Claude Projects for Creative Work (2026): How to Set Up Projects and Connectors for Every Client or Film

Key Takeaways

• Storyflow is the connector that gives a Claude Project a visible board: through its MCP server Claude builds notes, tables, charts, diagrams, mind maps, documents, slide decks, shot cards and strip boards on one canvas, and reads what changed on it in the last day, week or month.
• A Claude Project is a workspace with its own chats, knowledge files and instructions. Claude's help center says context does not carry across chats unless you add it to project knowledge, so a project needs somewhere outside the chat where the current plan lives.
• Use one Claude Project per client or film. Claude Free allows five projects and one custom connector; Pro costs $20 a month ($17 a month billed annually) and adds expanded project knowledge.
• Project files can be up to 30MB each with no file count limit, but the total has to fit Claude's context window. Paid plans switch to retrieval automatically and hold up to 10 times more.
• Claude does not see a project's name or description. Put the client name, the Storyflow project name and the house rules in the project instructions.
• Google Docs added to a project from Drive stay in sync with Drive, but only in private projects. On Claude Team and Enterprise, connectors are only available in private projects too.
• Storyflow's paid plans start at $7.99 a month billed annually and have no connector limit. The connector runs on Claude's model, so it does not spend Storyflow AI credits.
• Storyflow is not the right connector if your deliverable is a Canva or Figma design file, if your team's source of truth is a Notion database, or if you need a $0 setup today: it is paid-only during early access.

What a Claude Project Is, and What It Is Not

You open Claude on Monday to continue the Ardent campaign. The conversation from last week is somewhere in the sidebar, three scrolls down, under two unrelated chats about invoices. You paste the brief again. You explain the brand voice again. Twenty minutes in, Claude is finally where it was on Friday.

Claude Projects exist to remove that re-explaining. Anthropic's help center describes projects as "self-contained workspaces with their own chat histories and knowledge bases". You make one, give it files and instructions, and every chat you start inside it begins with that context already loaded.

What a project holds

A project has three parts, and each one does a different job:

• Project knowledge. Documents, text and other files you upload. Claude uses them as background in every chat in that project.
• Project instructions. A block of text that tells Claude how to behave in this project: tone, role, rules, what to call things. It applies to all chats in the project.
• Chats. Every conversation you start inside the project. You can also move an existing chat in: the help center's guide to creating and managing projects says to click the dropdown arrow next to the chat name and choose Add to project.

Projects are available on every plan, including Free. You create one at claude.ai/projects with the New Project button, give it a name and a description, and start chatting.

What Claude does not see or carry over

Two details in Anthropic's own documentation change how you should set a project up for creative work.

First, Claude does not see the project's name or description. The help center says so directly in the creation steps. If you name the project "Ardent, spring campaign" and leave the instructions empty, Claude has no idea who Ardent is. The name is a label for you. Anything Claude must know goes in the instructions or the knowledge files.

Second, chats inside a project do not read each other. The same guide states that context does not carry across chats unless it is added to the project knowledge base. Memory softens this (the guide says each project has its own memory, separate from non-project chats, and that memory is on by default on Free, Pro and Max), but memory is a summary Claude keeps, not a record you and your client can open and check. If Tuesday's chat moved the shoot from the 14th to the 21st, Thursday's chat only knows that for certain if the new date is written down somewhere Claude reads.

That second point is the reason this guide pairs every project with a board. The plan needs a home that is not a chat.

Claude Projects limits by plan

These are the limits that matter for a studio, taken from Anthropic's help center and Claude's pricing page on October 10, 2026.

The file rules come from the help article on what you can upload to Claude. The retrieval behaviour comes from the article on retrieval for projects: on paid plans, when project knowledge nears the context limit, Claude switches to a search tool that pulls only the relevant parts of your files, which raises capacity by up to 10 times. You cannot turn it on by hand. It depends on how much you have uploaded.

Why a Creative Project Needs a Board as Well as a Chat

A Claude Project is good at knowing things. It is not built for showing them. Creative work needs both, because a plan nobody else can see is a plan only you are following.

