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What is the Web Portal exactly?
Web portals, also known as portals, are websites created to collect and display information according to user preferences.
Enterprise web development services can easily create web portals for different needs. Still, you must know what they are.
Portals can be enhanced with various services and features, including search engine APIs to search intranets or the Internet, email, group forums, dashboards, and business mashups, which combine tools and data.
Portal solutions often require users to sign up to access restricted content.
A fascinating story is behind the word portal, derived from the Latin "portable," which meant "city gate." Web portals are a way to access additional information, restricted content, services, listings on eCommerce sites, and search results.
What Does It Do?
Web portals are usually used to gather information from various sources and store it centrally, where users can access it.
This information may be unrelated or related. This can display links, interactive elements, and categorized data.
Portals are often used to provide information (such as customized web portals or e-commerce portals). Personalized information that each user can access to meet their needs within the platform.
For example, a university can create separate outlets to cater to parents and students, just as Stanford University did. The two groups would need access to different information, so they'd require separate web-based portals.
Web Portal Types: Which are they?
You can use web portal development experts to create custom b2b portal applications for your unique needs.
Web portals can be used for a variety of purposes.
- Sharepoint portal development
- Portals for business partners
- E-learning portals
- Ecommerce customer portals
- Membership group portals
- Supplier portals to access information about suppliers
- Portals that allow patients to access sensitive data about their health (which must be FDA and HIPAA-compliant if they are in the US).
- Customers can self-service through portals
- Portals for business partners
- Better user experience
Web Portals Are Transforming Into Digital Experience Platforms
Portals represent an early paradigm change for organizations online, which was to construct customer-centric websites rather than business-centric websites.
A portal, in theory, allows a company to create sites and navigation depending on the demands of the user, rather than an organizational structure that only makes sense inside.
As the portal market matured, top portal suppliers expanded their feature sets to assist organizations in creating these user-centric digital experiences for web, mobile, social, and linked devices.
Content management, marketing, workflow, targeting, and mobile support are among the capabilities available. As a result, some portal systems are evolving into digital experience platforms that leverage their integration and personalization skills to drive transformation throughout the company.
According to Forrester, the number one technical problem for digital customer experience efforts is insufficient back-end system integration.
Portal-heritage DXPs have a strong integration story and the personalization focus required to create consistent, connected experiences that are adapted to each user's context.
Other types of digital experience platforms exist, such as those derived from commerce servers and web content management systems.
Even if you do not employ a portal-heritage DXP, you will almost certainly need to incorporate portal technology into your strategy to address the integration needs of digital experiences across multiple touchpoints.
When to Use a Portal Platform
Aside from broad digital transformation applications, portal platforms are still uniquely useful for several business scenarios, such as:
- Customer self service: Portals are well-suited to gathering information relevant to customers in the post-purchase phase, allowing companies to nurture long-term loyalty while decreasing the burden to customer service call centers.
- Business agility: Portal platforms that support mobile experiences and use modular architecture are now well-equipped to quickly roll out new digital touchpoints, while still carrying the user authentication and integrated back-end data necessary to connect experiences.
Web Portal Categories
Web portals can be utilized in many ways, depending on your business. There are many types of web portals, including:
An Intranet Portal
Portals on the intranet allow employees to easily access information or applications from outside their business.
It helps companies manage apps, data and information. They can be customized to meet the individual needs of employees.
Client Portal
Customer portals are interfaces that allow consumers to access their history and interactions with an organization.
The customer portal benefits include the recording of important data and requests as well as document sharing.
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Portal for Human Resources HR
The HR Portal is an internal portal that provides workers with access to HR information. Self-service HR Portals allow employees to choose between a range of HR functions, such as time off requests, document signatures, or filling in coverage gaps.
HR Portal allows you to centralize various functions of your company. This includes job descriptions, performance evaluations, and training programs.
HR Portal also gives access to information about benefits, such as details of insurance and other incentives. It can be tailored to meet the specific needs of any organization.
The Sales Portal
The sales portal provides sales representatives with tools and data. It may contain important information about a business's goals for sales and its current customers.
Sales reps will be more inclined to make purchases if they are kept informed.
Users can access the Sales Portal to view sales data, pipeline and forecasts for their companies. The Sales Portal allows users to view all opportunities, orders and quotes that were created within the system.
The dashboard allows you to see the performance of your business at any time.
This feature can be used in conjunction with another web portal such as Finance or Projects to get a full picture of how your business is performing.
You can also create, manage and view your campaigns in the Sales Portal. These campaigns can be added to by adding contacts or leads so they will receive emails which help them convert into customers.
Portal for Project Management
A project management platform allows teams to keep track of the phases and activities of any project. Project management software offers many benefits, including collaboration on tasks, sharing documents, and keeping the entire project team updated on its progress.
