency:

Backlog → Design → Client Review → Revisions → Approved → Done

Development agency:

Backlog → In Development → Code Review → QA → Client UAT → Deployed

Marketing agency:

Planned → In Progress → Review → Client Approval → Published

How to customise: Build Mode → Data tab → Tasks table → Status field → edit options (add, rename, reorder, set colours).

3. Creating custom dashboards

Build dashboards for different roles:

Finance dashboard:

• Revenue collected vs outstanding

• Invoice status breakdown

• Overdue invoices by client

Project manager dashboard:

• Active projects by health status

• Team workload summary

• Upcoming deadlines

How to create: Build Mode → create new page → add components (charts, stat cards, tables, pivot tables) → configure filters and data sources → set role-based visibility.

4. Adding new tables

Create tables for data not covered by defaults:

Retainers table: Client, Monthly Amount, Start Date, End Date, Status, Services Included

Contracts table: Client, Contract Start/End, Signed Document (file), Renewal Date

Deliverables table: Project, Deliverable Name, Due Date, Status, File, Client Approval

How to create: Build Mode → Data tab → + New table → add fields → create relationships to existing tables → add pages to display the data → set permissions.

5. Setting up automations

Build Mode → Workflows → + New workflow.

Trigger options: Record created, record updated, field changed, scheduled (time-based), on-demand (manual button).

Action options: Send email, create/update record, send webhook, send Slack message, run AI action.

Common automations to build:

• New Project created → notify delivery team in Slack + create standard initial tasks

• Task completed → notify project manager

• All tasks done → email client requesting feedback

• Payment overdue → send reminder + escalate to account manager after 14 days

• Company Status → Client → send welcome email + create onboarding project

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Optional extensions

These features exist in the template but are turned off by default to keep the experience clean on Day 1. Enable them when you need them.

Extension	How to enable	When to use
Departments page	Build Mode → left panel → unhide	When you need to organise team by function (Creative, Dev, Ops, etc.)
Offices page	Build Mode → left panel → unhide	Multi-location or hybrid agencies
Per-expense markup	Build Mode → Expenses table → unhide Markup Percent and Billable Amount fields	If you bill expenses to clients at a marked-up rate
Project Brief field	Build Mode → Projects table → add long text field	Store scope documents directly on the project record
Gantt views	Coming soon	Noloco is improving this component — check back
Leave / absence tracking	Add a custom table, or integrate with an HR tool via Zapier/Make	When you need to track PTO and absences
Hiring / recruitment	Use Projects + Tasks (create a project per role, tasks = candidates)	Lightweight hiring pipeline without a separate ATS

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Integrations

Noloco connects to the tools your agency already uses. Because Agency OS is built on a no-code platform, every integration is configurable without writing a single line of code — you decide what connects, what triggers what, and how data flows between systems.

Native integrations — connect in Settings

These plug directly into Noloco. No middleware needed. Set them up in Settings → Integrations.

Integration	What it does for your agency
Slack	Send automatic alerts to your team — deal won, budget warning, invoice overdue. Keeps your team informed without checking Agency OS constantly.
DocsAutomator	Generate branded invoice PDFs, proposals, or reports directly from your Agency OS data.
OpenAI	Power AI features inside your app — auto-summarise meeting notes, draft interaction summaries, enrich company data.
Google Sign In	Let clients log into the Client Portal using their Google account — no separate password needed. Reduces friction at client onboarding.
Stripe	Connect Stripe to manage invoices and accept card payments directly from Agency OS. Clients can pay from the portal.

Workflow orchestrators — connect via Zapier, Make, or n8n

This is where Agency OS becomes a true operations hub. Zapier, Make, and n8n act as the connective tissue between Noloco and the rest of your tech stack — triggering actions across tools whenever something happens in Agency OS, and vice versa. No engineering required.

What this unlocks in practice:

Integration	What it does	Recipe
Google Calendar	Auto-log client meetings as Interactions in your CRM. No manual entry needed.	Calendar event → create Interaction in Noloco
Gmail / Outlook	Auto-log important client emails as Interactions. Filter by label so only relevant emails sync.	Email received → create Interaction in Noloco
Google Drive / OneDrive	Auto-create a project folder when a new Project is created, and link it back to the record.	New Project → create Drive folder → write URL back to record

These three are just starting points. Agencies use the same pattern to auto-create onboarding tasks when a deal closes, sync project status to client Slack channels, push invoice data to accounting tools, or trigger internal reviews at project milestones. The logic lives in your workflow orchestrator; Agency OS is the system of record it reads from and writes to.