Think about what a campaign or a short film produces before anything is shot or published: a brief, a moodboard, a schedule, a shot list, a budget, a deck for the client. Inside a Claude Project those live as paragraphs in a chat or as files Claude generates one at a time. You can read them. Your client cannot open your Claude Project, and on Free and Pro you cannot share one at all.

Three places a project can remember things

The board is the only one of the three that is both current and visible. That is the gap a connector fills.

What changes when the board is connected

A connector lets Claude call tools in another app while it works. With a board connected, a project chat can end with Claude writing the result to the board, and the next chat can begin with Claude reading the board. The board becomes the handover between chats, which is the exact thing the help center says chats do not do for each other.

It also changes who the work is for. When Claude builds the schedule as a table on a Storyflow board, the client opens the same board with a link and no account, and signs in only if they want to comment. You are no longer exporting a chat into a PDF to prove progress.

Storyflow is a visual project planning workspace for creative work: an infinite canvas board that holds notes, tables, documents, images, moodboards, storyboards, mind maps, kanban, charts and slide decks. Its MCP server is the part Claude talks to. The details are on the Storyflow MCP page, and the click-by-click connection steps are in the help article on connecting AI assistants.

How We Ranked Connectors for a Creative Claude Project

Most connector lists rank by how well known the app is. That does not help here, because the question is narrower: which connectors make a Claude Project better at running a client job or a film?

We ranked five connectors that a creative freelancer, small studio or indie filmmaker is likely to add, scored only on what each vendor or Anthropic documents on its own pages as of October 10, 2026. If a capability is not documented, it scores low, even if it might exist. Storyflow is our product, so the weighting is published and the limits get their own section below.

Scores are our judgement of the documentation, not a lab test. A connector can be excellent at its own job and still score low for this one.

Each weighted score is the sum of score times weight, out of 5. Storyflow: 1.50 + 1.25 + 0.60 + 0.75 + 0.20 = 4.30. Storyflow loses points where it should: it is added as a custom connector, which uses the single slot on Claude Free, and it needs a paid Storyflow plan (or an invitation from a paid member). Google Drive wins the two criteria it is built for and is the second connector we would add to almost any creative project.

Connectors for Creative Claude Projects Compared (2026)

Sources: Anthropic's help article on Google Workspace connectors, and the Claude directory listings for Notion, Canva and Figma.

The 5 Connectors to Add to a Creative Claude Project, Ranked

1. Storyflow

Best for: giving a Claude Project a board that shows the whole job.

Storyflow ranks first because it answers the question a Claude Project cannot answer alone: where does the plan live, and who can see it? Through the connector, Claude reads your boards, notes, documents and files, and builds notes, groups, tables, charts, diagrams, mind maps, documents, slide decks, shot cards, strip boards, colour palettes and carousel pages, placed on the board where they belong. What it adds appears live on an open board, so you can keep the board in one tab and the project chat in another and watch the plan arrive.

Two things make it fit the project-per-client pattern particularly well.

• It reads change history. Claude can ask what changed on a board in the last day, the last week or the last month, and who changed it. A Monday chat that starts with "what changed on this board in the last week" replaces the status meeting you were going to have with yourself.
• Permissions are set per Storyflow project. At sign-in you choose which Storyflow projects Claude may reach (all of them, or the ones you pick), whether it may make changes or only read, and whether it may use documents outside projects.

How to add it

In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors, click Add, choose Add custom connector, name it Storyflow, paste https://mcp.storyflow.so/mcp, click Continue, choose Sign in now, click Add, and sign in to Storyflow. The full walk-through, including Claude Desktop and Claude Code, is in how to connect Claude to your project board.

Pricing

Plus is $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly). Pro is $14 a month billed annually ($19 monthly) and adds AI image generation in the app. Max is $39 a month billed annually ($49 monthly) and adds a team workspace with roles and permissions. Storyflow is paid-only during early access; its Free plan launches before the end of 2026, and anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free now. Paid plans have no connector limit. A free account gets 25 connector actions a week. See Storyflow pricing.

