So you need a document management portal for clients?
An online system can make it easy for you and your clients to share documents securely. Furthermore, they can save time for you and your staff by allowing direcing enquiries for frequently used documents, to the portal. A portal needs to be unique to your business to be effective, so there are a number of considerations. If a document management portal is something you have considered, but don’t know where to start, below is a list of questions to get started.
What is a document management portal?
A document management portal is simply a login area that your clients can access via a website to download documents that they need. This could include PDFs, forms, procedures/SOPs, safety data sheets, whitepapers, slide decks, brand assets, spreadsheets or any other files that they need.
Getting started with a document management portal
Use these questions to start formulating a brief for your website developer.
- What is the purpose of the document management portal?
- What types of documents will be stored in the portal? Are they specific to a particular industry or business process?
- How many users are expected to access the portal? Specifically, how many staff and how many customers (or other externals)?
- What are the specific features required in the portal? Examples may include document uploading, version control, search functionality, access controls, collaboration tools, and reporting.
- Will there be different user roles with varying levels of access permissions? If so, what are the roles and their corresponding permissions?
- Will clients set up their own accounts / login details or will you set up the accounts for them and provide login details?
- Are there any specific integrations required with other systems or platforms (e.g., CRM, ERP, cloud storage)?
- What are the security requirements for the portal? Are there any specific compliance standards that need to be met (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA)?
- Do you have any preferences for the technology stack to be used in the development of the portal?
- What is the expected timeline for the development and deployment of the portal?
- Do you have a budget range in mind for the project?
- Does the project require it’s own front end website or will it be part of an existing website?
Additionally, provide design preferences or examples of existing portals that align with your vision. The more details and clarity you can provide in the brief, the better understanding your developer will have in order to provide an accurate quote for the project. Basically, you and your suppliers will have more clarity by writing down these details.
Sound exciting? It is!
Get started! At Blue Platypus we have created systems just like this. Blue Platypus will help create your specifications, design and project manage your document management portal projects. Contact us for more information.