Data source connections

If your agency already runs on Airtable, Google Sheets, SmartSuite, or HubSpot, Noloco can sync those directly as a data source. That means you can run Agency OS on top of your existing data — no re-entry, no migration headache.

Already have your client data in Airtable or Google Sheets? Connect it as a data source and skip the import entirely. Ask the Noloco team during your onboarding call.

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Permissions and roles

Beyond the default roles (Admin, Team Member, Client), create specialised roles:

Finance role:

• Access to Financials section

• View all client data

• No access to Team Cost tab (or set as read-only)

Freelancer / Contractor role:

• See only their assigned tasks

• Log time

• No access to other projects, team data, or financials

Client Admin role:

• Full portal access for their company

• Can invite additional portal users

How to create: Settings → Roles → + New role → configure table-level, record-level, and field-level permissions → save → assign to users.

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Branding

Logo: Upload your agency logo — appears in the top-left corner and in the Client Portal. Settings → General → Custom Logo.

Theme: Set primary colour, background colours, and font. Settings → Theme & Design.

Custom domain: Use your own URL (portal.youragency.com) for a fully branded client experience. Settings → Custom Domain.

Email branding: Customise email templates and add your agency footer. Settings → Email Settings.

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Advanced customisations

Once the basics are in place, Noloco's more powerful features let you turn Agency OS into a genuinely intelligent system — one that calculates, connects, and responds to your data automatically.

Formulas and calculations

Formula fields let you create calculated values that update automatically as your data changes. You define the logic once, and Noloco does the rest.

What you can calculate:

• Project profitability — Revenue - (Time Cost + Expenses) — know your margin on every project without a spreadsheet

• Days until due — Due Date - Today() — always know what's coming up

• Hourly blended rate — Fixed Price / Estimated Hours — useful for benchmarking against actuals

Formulas use standard logic: add, subtract, multiply, divide, compare dates, combine text, and apply IF conditions. Build Mode → Data tab → select a table → + New field → Formula.

Linking data across tables (Lookups and Rollups)

This is where Agency OS starts to feel truly connected. Rather than re-entering data, you pull it from where it already lives.

Lookups pull a single value from a related record:

• Show the Client name on a Task (via Project → Client) — so your team always knows who the work is for

• Pull the Project Manager's email onto an invoice for automated notifications

Rollups summarise multiple related records into one number:

• Total logged hours across all time entries on a project

• Count of open tasks per project

• Sum of all invoice values per client

Both are set up in Build Mode → Data tab → select a table → + New field → Lookup or Rollup → choose the related table and the field to pull or summarise.

Conditional visibility

Control what people see based on the state of the data — keeping interfaces clean and relevant.

• Only show an "Overdue reason" field when Status = Overdue

• Only show "Contract end date" when Engagement Type = Retainer

• Hide internal cost fields from any client-facing view

Set up in Build Mode → select a field → Conditional visibility → define the rule.

Advanced customisations are where AI assistance pays off most. Formulas, lookups, and rollup logic can get complex quickly. Paste your question into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini — describe what you want to calculate or connect — and get the exact steps and formula syntax to copy in.

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Customisation best practices

Start with what matters most. Rename, hide, and connect before adding net-new fields or tables. Quick wins build momentum.

Test before rolling out. Use "View as" to check client views after any change. Try customisations on real data before announcing them to the team.

Document what you change. Keep a note of what you customised, why, and when. Makes it easier to onboard new admins and revert if something doesn't work.

Train your team on changes. Announce significant changes in advance, provide a quick walkthrough, and give the team time to adjust.

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Getting help with customisation

• Nola AI Assistant — ask Nola to help: "Add a field for project margin" or "Create a workflow to notify on overdue tasks"

• Noloco documentation — detailed guides for every feature

• Onboarding call — schedule support with the Noloco team

• In-app chat — contact Noloco support at any time

Use AI as your personal Noloco coach. Create a project in Claude or ChatGPT, upload these guides as context files, and ask anything — step-by-step instructions for specific changes, how to set up a workflow, what fields to add for your use case, and more. The more guides you upload, the more precise the guidance. It won't click the buttons for you, but it'll tell you exactly where to click.

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Your agency, your OS

Agency OS is ready to use on Day 1 — but the real power is what you build with it over time. Every page, field, workflow, and integration is configurable in Build Mode without touching code. Rename things to match your language, connect the tools you already rely on, automate the tasks you do every week, and build the views your team actually needs.

Import your data. Customise anything. Connect your stack. What you build with it is entirely up to you.