Limits

It is a custom connector, so on Claude Free it uses your one custom slot. The connector cannot read comment threads and has no image generation tool (pictures arrive through an upload link or from web addresses). It adds and edits; removing elements from a board is done by you. Storyflow runs in the browser only.

2. Google Drive

Best for: source files that keep changing.

Google Drive is the connector almost every creative project should have second, and it needs no custom connector slot. Anthropic's help center says the Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive connectors are available to all users on Claude and Claude Desktop. Through Drive, Claude searches and retrieves Google Docs, reads Sheets, Slides, PDFs, images and Microsoft Office files (text only), uploads files and creates folders.

The feature that matters most for projects is syncing. You can add a Google Doc straight into a project's files: open the project's Files section, click the plus, choose Drive, then search or paste a link. The help center says Docs added this way sync directly from Drive, so Claude uses the latest version. The script that gets rewritten every week, the client's running feedback doc and the budget sheet belong here, not in a static upload.

Limits

• Adding Google Docs to a project works only in private projects. It is disabled for shared projects.
• Claude extracts text only from non-PDF files and does not process images embedded in documents.
• Live editing of Docs, Sheets and Slides is in beta and uses separate connectors from Drive.
• A Drive folder is storage. Nobody can glance at it and see where the job stands, which is why it ranks below a board for this job.

3. Notion

Best for: teams whose written record already lives in Notion.

Notion's connector is in Claude's directory, made by Notion. The listing says Claude can search and fetch pages, read comments, create, update, move and duplicate pages, create and update databases, and add comments. If your studio wiki, client database and meeting notes are in Notion, this is the connector that lets a Claude Project read them and file new pages in the right place.

Pricing

According to Notion's pricing page, Plus is $10 per member a month billed annually ($12 monthly) and Business is $20 per member a month billed annually ($24 monthly).

Limits

Notion's help page on Notion MCP says MCP tools act with the connected user's full Notion permissions, so Claude can reach anything you can. The same page says admin controls for approving or blocking apps are for Enterprise workspaces. The page does not describe a way to hand Claude one client's pages and nothing else, short of connecting an account that only has access to those pages. And what Claude builds is pages and databases: good for a written record, weaker for a moodboard next to a schedule next to a deck.

4. Canva

Best for: projects where the deliverable is a designed asset.

The Canva listing in Claude's directory says Claude can search and fetch designs and their content, generate new designs, import a design from a link, export designs, create folders and move items into them, and add comment threads. For a social campaign where the output is twelve post graphics, that closes the loop from the project chat to the finished file.

Limits

Canva produces design files. It does not hold the schedule, the shot list or the budget around them, so it complements a board and does not replace one. The listing does not state which Canva plan each tool needs; see Canva's pricing page for plans.

5. Figma

Best for: product and web design work, and quick diagrams in FigJam.

The Figma listing describes a connector built mainly to bring design context into Claude so it can generate code that fits your design. It reads design context, file metadata and FigJam content, and it can turn prompts into flow charts, Gantt charts and other diagrams in FigJam.

Limits

For a film, a photoshoot or a content calendar, most of what this connector does is beside the point. Add it when the client job is an interface or a website, or when your team already reviews everything in FigJam. The listing does not state plan requirements.

Not ranked: Milanote

Milanote is a well-liked board for creative planning, and many readers will ask about it. We found no connector for Claude: Milanote's plans page does not mention AI features, MCP, ChatGPT or Claude. Its free plan allows 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads, and the paid plan is $9.99 a month per person billed annually. You can still use Milanote next to a Claude Project by pasting between them. Claude cannot read or build the board for you. If that matters, see the Milanote alternative page.

How to Set Up a Claude Project for a Client or a Film, Step by Step

Do the setup once, carefully, and copy the pattern for every job after.

Step 1: Decide the unit, one project per client or per film

The rule: one Claude Project for each body of work that has its own brief, its own files and its own people. For an agency or freelancer that is usually one per client. For a filmmaker it is one per film. For a creator it is one per channel or show.

