Client Snapshot
Phocus is a global creator marketplace and project management ecosystem connecting brands with certified creative professionals. Originally built as a marketplace, Phocus has since evolved — through continued collaboration with Infi Web Solutions — into a fully modular enterprise creative operations platform.
Phocus Creators is a certified TikTok and META partner, requiring enterprise-grade governance, financial controls, and workflow precision across a global, multi-role team.
- Global creator marketplace (TikTok & META certified)
- Dual-layer permission architecture
- Trello-style project and milestone Kanban boards
- Department-level budget and expense control
- Invoice approval and payment lifecycle
- Google Calendar + Meet integration
- Client Collaboration Portal (in development)
The Challenge: Beyond Marketplace
Phase 1 of Phocus proved that no-code could deliver a sophisticated creator marketplace. But as Phocus grew — and as the business needs of a certified TikTok and META partner became clearer — the platform needed to evolve significantly.
The new requirements went well beyond a typical marketplace:
- Multiple admin types with different permission scopes
- Project-specific access control per creator
- Financial actions needing restricted access paths
- Department-level budget isolation between teams
- Structured invoice and expense approval flows
- Audit-ready financial tracking across projects
- Visual project management across many concurrent projects
- Calendar and scheduling integrated into project lifecycle
- Global onboarding and collaboration at enterprise scale
Platform Evolution: 3 Phases
Phocus didn’t launch as an enterprise system — it became one. This case study covers the platform’s evolution from a powerful marketplace into a full creative operations OS.
- Multi-role user system
- Creator bidding on projects
- Milestone tracking
- Payment handling
- Real-time chat
- Dual-layer permissions
- Trello-style Kanban boards
- Department budget control
- Invoice & expense workflows
- Calendar + Google Meet sync
- Client collaboration portal
- Project briefing workflow
- Frame.io-style revision tools
- Account-level chat
- Full client-agency OS
The modular no-code architecture of Xano + WeWeb made this evolution possible without restructuring the core platform at each phase — new modules plugged in while existing functionality continued without disruption.
Six Core System Modules
The Phase 2 upgrade introduced six major functional modules — each operating independently but integrating seamlessly with the platform’s core data architecture.
Permission Architecture
Trello-Style Project Boards
Department Budget Control
Invoice & Expense Workflows
Calendar & Event Management
Client Collaboration Portal
Deep Dive: Permission Architecture
The most architecturally significant upgrade in Phase 2 was the shift from basic RBAC to a dual-layer governance system. This moved Phocus from a typical SaaS permission model into enterprise-grade access control.
Controlled by Super Admin
- Invite creators and manage platform users
- Financial oversight and payment controls
- Project creation and configuration
- Platform-wide settings and pipeline controls
- Custom sub-roles: Finance Admin, Limited Admin
Granular control inside each project
- Manage milestones and deliverables per project
- Approve or reject submitted deliverables
- Handle expenses within department limits
- Access delivery portal per project
- Assign or revoke creator permissions per project
The dual-layer system means an Admin can be restricted at the app level while still having full control inside their assigned projects — enabling large multi-team organizations to operate without permission conflicts or data leakage.
Trello-Style Project & Milestone Boards
One of the most user-visible improvements in Phase 2 was the introduction of visual Kanban-style boards for both project management and milestone tracking.
Project Kanban — 5 Status Stages
Each project moves through these stages via drag-and-drop, giving every team member an instant visual understanding of project status across the entire portfolio.
Milestone Cards — What’s Inside Each Card
- Task title and rich description
- Custom tags for filtering
- File attachments
- Comments thread
- Assigned team members
- Optional start date
- Mandatory end date
- Auto-creates calendar event
- Admins have full edit control
- Creators limited by permission scope
- Per-member checklist assignment
- Complete audit trail of changes
Financial Governance Layer
Phocus now operates with a structured financial governance system — a level of control typically found in enterprise procurement or agency management software.
Expense & Invoice Flow
- Each project can have multiple departments
- Each department has its own allocated budget limit
- Budget data visible only to department members and admins
- Financial privacy enforced between creative teams
- Project-level revenue tracking
- Budget vs. actual spend dashboards
- Pending invoices monitoring
- Expense approval status overview
Phase 1 vs. Phase 2: The Evolution
The transformation across every major capability of the platform:
| Capability | Phase 1 — Marketplace | Phase 2 — Enterprise System |
|---|---|---|
| Permissions | Basic RBAC (Admin, Creator, Client) | Dual-layer: App-level + Project-level with custom sub-roles |
| Project Management | Milestone tracking with basic status | Trello-style Kanban with rich milestone cards |
| Financial Control | Basic payment handling | Department budgets, expense approvals, full invoice lifecycle |
| Calendar | No scheduling integration | Google Calendar sync + Google Meet auto-generation |
| Financial Reporting | Basic payment overview | Budget vs. actual, pending invoices, expense dashboards |
| Client Access | Limited client interaction | Full Client Portal (in dev): briefing, approvals, revisions |
| Security | Standard RBAC + JWT | Multi-layer RBAC + endpoint-level + department data isolation |
Technology Stack
The same core stack that delivered Phase 1 scaled to deliver Phase 2 — proving the long-term viability of the no-code architecture chosen from day one.
| Tool | Role | Why It Was Chosen |
|---|---|---|
| Xano | Backend & Logic | APIs, database modeling, multi-layer permissions, financial workflows, and auto-scaling infrastructure |
| WeWeb | Frontend & UI | Dynamic dashboards, Kanban boards, milestone views, and responsive financial interfaces |
| SendGrid | Communications | Automated email notifications for approvals, rejections, deadlines, and project updates |
| GeoNames | Global Location | Accurate city and country data for international creator and client onboarding |
| Google Calendar API | Scheduling | Two-way sync for events, milestone deadline auto-generation, and Google Meet integration |
Security & Scalability
- JWT authentication for all API access
- Multi-layer RBAC: app-level + project-level
- Endpoint-level permission validation
- Server-side recalculation of financial totals
- API manipulation protection
- Department-based data visibility isolation
- Payment controls restricted to Admin/Super Admin only
- Cloud-native Xano backend with auto-scaling
- Optimized relational database modeling
- Modular APIs — no coupling between systems
- Department-level data filtering for performance
- Decoupled milestone architecture
- Idempotent project creation (duplicate prevention)
- Expanding feature modules without refactoring core
Results & Impact
Phocus is a live, actively evolving enterprise platform — with Phase 3 (Client Collaboration Portal) currently in development.
Client Perspective
“Phocus has grown far beyond what we originally envisioned. Infi Web Solutions didn’t just build what we asked for — they anticipated where we needed to go and built the architecture to get us there without starting over.”
— Phocus Team — [Add actual quote & name here]
Why Infi Web Solutions
Phocus is not a single project — it’s an ongoing platform partnership. The ability to evolve a system this significantly, without rearchitecting from scratch at each phase, is only possible with deliberate system design from the outset.
- We designed the modular architecture in Phase 1 knowing Phase 2 would need to expand it
- We built dual-layer permissions as a governance system, not just a user management feature
- We added financial controls at the architecture level — not as a UI layer on top of basic payment fields
- We delivered six major module additions without disrupting live platform operations
- We are the ongoing technology partner for Phocus — not a one-time vendor