🔗 Before You Start
Check out the companion article: Getting Started in Office
📌 Understanding External and Mixed Projects
At Flameplace, we understand that at the start of the platform’s journey, not all manufacturers may have registered and uploaded their catalogs and stock. This takes time, but project deadlines can’t wait. That’s why we’ve developed the External Projects feature — an essential tool that allows any company with commercial functionality access to create a project in the Office that is not based on the Content Library products.
An External Project is a fully functional project created within the Office, similar to Studio Projects. However, instead of creating Rooms, you’ll create Brand Segments — interactive tools to send a commercial request to the owner of the products you’d like to acquire.
🚀 How to Create an External Project
Go to Office: On the quick actions panel, click the Create Exterior Project button.
Fill in Project Details: In the pop-up window, enter the project information. The project number is assigned automatically but can be edited manually. Then click Save to create an empty project.
Create an External Segment: Inside your new project, click Create Exterior Segment and enter the name of the brand or company you wish to request pricing from.
Open the Specification: Once the External Segment is saved, a blank specification sheet opens. Here you can fill in details about the items you want to request a proforma for. Use offline catalogs from the brand to gather necessary details.
Enter Article Information: In the specification table, you can input the item code, name, description, materials, dimensions, and quantity. You can also attach a file with detailed manufacturing explanations or drawings. Add as many articles as needed — just as you would when preparing a request to a manufacturer by email.
This process mirrors your current workflow with manufacturers, ensuring no learning curve.
📩 Requesting a Proforma
Once you’ve completed the draft specification, click the Request Proforma button.
Enter the email address of the company you’re sending the request to.
The company will receive the request by email — even if they’re not yet registered on Flameplace — and can decide whether to process it.
Upon accepting the request, the manufacturer can edit the specification, generate the proforma, and send it back to you (along with a packing list) just like a standard request within Flameplace.
🔀 Mixed Projects
You can also create Mixed Projects by adding External Segments to existing Internal Projects.
In the Studio, create your project, build your Rooms and fill them with all the necessary items as usual.
Open the project in the Office. Alongside the internal segments automatically generated by Flameplace, you can now add external segments by clicking Create Exterior Segment.
From here, proceed as described above for External Projects.
💡 Benefits
This approach significantly reduces time spent on generating proforma requests. Manufacturers receiving these requests can quickly generate a proforma with minimal effort, as the system automatically populates the proforma based on the request. They simply need to finalize it by adding prices and applicable discounts.
📌 Final Steps
Once the proforma is received, you can continue the project as usual: finalize the proforma, approve it, and proceed to the Packing List stage.
This ensures efficient collaboration and seamless integration of external products into your projects.