Split a client into two projects only when the jobs share nothing (a rebrand and a separate product video, with different contacts and different source files). Do not make a project per deliverable. Five projects for five Instagram posts gives you five places with half the context each.

On Claude Free you get five projects, so three clients, one personal project and one studio admin project fits. Past that you need Pro, or you archive finished jobs. Archiving keeps all the knowledge, and archived projects stay readable.

Step 2: Create the matching Storyflow project and board

Before you touch Claude's settings, make the place the plan will live. In Storyflow, create a project with the same name you will use in Claude (for example "Ardent Spring Campaign"). Identical names matter: the connector finds your board by listing your Storyflow projects and matching the name you give it.

You can leave the board empty. Claude will build on it in Step 7. If you already have a brief, Storyflow's built-in AI agent can do a first pass inside the app from the attached document (the brief to project board and document to project board pages show the result), and Claude picks up from there.

Step 3: Create the Claude Project

Go to claude.ai/projects and click New Project. Enter a name and a description. Remember that Claude does not see either, so write them for yourself: "Ardent, spring campaign, due May 9" is a fine name.

On Team or Enterprise you are asked about visibility. Keep the project private if you want connectors to work in it. That point is covered in the team section below.

Step 4: Write the project instructions

Click Set project instructions and paste a block that covers five things: who the client is, what the job is, where the plan lives, how you want Claude to write, and what it must never do. Three ready-made blocks are in the next section.

The single most useful line is the one that names the board: "The plan for this project lives in Storyflow, in the project named Ardent Spring Campaign. Before answering any question about schedule, tasks or budget, read that board." Without it, Claude will happily answer from memory or from a stale file.

Step 5: Add project knowledge, stable files only

On the project page, the knowledge panel is on the right. Click the plus and upload the files that will not change much over the life of the job:

• The signed brief or statement of work.
• The brand guidelines or the style bible.
• Two or three examples of past work the client liked.
• The locked draft of the script, if it is locked.
• A one-page glossary: product names, people, roles, things the client hates.

Keep each file under 30MB. Keep reference PDFs under 100 pages where the pictures matter: the upload article says Claude analyses text and visuals in PDFs of 100 pages or fewer, and text only from 101 to 1,000 pages. For Word and other non-PDF documents it extracts text only, so a moodboard pasted into a Word file arrives as captions with no pictures. Export it as a PDF instead.

Step 6: Connect Google Drive for the files that change

For anything rewritten weekly, do not upload a copy. Open the project's Files section, click the plus, choose Drive, and search for the Google Doc or paste its link. It will stay in sync with Drive.

Good candidates: the working script, the running client feedback doc, the interview transcript folder index, the budget sheet. For files that are not Google Docs, turn on the Drive connector in a chat (the plus button, then Connectors) and ask Claude to find and read them when needed.

Step 7: Connect Storyflow and choose what Claude may touch

Add the Storyflow connector once, in Customize, Connectors, with the address https://mcp.storyflow.so/mcp. At Storyflow's sign-in screen you make three choices:

1. Which Storyflow projects Claude may use: all, or the ones you pick.
2. Whether Claude may make changes. If not, the connection is read-only.
3. Whether it may use documents outside projects.

One thing to understand before you choose: the connector belongs to your Claude account, not to a single Claude Project. If you allow three client projects in Storyflow, Claude can reach all three from any chat. The separation between clients comes from your project instructions (which name one Storyflow project) and from the approvals Claude asks for, not from a wall inside Claude. If a client's contract demands strict separation, allow only that client's Storyflow project at sign-in and reconnect when you switch. The guide to whether AI connectors are safe covers the permission choices in depth.

Then, in a project chat, click the plus at the lower left, choose Connectors, and toggle Storyflow on. Connectors are switched per conversation, so check the toggle when a new chat seems unable to see the board.

Step 8: Run a first chat that reads before it writes

Start with a read: "List my Storyflow projects, then summarise the board in Ardent Spring Campaign." If Claude returns the right project, the connection, the permissions and the name all line up.

