Custom client
portal & dashboard development
in Washington, D.C.

Many customer accounts are designed as if one person were the customer. In business services, and in many households, that is rarely true. An office manager orders supplies, an accountant downloads invoices, a director approves large purchases. If the account allows only one login, they share a password, and every safeguard around that password stops meaning anything.

The first design step is separating the organisation from the people. The organisation owns the orders, the addresses, the payment methods and the contract. People belong to the organisation and act on its behalf, each with their own login.

Invitations are the usual way in. An existing member enters an email address, chooses a role and sends an invitation that expires after a few days. The new person sets their own password, and the audit trail shows who invited whom.

Roles should be few and understandable. Owner, administrator, buyer, viewer covers most needs. A long matrix of permissions confuses the customer and generates support requests. Where finer control is needed, it can be added later for the accounts that ask.

Some actions need limits rather than yes or no. A buyer may order freely up to a certain amount, above which an approver must confirm. The account should show pending approvals clearly, and notify the right person without delay.

People leave. When they do, their access must end without affecting the organisation. Their past orders stay with the organisation, and ownership of anything they managed moves to someone else. The last owner should never be able to remove themselves and leave the account orphaned.

Activity history becomes important. When a disputed order appears, the organisation wants to know who placed it, when and from where. A readable log inside the account answers that question without a call to support.

Notifications need routing. Invoices go to finance, delivery updates to whoever placed the order, security alerts to administrators. Send everything to everyone, and the important messages get ignored.

Single sign on is often requested by larger customers. Connecting the account to the identity system of the organisation lets them manage access centrally, and removes the need for separate passwords altogether.

Designing for teams from the start costs less than adding it later, when every screen, email and report assumes a single user.