How Does Scaftra's Design Workspace Work?

How do you get a homeowner to agree on the design before you order anything?

Scaftra captures the client's taste, lets a designer publish concept rounds the client approves or kicks back, and freezes the approved design so the field and the shop can trust it.

The problem it solves

Before a cabinet is ordered or a countertop is templated, the homeowner and the builder have to agree on what gets built: door style, finish, layout, appliance package. In a finish-trade shop this design phase is iterative and opinionated, and it is the single most common source of disputes and rework when it is not pinned down. Loose email threads and shared folders do not record who approved what, or when.

Why it matters

An approved design that is authoritative and immutable is what lets the field and the shop build without re-checking. When the design is loose, the wrong door style gets ordered, the appliance cutout is wrong, and the client says they never signed off. A versioned concept with a real client sign-off is the record that ends those arguments before they cost a re-cut slab.

Common mistakes

How it works

1. Capture the client's taste

   A vision board records inspiration links, style signals, and how confident the client is, captured early from a lead, project, or room.
2. Publish a concept round

   A designer creates a versioned concept that snapshots the vision it was designed against and copies the project rooms to work on.
3. Client reviews and decides

   The client approves, requests changes, or rejects from the client portal. Only the client can move a concept to approved.
4. Adopt the approved design

   On approval, the concept's rooms are promoted to canonical in one atomic step, and the approval is frozen onto the plan sheets.

How Scaftra does it

Scaftra runs the design phase as four linked records: a vision board for taste, versioned design concepts with a role-gated sign-off, first-class selection records for each choice, and a per-room appliance library carrying cut sheets. A concept snapshots the vision it was designed against, freezes its content once it leaves draft so the client reviews exactly what they approve, and only the client (or a portal admin) can approve it. On approval, adoption promotes the concept rooms to canonical atomically and an approval snapshot is frozen onto the plan sheets, so the approved design survives the trip to the jobsite. This is built and live on the client design review at the project level.

Key capabilities

• Versioned concept rounds: Each design round gets an auto-assigned revision number and immutable lineage, so version history can never be silently rewritten.
• Genuine client sign-off: Only the client or a portal admin can approve, reject, or request changes; a designer cannot spoof the approval.
• Concept diff: Two concepts can be compared room by room to show what was added, removed, or changed between rounds.
• Approval frozen to the field: On approval, an immutable snapshot is written onto every plan sheet, so the jobsite sees the approved design, not a draft.

Benefits

• Fewer reorders and re-cuts because the field builds off an approved, frozen design instead of a guess.
• A defensible sign-off record that ends 'I never approved that' disputes.
• Approved finishes and appliance specs travel to the field without being re-typed.

Who it's for

• Designer-led remodelers.Shops that sell a design phase and need the client's approval pinned down before fabrication starts.
• Cabinet and countertop shops.Trades where an approved layout and finish has to be exact before material is cut.

Related on Scaftra

Go deeper