This system combines traditional project management with the latest technology, resulting in a simple-to-use tool that you can access from any location.
It is intended to be used for anyone working in the project, whether it's a senior executive or a person who works on fewer tasks.
The portal has built-in features such as task management and tracking time, so that you do not have to change between tools in order to manage different workflows.
Features of a Web Portal
Enhance Your Website
Web portals are the latest global toolkits that enhance the dissemination of information. They also serve as an alternative communication strategy.
The creation of a web portal will help you to enhance the functionality of your website pages and deliver excellent information.
Improves Relationships
It improves customer relationships and company-customer ties by providing premium, filtered and user-friendly information.
Domain-Specific
You can attract people who are looking for services and information in a particular area by creating web portals that cater to their needs.
This will help you attract a specific domain.
Interaction
When done right, web portal design can greatly enhance your ability to connect with clients and consumers. These services help you create more dynamic and audience-centric web pages.
Read More: Ways to Speed Up the Development of a Custom Mobile Application
Build a Web Gateway
Due to their complexity, creating and designing web portals can be a difficult task. The process of building a website is similar to that used in the complex web portal-building.
Its features, functionality and coding are all different. We will start by looking at the frameworks and languages that are used by web portal companies and developers who provide web portal services.
This is because we've already covered characteristics and functionality.
The Most Popular Frameworks and languages for Web Portals
Since web portals differ from websites, the languages that are used to develop websites are similar to those used for building and designing websites.
Design and Development of a Web Portal: What is the Process?
Even if you are familiar with the subject, developing a web portal can seem overwhelming. Depending on the use-case, you will take different steps.
It's important to consult with an experienced service for portal development before embarking on this project.
How to create a web portal in 7 steps
Here's an overview of the general steps of how to develop a web portal
1. The planning stage
You will need to define the purpose, who, when, and why you are building a web portal. You will also need to specify the way you plan to make information easily accessible, tailored for stakeholders, secure, and current.
2.Web portal design
It is important to note that this stage does not only involve applying web portal style and best practices for UI/UX.
This stage also involves defining the navigation and web portal structure.
3. Web portal development starts
The developers focus on creating a platform accessible via the web that allows users to perform different tasks as needed.
Portal solutions and applications may involve as many as 12 tools and platforms.
- AWS, Oracle and MySQL are all cloud-based databases.
- Amazon Kinesis and Azure Stream Analytics are real-time data processing software.
- Back-ends such as Node.js and Python
- Cloud computing platforms like AWS, Rackspace and Digital Ocean
- Front-end like HTML5, Meteor and Angular
- WordPress, Magento and Salesforce are all CMSs.
- Platforms such as IOS and Android. Flutter. Cordova.
Your needs and previous experience in creating portals will determine the tool or platform that you choose.
4. Add Integrations
In this stage, you will connect all of the tools that your company or users require to achieve their goals. This could be custom software, or SaaS.
5. Test stage
Experienced developers should test all portal applications before deployment to find any bugs, missing requirements or stability issues.
6. Install the Web Portal
All previously identified problems have been resolved in the first version of this new portal.
7. Monitoring performance and iterating accordingly
It's now time to expand the number of users who can access your portal and track performance real-time. Working with a good portal development company can ensure that your portal is easy to use, and you don't waste time or money.
A web portal is a gateway that allows authorized users to access the data of a company. After a user is authenticated they can access the data and services of a cloud-based backend system through a web-based interface.
Web portals can pull data from many sources including search engines, email and forums. This single source of information access can help with information integration, navigation for search and personalization.
Portals are also useful for building a collection of content that is categorized.
Custom Web Portals: What They Need
It can be complex to develop a customized web portal. A business must first analyze their current IT requirements and then determine which features would satisfy their company's goals.
Let's take a closer look at the features every custom web site should include:
1. Websites Interactive
When a user logs into a customized web portal, the homepage will be what they see. Make sure the homepage has a clean design, simple navigation and it is interactive.
What is on the homepage will depend on the type of portal. For example, a portal for schools will have educational materials while one for training may feature the management of programs.
Consider the design of the homepage, how videos are displayed, and whether you want to implement a menu for quick access.
2. Dashboard Recap
The homepage of a web portal or its dashboard can also include a summary of recent news and "things to be done".
Consider adding an option that lets users categorize important tasks, which are then displayed at the top when logged in. In a well-designed dashboard, the most urgent tasks or those that are overdue should be listed first. The user should be able to complete these tasks once they are resolved.
3. User Personalization
Any custom-built web portal should be able to provide a personalized experience. Information should be tailored to each user's unique needs, roles and preferences.