Then a first write: "Read the brief in project knowledge. On the Ardent Spring Campaign board, build a section with the campaign objective, the three audience segments, a deliverables table with owner and due date columns, and a kanban with the columns To do, In progress, Client review and Done." Approve the tool calls one at a time the first few times. Anthropic's custom connector guide advises clicking Allow always only for servers and tools you trust to run unsupervised.

Custom Instructions You Can Copy

Project instructions are where a generic assistant becomes your producer for one job. Replace the names and paste. These are written as plain lines because that is how the instructions box takes them.

Instructions for a client project

• You are the production partner for Ardent, a skincare brand. The job is the spring campaign: one 30 second film, six cutdowns and twelve stills, delivered May 9.
• The plan lives in Storyflow, in the project named Ardent Spring Campaign. Before answering any question about schedule, tasks, shots or budget, read that board with the Storyflow connector. Do not answer from memory.
• When we agree a change in chat, update the board in the same reply and tell me which element you changed.
• Source files are in project knowledge (brief, brand guidelines, past work) and in the linked Google Docs (working script, client feedback). If the two disagree, the Google Doc is newer.
• Write in British English, plain sentences, no exclamation marks. The client calls the product "the serum", never "the oil".
• Never invent a date, a price, a name or a quote. If something is missing, leave a blank on the board and list the blanks at the end of your reply.
• Only use the Storyflow project named Ardent Spring Campaign. Do not read or change any other Storyflow project from this Claude Project.

Instructions for a film project

• You are the assistant producer on Low Tide, a 12 minute short film. Shoot dates and locations are on the board, not in this text.
• The production board is in Storyflow, in the project named Low Tide. Read it before answering anything about scenes, shots, schedule, cast or budget.
• The script in project knowledge is draft 4, locked. Scene numbers in everything you build must match that draft.
• When asked for a shot list, build shot cards on the board grouped by scene. When asked for a schedule, build a strip board.
• Never invent a phone number, an address or a crew name. Leave blanks and list them.
• Keep replies short. The detail belongs on the board.

Instructions for a content channel

• You are the planning partner for a weekly YouTube channel about restoring old bicycles. One long video and three shorts each week.
• The content pipeline is in Storyflow, in the project named Workshop Channel. Each video is a ticket in a kanban with the columns Idea, Scripting, Shooting, Editing and Published.
• At the start of a chat, read the board and tell me what is in Scripting and Shooting before anything else.
• Titles are under 60 characters. No clickbait the video does not pay off.
• Past scripts and the channel style guide are in project knowledge. Match their voice.

Why these instructions work

Each block does the same four things. It names the client and the job, because Claude cannot see the project name. It names the board and says to read it first, because chats do not share context. It says where truth lives when sources disagree. And it forbids invention, which matters most for the things that cause real damage in production: wrong dates, wrong names, wrong numbers.

The last line of the client block (only use this Storyflow project) is the instruction-level fence described in Step 7. It is a rule Claude follows, not a technical lock, so pair it with the project choice you made at sign-in.

What Goes in Project Knowledge, on the Board, and in Drive

The most common reason a Claude Project underperforms is that everything was dumped into project knowledge. Sort each item by one question: how often does it change, and who needs to see it?

File rules worth remembering

• 30MB per project file. No limit on the number of files, but the total has to fit the context window.
• On Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, retrieval switches on by itself as you approach the limit and holds up to 10 times more. A visual indicator shows when a project is in that mode.
• Supported documents include PDF, DOCX, CSV, TXT, HTML, ODT, RTF, EPUB, JSON and XLSX. Images can be JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP.
• Non-PDF documents give Claude text only.
• The retrieval article recommends clear, descriptive filenames, and you can point Claude at a document by name.

A naming pattern that keeps retrieval sharp

Name files so the name says what the file is and how current it is: "Ardent brief signed 2026-03-02.pdf", "Ardent brand guidelines v3.pdf", "Low Tide script draft 4 locked.pdf". When a project grows past the context window and Claude starts searching your files, a filename like "final_v2_new.pdf" tells it nothing. When you replace a file, delete the old one. Two briefs in project knowledge is how Claude ends up quoting the wrong deadline.

