Project Studio: From the First Proposal to a Home That's Easier to Support
Updated: 6 days ago
Stop asking for a seat at their table
For years, industry organizations and advocates have told integrators to build relationships with architects, designers and builders so they’ll bring you in earlier and give you a seat at their table.
That advice builds dependency, because it teaches the integrator to wait for an invitation into somebody else’s relationship with the homeowner. Whoever is closest to the homeowner wins, so the integrator should be setting the table and inviting everyone else to join it. That is the thinking behind Project Studio.
Everyone is looking for the same thing
The electrician needs the latest drawing, the homeowner wants to know whether the shade selection was ever approved and the dealer is digging through email to find which proposal revision everyone agreed to. Five years later, that same homeowner calls because the music stopped, and somebody has to figure out what was installed and how it was set up.
These are the same problem. During construction people need current information, and afterward they need the history, yet both usually end up buried in inboxes, text threads and folders only one person can find.
Project Studio keeps the information and relationships around an installation together, from the first proposal through service and every upgrade that follows.
Your project deserves a better home than everybody's inbox
Project Studio lives inside the dealer’s own website, under the dealer’s brand and member sign-in, so when the homeowner, builder or architect logs in, they are walking into the dealer’s house. It brings together what a project actually produces:
Project details, people, responsibilities and schedules
Messages, questions, decisions and approvals
Proposals, drawings, revisions and progress photos
Installed equipment, manuals, special instructions and service history, as those capabilities come online
It isn’t a website chat box, a shared folder of PDFs or another proposal tool, and it doesn’t replace the systems a dealer already relies on. It’s a better way to use the information the project already creates, in front of the people who need it.
One project, seen the way each person needs to see it
The dealer, the homeowner and the electrician are working on the same home, but they shouldn't have to read the same dashboard.
Participant | What their view helps them understand |
Dealer / project administrator | What needs attention, who is waiting, what happens next and which decisions or documents need action |
Homeowner | What is happening at their home, which decisions are theirs to make, what has been shared and how to ask a question |
Builder or trade partner | Their work, their dates, the approved drawings, coordination messages and a place to upload progress photos |
Architect or designer | Current plans, revisions, selections and the decisions that affect their part of the project |
Access is by invitation. Whoever is authorized to invite assigns each person's role on that project, and that membership determines where they start and what they can do. My Projects sits in the website's existing account menu and shows only the projects that person has been invited into, so a builder working on three of the dealer's homes can carry a different responsibility on each.
A role decides what someone sees first. Membership and permissions decide what they can actually open.
Open the project and know what happens next
The Overview answers one question quickly, which is what needs to happen now.
Project details show the scope, location and overall status.
Latest updates sit right beneath, with author, date and audience clearly marked.
Needs your attention shows real open questions, pending decisions and unfinished work.
Next milestone shows what’s coming up for that person, not the entire schedule.
Document and photo previews link straight to what’s current.
The full proposal, timeline and team directory each have their own place, so the dashboard stays clear as the project grows.
[Role-view screenshots here, with demonstration data clearly labeled as fictional.]
A familiar place for every part of the project
Area | What lives there |
My Projects | The member's active and finished projects they are authorized to see |
Overview | Project details, recent updates, attention items and what happens next |
Updates | Questions, messages, replies and attachments, each with its intended audience |
Documents | Proposals, plans, manuals, revisions and approval records |
Timeline | Current and upcoming milestones, responsibilities, dates and completed history |
Photos | Progress photographs organized by stage and, where recorded, by room |
Project Team | Participants, roles, companies and approved ways to reach them |
Manage Project | Authorized control of project details, invitations, milestones and sharing |
Manage Project is where the dealer runs the job. The homeowner and the trades never need those controls to take part fully.
Write it once, send it to the right people and let the project keep the record
Write it once, send it to the right people and let the project keep the record
There’s one message composer, not a separate inbox for every participant. The sender writes the update, picks who needs it and attaches a photo or document if it helps, whether that’s the project manager, a few participants, the whole project or the dealer’s internal team.
Picture a builder posting that the shade pockets are ready for inspection before the ceiling closes. The project manager and installer see it in Project Studio and get notified by email, text or both, with a link that takes them straight to that message.
Replies stay with the original conversation and its audience. Texts only go to people who have opted in, so being added to a project never quietly signs anyone up. Everyone stays informed without keeping another dashboard open all day.
Upload it once and find it where it belongs
A photo attached to a message also lands in Photos, and a plan or manual attached to a conversation also lands in Documents, so nothing gets uploaded twice. Each file keeps its contributor, date and description, plus stage and room for photos or title and revision for documents.
When an electrician photographs a cable route before the drywall goes up and posts it with a short note, that photo becomes part of the home’s permanent installation record, exactly what someone will want to see years from now. Filing it in the library never widens who can see it, so a photo shared with two people stays shared with two people.
The latest file is not always the approved file
Every document is marked Draft, Pending Approval, Approved or Superseded, and each approval names the exact revision, who approved it and when. A quick “looks good” in a comment can never silently approve the wrong drawing, so when the lighting plan is on its third revision and the homeowner signed off on the second, everyone can see which is which.
