Give each part of the setup a clear purpose
For Lucidlane, the important starting point is the Customer association: each portal maps to one Linear Customer. Teams and projects organize your delivery work; portal filters narrow the view that a client receives.
- Customer: the client relationship used to connect requests to the portal.
- Team: the group managing the work in Linear.
- Project: a way to organize a piece of delivery work.
- Project and status settings: narrow the Customer’s visible requests. Requests with no project can still appear.
- Labels and priorities: control visible labels and allowed intake priorities, rather than hiding requests.
Example: two clients, one delivery team
A development studio works with Acme and Northwind. Acme has a website rebuild and ongoing maintenance; Northwind has an app project. This is an illustrative setup you can adapt to your own workflow.
| Client | Linear Customer | Delivery projects | Portal view |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acme | Acme | Website rebuild; maintenance | Acme-linked requests, maintenance project included; review unassigned requests separately |
| Northwind | Northwind | App development | Northwind-linked requests and the filters chosen for its portal |
Creating an “Acme” project is not a substitute for associating requests with the Acme Customer. Check both the Customer association and any portal filter when an expected request is missing.
Should every client have a separate team?
A separate portal does not require a separate team for every client in this workflow. Start from how your delivery team works, then organize the requests and projects for each Customer. Use separate teams when that suits your internal responsibilities and access requirements.
If clients need accounts inside Linear, native permissions also affect that choice. Review guest and issue-sharing options rather than treating a portal filter as a Linear permission.
How should ongoing work fit?
For maintenance, keep each change or bug report as a distinct request associated with the client. Choose a project and status workflow your team can maintain consistently. Review filters when you want completed requests to remain visible to the client.
See the website maintenance example for a practical request flow.
Check the setup from both clients’ perspectives
- Choose a sample request linked only to Acme and another linked only to Northwind.
- Open each portal using the corresponding client account and verify its visible requests.
- Check project and status settings with an issue that should be excluded, plus a request without a project. Review visible labels and comments separately.
- Submit a test request from each portal and confirm the correct Customer association in Linear.
Then follow the first-portal checklist to test replies and status updates before sharing the portal.