Worked Example: A One-Person Studio With Three Clients and a Short Film

This is an illustrative example. The studio, the clients and every number in it are invented to show the pattern; none of it is a measured result.

Picture a one-person studio run by a director and editor. She has three active clients and one personal short film. She is on Claude Pro and Storyflow Plus.

The four projects

Four projects, so the same setup would also fit inside Claude Free's limit of five. What Free would not give her is expanded project knowledge, and the one custom connector slot would go to Storyflow.

Monday: the weekly read

She opens the Ardent project and types one line: "What changed on the board in the last week, and what is due in the next seven days?" Claude reads the board's change history and the deliverables table. In this example it reports that the client moved two cutdowns into Client review and that the stills retouch is due Thursday with no owner. She replies: "Assign the retouch to me and move the date to Friday." Claude updates the row and names the element it changed.

That exchange uses a handful of connector actions (list projects, find the board, read changes, read elements, one edit). On a paid Storyflow plan there is no limit to think about. On a free invited account, which gets 25 actions a week, five actions on each of four projects is 20, most of the week, so a collaborator on a free account should keep reads targeted and save the weekly read for the one project that needs it.

Wednesday: a brief becomes a board

Harrow Studio sends a two-page treatment. She uploads it to the Harrow project's knowledge and asks: "Read the treatment. On the Harrow Brand Film board, build a section with the film's objective and key message, an interview table with one row per interviewee and columns for role, location and status, and a diagram of the story structure in three acts." Claude builds three elements on the board. She has the board open in another tab and watches them appear, then drags the diagram next to the interview table.

She sends the client the board link. The client opens it with no account and reads the plan. To leave a comment, the client signs in.

Friday: the film

In the Low Tide project she asks for shot cards for scenes 3 and 4, matching the scene numbers in draft 4, and a strip board for a two-day shoot. Because the instructions say never to invent names or addresses, Claude leaves the location address blank and lists it at the end as missing. The longer version of this workflow is in the guide to indie film project organisation with Claude or ChatGPT, and the shot card step alone is covered in how to make a shot list with ChatGPT or Claude.

What the example shows

• The Claude Project held what does not change: brief, guidelines, script.
• Drive held what changes in prose: script drafts, feedback.
• The board held what changes in structure: dates, owners, status, shots.
• No chat needed to remember another chat. Each one started by reading the board.

Prompts to Copy for a Connected Project

Each prompt assumes the project instructions already name the Storyflow project. If they do not, add "in the Storyflow project named X" to the prompt.

Prompts to avoid

• "What changed since Monday?" The board's change history works in fixed windows: the last day, the last week or the last month. Ask for one of those.
• "Read the comments on the board and summarise the client's notes." The connector cannot read comment threads. Ask the client to put feedback in the Google Doc, or paste it into the chat.
• "Generate a moodboard image for each scene." The connector has no image generation tool. Give Claude image addresses to place on the board, or use the upload link it offers for your own pictures. Image generation in Storyflow is the built-in AI on the Pro and Max plans, inside the app.
• "Update all my client boards." One project, one board, one job per chat. A prompt that spans clients is how the wrong brand voice ends up on the wrong board.
• "Delete the old schedule." Claude adds and edits through the connector, and it can remove deck slides and clear table cells. Removing other elements from a board is done by you.

What a Claude Projects Setup Costs

Prices are from each vendor's own pricing page on October 10, 2026, in US dollars. Canva is left out of the sums because we do not quote its prices here; see Canva's pricing page.

Google Drive adds nothing to these sums if you already have a Google account. The last row is a per-seat figure, not a team total; check Claude's pricing page for how Team seats are sold.

How to try the Storyflow connection without your own plan

Storyflow is paid-only during early access, so there is no free plan to sign up for today. The one free route is an invitation: anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free, and that free account can use the connector for 25 actions a week (every read and every change counts as one, and the count resets on Monday UTC). If a studio you freelance for already uses Storyflow, ask them to invite you to the job's board and connect Claude to that.