Businesses can enhance their portal experiences by using a variety of different personalization options. Navigational personalization may include shortcuts for specific information such as "favorites" or "bookmarks", while layout customization may determine what appears on screen, in what size, color and format.
Read More: What Technologies Fit Best for Developing a Web Portal in 2023?
4. Easily Access Information
A simple, clutter-free design is key to ensuring users can quickly access information. If you are creating a customized web portal, decide whether users can see the most important data immediately after logging in, or if they need to scroll to find it.
Information can be arranged in accordion style to avoid overwhelming readers. Users can instead click on a button in order to display or hide the content. Consider how much information is required for each segment.
If you have too much content, it can be difficult to understand and read the information.
5. Tracking Tools
Tracking is often used by businesses that ship or receive products or services to make sure that they stay on track and deal with delays promptly.
Tracking tools should be included in custom web portals to allow users to track their orders, shipments, and support tickets. Tracking information helps to reduce support tickets and eliminate confusion about order status. Portals are often used by customers to find answers to their questions about orders, without needing to contact a support agent directly.
6. Content Management
Any custom portal development is built on content.
Features and functions that simplify content management and make the interface accessible to both non-technical and technical users are important. Think about what features a business might need in a portal to manage its content. For example, the ability to add tags, widgets and start/expiration dates, or the capability to restore older versions of pages.
Content management systems should be able notify users of document creation, review or update, and expiration.
7. Self-Service Tools
Users prefer to search for information themselves, rather than contacting another person. Search engines and other similar tools make it easier for users to find information and use resources.
Self-service allows users to spend less time with support staff by using self-service. The users can also find the information at their convenience.
8. News Feeds and Bulletin Boards
A custom web portal is a great way to quickly share information with large groups of people. Dashboards can include news feeds or bulletin boards so that authorized users have access to this information immediately after logging in.
Consider what information you want to display in a bulletin board or news feed, including announcements, product changes, blog posts, guides, and other content. Consider whether the news feed or bulletin board can be customized based on a user's unique role.
9. Accessibility on Multiple Devices
Modern workers need to be able to get information on any device, from anywhere. It isn't always feasible to stay at your desk for the entire day, particularly for those employees who are in charge of overseeing multiple activities.
It is important to be able to use a web portal from anywhere and on any device. It has been proven that mobile responsiveness improves customer interactions and increases productivity at the office.
Make sure that the web portals you build for your employees and customers are compatible with desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.
10. Users Acknowledgements
Businesses can ask users to acknowledge, consent or accept a message through acknowledgments. An acknowledgment could, for example, request a user's consent to new terms and conditions.
Consider whether the acknowledgements format should be customized, for example, a popup message that appears when logging in, or a dropdown menu. Consider displaying messages tailored to specific audiences. For example, a message that is only visible to employees of the accounting department.
11. Interactive Reports and Analyzes
To ensure that all departments are working efficiently, it is important to have well-organized business processes.
Well-designed reporting features that enable users to create, print and distribute reports are essential. The reports provide the user with information such as current business status, order history, customer support problems and other data.
12. Create Online Forms
Businesses today rely on technology to complete basic tasks, like filling in forms. Make sure that your custom web portal has forms and workflows so you can reduce the amount of time it takes to manually fill out forms.
Online forms allow businesses to save hours by not having to manually enter information into their systems. Consider how simple the tool will be to use when building this feature. The tool could include, for example, a feature allowing users to drag-and-drop custom created fields.
It should allow staff who are not technically minded to design and publish their own forms, without needing to consult a technical expert.
13. Customization options
Customizing the portal interface is essential to creating a great experience for users. Add features to allow users to customize their dashboards based on where they are located or what position they hold in the organization.
This can improve productivity and effectiveness. Consider adding tools to the homepage that are personalized, like calendars, forms, or widgets for news. These can be changed or added based on user preferences.
14. Social Features
Nearly every company in all industries now uses social media. Custom web portals often include social and collaboration features to allow users easy access to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Portals may allow users to interact with polls or blogs, view activity streams, follow users, and comment on them. Consider which social functions you can add to improve your users' experience.
15. Integrating Software
Web portals that are custom-made can be used as stand-alone systems, or they can be easily integrated into other systems and software to enhance their functionality and make them more comprehensive.
Quality portals can integrate with learning management systems (LMS), information management systems (IMS) and customer relationship management systems. Users can use popular software such as Microsoft Office 365 without leaving the portal. Think about how you want the integrations to appear, and the type of data that will be pushed through the portal.
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Bottom Line
You can ensure that all employees are on the same page by using a portal. This will also save time searching for relevant information in emails and other documents.
If you want to offer your employees or users a customized experience, it's the right time to build a web portal.