Proposals live in Documents instead of cluttering the dashboard. Homeowners see what’s shared with them, trades see the drawings and scope they need, and internal costs, margins and draft pricing stay with the dealer. Nobody should have to ask which attachment in which email was the final one.
See the next step without reading the whole construction history
The Timeline opens on what’s current and upcoming, with completed work tucked into expandable months. Each milestone shows its date, who owns it and where it stands, and an unfinished milestone stays visible after its month has passed, because a project marked Active isn’t automatically on schedule. When a date moves, only the people it affects hear about it.
Your proposal belongs in the project from day one
Today, the dealer uploads the finished proposal to Project Studio, where it sits in Documents with its revision, approval status and the right audience, so nothing gets retyped.
Next, we want to make that automatic by working with the proposal platforms dealers already use, including Portal.io, D-Tools, Jetbuilt and ProjX360, so a shared or accepted proposal lands in the right project on its own. That’s a future upgrade, and proposals will still be written and approved in those platforms.
What was quoted is the starting point, and what was installed is what support needs
A proposal tells you what was planned, while substitutions, change orders, model numbers and commissioning notes tell you what’s actually in the walls. At handover, the home’s record holds the installed equipment and its location, manuals, approved drawings, programmed scenes, warranty details and every service change that follows, because a brochure can’t tell you what the Goodnight scene does or which outlet powers the media-room rack.
That’s also when the homeowner gets access to their project and their dealer’s Sage support line. A QR code in the rack or homeowner guide can open that line without exposing any private information.
The homeowner shouldn't need to know which folder holds the answer
This is where the record starts to talk. Project-aware Sage is the next capability we’re building, and it isn’t yet part of every current Sage deployment.
When the homeowner asks | The connected experience should |
"What does our Goodnight button do?" | Pull that home's approved scene instructions |
"How do I turn off the patio speakers without turning off the TV?" | Answer from the documented configuration of that installation |
"Which lighting plan did we approve?" | Return the approved revision, not simply the newest upload |
"We bought this house with a system already in it. Can you help?" | Establish authorized access and offer orientation or service without assuming anything is broken |
"Can you move our service visit to Friday?" | Check a connected calendar and confirm an allowed change, or capture the request when booking isn't available |
"Can we add speakers to the guest bedroom?" | Use the documented system as context for an upgrade request the dealer reviews |
Sage answers only from the records it’s authorized to use and says so plainly when something is missing. It never claims a booking, repair or system change happened until it’s confirmed.
When the Wi-Fi drops or the TV goes blue, help starts before the dealer knows
We’re looking to work with remote monitoring and power-management services such as Domotz, OvrC, Ihiji and WattBox, so the homeowner can simply call or text the assistant when something stops working.
The homeowner calls or texts that the Wi-Fi is down or the TV is showing a blue screen.
The assistant checks the home’s record and what the monitoring service reports.
Where the dealer has approved it, the assistant power-cycles the device and confirms whether it came back.
If it’s fixed, the fix is logged, and if not, the ticket goes to a live person at the dealer with the equipment, symptoms and everything already tried.
The dealer sets the rules, and anything safety-related, such as locks and alarms, always goes to a person. This future integration will depend on compatible equipment and the dealer’s monitoring account.
The relationship continues after the installation
A finished project should stay useful to the people living in it. The same record supports the next service visit, the room addition, the new technician who never saw the job and the homeowner who finally wants to learn how everything works. When the house is sold, the new owner gets the home’s documentation without the previous owner’s private conversations.
Homeowners get a clearer path to help, trades stop asking the same questions and dealers start every service call from a complete picture of the home. That’s what this is designed to deliver, and we’ll share real results once they’re measured.
Sage Pro is the conversation that connects it all
Sage Pro gives the dealer a dedicated business number that answers calls, carries text conversations with homeowners and hands off to a person whenever one is needed. When the caller consents, conversations are recorded, transcribed and summarized in a searchable Sage Inbox.
Sage Inbox preserves the conversations and Project Studio organizes everything around the home, so together each makes the other more useful.
Project Studio holds everything a home’s installation teaches us, and Sage Pro gives homeowners a natural way to ask for help. The opportunity isn’t an assistant that answers more questions. It’s a dealer becoming more valuable to the homeowner every year, without having to carry every step personally.
See Project Studio for Yourself
Log in as the dealer, the homeowner or the builder and see how one project looks from each side of the table.
The calls, texts and customer conversations behind the experience → Ready to See What Sage Can Do?
Try both experiences. Ask real questions and see how Sage responds when she understands the business behind the website.
For Integrators
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Rob Skuba
(516) 716-7140
Rob Skuba is a U.S. Army veteran and a 25-year veteran of the smart home and AV industry. He’s worked across every layer of the ecosystem, installation, distribution, manufacturing, design, sales, and consumer education, giving him a 360° understanding of homeowner behavior and dealer growth.
Rob has collaborated with top brands, supported legendary home theater designers like Theo Kalomirakis, and contributed to high-visibility projects from luxury homes to major entertainment spaces for 50 Cent. He’s the founder of National Smart Home, Lantern Room Marketing, Date Night In Stereo, and national awareness events including Smart Home Day, National 10-4 Day and National Headphone Day.
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