What the connector does not cost

The connector runs on Claude's model. Claude does the thinking and the Storyflow server carries out the reads and writes, so nothing you do through the connector spends Storyflow AI credits. Your Claude usage limits apply as normal.

Decision Rules: Which Connectors to Add to Which Project

Use these as defaults and break them when your work says so.

1. If the project has a client, a deadline and more than one deliverable, connect Storyflow so the plan is on a board the client can open.
2. If any source file changes weekly, add it from Google Drive instead of uploading it.
3. If your team's wiki and client database are in Notion, connect Notion as well, and keep the board for the visual plan.
4. If the deliverable is a set of designed graphics, add Canva for the files and keep the schedule on the board.
5. If the job is an interface or a website, add Figma.
6. If you are on Claude Free, spend the one custom connector on the tool that holds the plan. Directory connectors such as Notion and Canva are not custom connectors.
7. If the project is pure writing (a novel draft, a long essay) with no schedule and no collaborators, you may not need any connector. Project knowledge and instructions are enough.
8. If a client contract requires strict data separation, allow only that client's Storyflow project at sign-in, and do not keep other clients' files in the same Claude Project.

For a broader ranking that is not limited to projects, see the best Claude connectors and the best MCP servers for Claude.

Working as a Team: Shared Projects and Connectors

Claude's Team and Enterprise plans let you share a project. The creator adds members by name or email and gives each one Can view or Can edit. Can view lets a member see the contents, knowledge and instructions and chat in the project. Can edit also lets them change the instructions and knowledge and manage members.

The catch: connectors need private projects

Anthropic's help article on browsing and connecting to tools from the directory says that on Team and Enterprise plans, connectors are only available in private projects. The Google Workspace article says the same about adding Google Docs to project files: it is disabled for shared projects.

For a studio, that produces a clear split of jobs:

• The shared Claude Project holds the shared knowledge and instructions: brand guidelines, tone, the brief. Everyone chats there for writing and thinking.
• Each person's private Claude Project for that client holds the same instructions (copy them across) and is where connectors work.
• The Storyflow board is the shared surface. Every private project writes to the same board, so the plan is common even though the Claude Projects are not.

This is the strongest argument for a board in a team setting. The thing your team shares is not a chat. It is the board.

Who adds the connector on a team

On Team plans, only Owners and Primary Owners can add a custom connector, in Organization settings, then Connectors. Members then find it in Customize, Connectors and click Connect. Each member signs in to Storyflow with their own account and makes their own permission choices, so Claude only reaches what that person can already reach. A freelancer you invited to one client board does not see the others.

Roles on the Storyflow side

On any paid Storyflow plan, invited collaborators edit shared boards in real time. The Max plan adds a team workspace with roles and permissions. If you run several clients with different freelancers on each, that is the plan to look at; the pattern is described on the agency client project planning page.

Troubleshooting a Connected Claude Project

Claude answers about the schedule without reading the board

The instructions do not tell it to, or the connector is toggled off in this chat. Click the plus at the lower left, choose Connectors, and check Storyflow is on. Then add the line "read the board before answering" to the project instructions.

Claude says it cannot find the project

The Storyflow project name in your instructions does not match, or that project was not allowed at sign-in. Ask Claude to list your Storyflow projects. If the one you need is missing, disconnect in Storyflow under Settings, Connected apps, and connect again with that project picked.

Claude says it cannot change anything

The connection is read-only. Reconnect and allow changes at Storyflow's sign-in screen.

Claude quotes an old deadline

There are two briefs in project knowledge, or the date in a static upload has been overtaken by a change on the board. Delete the superseded file and keep dates on the board only.

The Google Doc option is missing from project files

The project is shared. Adding Google Docs to project files works only in private projects.

The connection stopped working after a month

Storyflow connections expire after 30 days. Sign in again from Customize, Connectors.

The photo attached in chat never reached the board

A picture attached to a Claude chat does not travel to Storyflow. Ask Claude for the upload link (the connector provides one for the board) and add the photo there.

