道Dojo · · 2 min read
A client portal instead of email ping-pong
“Which version was that again?” Run projects through email threads and you end up mostly managing attachments. So we built our own client area. What is in it, and why.
Every project reaches this moment. The email with the subject line "RE: RE: FWD: draft final v3 (2)". Three people replied, two of them to an older version. The logo in the attachment is not the logo from the last meeting. And the decisive approval sits in a subordinate clause somewhere between the greetings and the signature.
Email is great for conversations. For projects it is an archive without order.
What we built
That is why our clients get their own client area. Not rented project software, but a tool we developed and run ourselves. It holds what a project really needs:
- Project phases. Understand, concept, design, launch. You can always see where the project stands and what is being worked on.
- Approving drafts. A draft is a version with a date. You place comments right in the image, as a pin at the spot in question. Then: request a change or approve, with a seal.
- Websites in the review stand. The real staging site on desktop, tablet and phone, comments right on the element, approval page by page.
- Files and messages. Everything in one place, in one thread. No attachments scattered across five inboxes.
- New orders. Need something new? Describe it there instead of starting another email thread.
You still get notified by email when there is something to do. The thing itself just no longer lives in the email but in the project.
Why we built it ourselves
Because we build software, and because a tool you use yourself every day gets honest fast. Every clumsy spot annoys us first. Sign-in also works with a passkey, no password needed, the data is backed up daily, and we can prepare new approvals before the client sees them.
We have since structured the core so that it can also be set up as a client area for our clients' own customers, with its own design and its own modules. The first portal of that kind is in the works right now.
The honest limitation
A portal does not replace a conversation. When something is unclear, we call. But after the call the result lives where everyone can find it: in the project, with a date and a version. Not in "RE: RE: FWD:".
