Softline Creative Intake
Every request for Softline Creative now starts in one place: Main Creative. Pick the way that fits how you work, add a few details, and the right team picks it up. No chasing, no guessing where it went.
For Softline teams and outside partners alike. Internal teams get the fastest paths; partners get simple, guided ones.
Main Creative (MC) is the all-seeing eye. Every request, from every source, lands here first as its own MC ticket. That ticket is how we see the full picture of what has been asked for and where it stands.
Here is the important part: no work happens on an MC ticket. MC tickets do not get designed, written, or built on. They exist only to link and oversee. The actual work happens on the connected team tickets, and the MC ticket watches over all of them.
How routing works
When a request comes in, its Work Type and other metadata decide where it goes. You describe the work; the system routes it.
The Work Type field (plus fields like brand, channel, and due date) tells us which Creative Vertical owns the request.
Within that vertical, the same details map the request to the correct Pod, and each Pod maps to its own Jira project and board.
If a request needs more than one Pod or vertical, the automations create linked tickets on each board, all tied back to the one MC parent.
The MC ticket links to every team ticket it spawned, so status, ownership, and progress stay visible in one place.
Any of the four ways below creates one MC ticket.
Work Type + metadata map it to a Vertical and Pod.
Linked team tickets are created where work will happen.
MC links and tracks every ticket to done.
Four ways to submit
Every one of these lands in Main Creative. Choose based on who you are and how you like to work.
A guided web form powered by Zapier. Answer a few questions and it creates the MC ticket for you. The simplest path if you are outside the Creative team or just want a form to fill in.
Describe the request in plain language and the intake skill builds the ticket with the right fields. Built in for Softline teams, and available as a downloadable skill for outside collaborators who use Claude.
Create the request directly in the Main Creative project in Jira. Best when you already live in Jira and want full control over the fields on the MC ticket.
Trigger intake from within existing Jira workflows. When a qualifying issue or event happens on a team board, an automation raises the MC ticket and links it back automatically.
However it starts, the result is the same: one MC ticket that oversees the work from request to done.
Where the work happens
Once routed, work runs on a Pod's own Jira board. Core verticals move on synchronized two-week sprints; service verticals and production studios run Kanban, pulled in as needed.
Core verticals: 2-week synchronized sprints
Service verticals & production studios: Kanban
Legacy boards (HOI Creative, Brio Creative, Wholesale & Tradeshows) are being sunset after July 2026. Do not open new work there, use Main Creative.
Common questions
No. You only start the request in Main Creative. If the work needs a team board, the automations create and link those tickets for you.
MC is the oversight layer. Keeping it work-free means it always reflects the true, linked status of every request across every team, without competing as a place where things get built.
That is expected. One MC ticket can fan out into linked tickets on several Pods or verticals, and MC keeps them connected so nothing falls through the cracks.
Use the Intake Form. It is guided and needs no Jira access. If you use Claude, you can also download the intake skill.
Make your best choice and submit. Routing can be adjusted on the MC ticket, and the intake form and skill help you choose as you go.
No, this has been disabled. It is important that teams working in Agile control their own tasks, and that status updates flow back to you through the process outlined here. You can always reach the team in Slack or leave comments on the ticket.
You will get proactive email updates at key stages as your request moves through the process: when it is received, when a team has scheduled the work, when it is in progress, and when it is ready for review or delivery. You can also check in Slack or review the MC ticket anytime.
Submitting a request does not mean work starts right away. Every request first goes through a triage phase, where the brief and details are confirmed. Please do not expect delivery until your request has been scheduled with a due date.
Most Softline teams work on an update cadence of about 72 hours per request. The SLA varies by deliverable, but anything needed in under 72 hours is typically subject to a priority fee. Requests submitted and delivered in under 2 days are treated as Top Priority and billed at +50%. Requests with less than 5 days of lead time and a hard deadline are treated as Urgent and billed at +25%.
If something looks wrong, email a Creative Director or message the support channel as soon as possible, and we will make sure it is set up correctly.
Support & help
Reach the Creative Request Support channel and someone will help you get it in.
Send your question to the #creative-request-support Slack channel by email. Works from anywhere, no Slack access needed.
Email #creative-request-support ↗Jump straight into #creative-request-support and post your question there.
Open the channel in Slack ↗