Common Mistakes When Setting Up Claude Projects for Creative Work

• Leaving the instructions empty because the project has a name. Claude does not see the name or the description.
• Uploading the working script. It will be stale in a week. Add the Google Doc from Drive so it stays in sync.
• One giant project for all clients. Brand voices bleed into each other, and project memory mixes them. One project per client.
• A project per deliverable. The context gets split into fragments. One project per body of work.
• Putting a moodboard in a Word file. Claude extracts text only from non-PDF documents. Export a PDF under 100 pages, or build the moodboard on the board.
• Keeping the plan in chat. Chats in a project do not read each other. If a decision is not on the board or in project knowledge, the next chat may not have it.
• Clicking Allow always on write tools on day one. Approve writes one at a time until you have watched a few land the way you expected.
• Allowing every Storyflow project when one client needs separation. Pick projects at sign-in.
• Sharing the Claude Project on Team and then wondering where the connectors went. Connectors need private projects on Team and Enterprise.
• Asking for a change window the board cannot give. Use the last day, the last week or the last month.

When Storyflow Is Not the Right Choice

Storyflow ranks first for the job in this guide, and it is the wrong connector in several real situations.

• You need a $0 setup today. Storyflow is paid-only during early access. Its Free plan launches before the end of 2026. Until then the only free route is an invitation from a paid member. Google Drive is the connector that costs nothing extra right now.
• Your deliverable is a design file. If the client is paying for finished graphics, Canva's connector generates and exports the designs. If the job is an interface, Figma is where it lives. Storyflow holds the plan around those files.
• Your team's source of truth is a Notion database. If tasks, clients and docs already run through Notion relations and rollups, connect Notion. A second system for the same tasks creates two versions of the truth.
• You need formal approvals. Storyflow does not do versioned proofing with an approve button, invoicing or contracts. Clients can view with a link and comment after signing in.
• You need Claude to read client comments. The connector cannot read comment threads on a board.
• You need to work offline or in a native app. Storyflow runs in the browser only.
• You need a calendar view or to publish posts. Dates live in table cells, tickets and kanban columns, with rows kept in date order by you or by Claude. Storyflow does not schedule or publish social posts.
• You are on Claude Free and already use your one custom connector. Storyflow is a custom connector, so it needs that slot.
• The project is solitary long-form writing. A novel draft with no schedule, no collaborators and no visuals does well with project knowledge alone.

A Template: The One-Page Project Setup Sheet

Fill this in before you create anything. It prevents most of the mistakes above.

Part 1: the job

1. Client or film name:
2. The job in one sentence:
3. Delivery date:
4. People who need to see the plan (and whether each one edits, comments or only views):

Part 2: where things live

Part 3: the instruction lines

1. You are (role) for (client), on (job), due (date).
2. The plan lives in Storyflow, in the project named (exact name). Read it before answering questions about schedule, tasks, shots or budget.
3. When we agree a change, update the board in the same reply and say what you changed.
4. If project knowledge and a Google Doc disagree, (which one) wins.
5. Voice and wording rules:
6. Never invent dates, prices, names or quotes. Leave blanks and list them.
7. Only use the Storyflow project named (exact name) from this Claude Project.

Part 4: the first three chats

1. Read: "List my Storyflow projects and summarise the board in (name)."
2. Build: "Read the brief and build the objective, audience, deliverables table and kanban on the board."
3. Check: "Which due dates on the board fall after the delivery date in the brief?"

If you run a solo practice, the solo studio project planning page shows the board side of this sheet, and creative client onboarding covers what to collect from a client before you start.

The Bottom Line

A Claude Project gives one client or one film a standing context: the files, the rules and the chats. What it lacks is a place where the current plan is written down and visible, because chats in a project do not read each other and nobody outside your organisation can open it. Connect Storyflow and the project gains that place: Claude builds the brief, schedule, shot cards and deck on a board, reads what changed in the last week, and your client follows along with a link. Add Google Drive for the documents that keep moving, write instructions that name the board, and keep only stable reference in project knowledge. Start with one client, copy the pattern for the next.

Get the address and the setup steps on the Storyflow MCP page.