Files & Assets: One Screen, Two Directions of Travel

Two sets of files, one screen

The screen is called Files & Assets, and the plural is doing work. Two populations of file live here, and the module never lets them blur into each other.

Every item wears a badge. FROM AGENCY in green means the agency put it there for you. YOUR UPLOAD in blue means you put it there for them. The badge is repeated in the preview window, so even after you have opened something you still know which side it came from.

That sounds trivial until you consider the alternative. In a shared folder on a consumer file service, six months into a project, nobody can tell whether logo-final-v3.png was supplied by the client or produced by the agency. That single ambiguity generates a surprising amount of email. Here it is answered by a badge.

The rule that decides what a client sees

Worth stating precisely, because the answer reassures agencies. A file reaches the client portal by one of exactly two routes.

1. The agency has explicitly marked it as shared with clients. Sharing is a deliberate flag on the file. An agency’s working library, internal drafts, and everything else in their file manager simply is not visible, because absence of the flag is the default.
2. It is the client’s own upload, identified by living in the client upload area of that workspace and being attributed to that client.

Deleted files are excluded from both routes. There is no third path, no inherited folder permission, and no way for a file to become client-visible by accident of where it was stored. If you want the agency-side mechanics of that flag, they are covered in Files.

The practical implication for agencies is that sharing is an act, not a location. You do not move a file into a client folder; you mark it shared. That is a better model, because it means the same asset can be organised however your team wants internally while still being exactly as visible as you intended.

Four counters, and what they are really for

Four figures sit above the list: Total Files, From Agency, Your Uploads, and Total Size.

The middle two are the interesting pair, because together they describe the shape of a working relationship. A project where the client has uploaded four files and the agency has shared sixty is a production engagement. Forty client uploads against six agency files is a project where the client is doing a lot of supply work, and possibly waiting. Neither is wrong; both are worth noticing.

These counts are calculated across everything visible rather than just the folder currently open, so they stay meaningful as you navigate. They also respect the agency filter, so a client with three connections can see the split for one agency at a time.

Total Size is a running figure across the same set. The portal itself does not stop you at a per-file threshold on upload, so the size counter is the honest place to look if you are wondering how much you have accumulated.

Uploading, and choosing whose workspace it lands in

Uploading works the way people expect: drag files onto the window, or use the upload control. Progress is tracked per file, so a batch of twenty does not present as a single opaque spinner.

The part worth pausing on is targeting. When a client is connected to more than one agency, the portal asks which agency the upload is for before anything is sent. There is no default, and there is no such thing as a cross-agency upload. The file is written into that one agency’s workspace and nowhere else.

This is the correct design and it is easy to get wrong. A client who works with a brand studio and a media buyer has genuinely different material for each, and a portal that guessed would eventually put the wrong asset in the wrong place. Asking costs one tap.

Each upload is tagged with the uploading client’s identity and name, which is what allows the agency to see who sent a file without cross-referencing anything, and what drives the YOUR UPLOAD badge on the client side.

Sharing files with clients comes with the workspace. Arpixa’s four tiers run at $0, $12, $29, and $89 a month, and they differ on client capacity and storage rather than on which modules exist. Storage figures are listed on the pricing page.

Folders, and the prefix you never see

Clients can create folders, and folders nest. A client sending brand assets can build Logos, Photography, and Copy rather than pushing forty files into one flat list, and the breadcrumb trail plus a back control make navigation obvious.

Underneath, every client upload and every client folder lives beneath a dedicated client upload prefix inside the agency’s workspace. That prefix is what keeps client material cleanly separated from the agency’s own file tree.

And the client never sees it. The portal strips the prefix for display, so a folder the client created appears at the top level of their view rather than nested inside a technical directory they did not make. It is a small piece of thoughtfulness with a real effect: the client’s mental model of their own files matches what is on screen, while the agency gets the separation they need.

Previewing without downloading

Preview opens in a window over the list, and what happens next depends on the file.

Video and audio playing in place is the detail that changes behaviour most. Reviewing a thirty-second cut without downloading it removes enough friction that clients actually watch it the day it arrives, which is usually the difference between feedback this week and feedback next week.

File-type icons are also colour-coded in the list — images, video, audio, and PDFs each read differently at a glance — so a folder of mixed material is scannable before you open anything.

Who can delete what

The delete control appears only on files the client uploaded. Anything badged FROM AGENCY can be previewed and downloaded and cannot be removed.

That asymmetry is right. A client should be able to withdraw a file they sent by mistake, and should not be able to delete the brand guidelines the agency shared with the whole project team.

Deletion is also soft. The confirmation says the file is being moved to Trash and will be permanently deleted after 30 days, and the toast afterwards confirms it moved rather than that it went. Thirty days is what makes it safe to give a client a delete button at all: almost every regretted deletion is noticed within a week.

Files or Deliverables?

Both modules involve files, and clients routinely look in the wrong one. The distinction is about whether a decision is attached.

Deliverables is for work submitted for approval. It has statuses, an approve action, and a revision loop, and it is grouped by project. If an agency needs a yes or a no, the file belongs there.

Files is for material that just needs to exist somewhere both sides can reach: source assets, reference material, exports, the final approved versions after the fact. No status, no decision, no queue. If nobody is waiting on an answer, it belongs here.

A useful rule of thumb: if you would write “let me know what you think”, use Deliverables. If you would write “here you go”, use Files. The general case for keeping client assets out of consumer cloud drives is made in a Google Drive alternative for client files.

How to send an asset to your agency

1. Open Files in the portal and navigate into the folder the asset belongs in, if there is one.
2. If you work with more than one agency, choose which agency the upload is for. This is not optional.
3. Drag the files onto the window, or use the upload control and pick them.
4. Watch the per-file progress, and wait for it rather than closing the tab.
5. Confirm the new file shows a YOUR UPLOAD badge, which means the agency can now see it.

The badge check at the end is not busywork. It is the confirmation that the file was written into the agency’s workspace and attributed to you, which is the whole point of uploading it here rather than attaching it to an email.

Frequently asked questions