The organisation needed one agency client portal for clients, delivery specialists, account managers, and agency leadership. The existing journey divided client onboarding, briefs, project plans, files, comments, approvals, retainers, time, invoices, campaign reporting, and account history between separate tools and informal follow-up, so the project had to solve the operating model as well as the interface.
A complete agency client portal shaped around clients, delivery specialists, account managers, and agency leadership
The organisation needed one agency client portal for clients, delivery specialists, account managers, and agency leadership. The existing journey divided client onboarding, briefs, project plans, files, comments, approvals, retainers, time, invoices, campaign reporting, and account history between separate tools and informal follow-up, so the project had to solve the operating model as well as the interface.
Discovery followed the full journey from the first customer or staff action to its operational and commercial close. That exposed the handoffs between client collaboration, approvals, and delivery reporting, including the exceptions that a feature list would have missed.
- Map the people, decisions, and records across the whole agency client portal.
- Separate firm professional services rules from habits created by the old tools.
- Agree what the first release must complete from end to end.
The product joined client collaboration, approvals, and delivery reporting without blurring roles
Keep the client-facing record and delivery work connected while presenting each audience with the level of operational detail it needs.
In the agency client portal, each audience receives a focused home while the underlying state remains shared. The interface shows what needs attention, who owns the next action, and why work is blocked, while secondary detail stays available for review without crowding everyday tasks.
- Design the primary journey for every audience named in the brief.
- Give exceptions, corrections, and cancellations an explicit route.
- Use realistic records to test the complete flow before widening the surface area.
Next.js, ASP.NET Core, PostgreSQL formed one supportable agency client portal
The architecture follows business ownership rather than the navigation menu. Next.js, ASP.NET Core, PostgreSQL share versioned contracts, server-side permissions, observable integrations, and one authoritative record for the decisions behind approvals.
In the agency client portal, slower or external work runs through durable jobs with idempotent handling and visible failure states. Logs retain the organisation, actor, and product record needed to investigate a problem without guessing from a generic error message.
- Next.js supports the primary product surface.
- ASP.NET Core owns a bounded part of the product journey.
- PostgreSQL keeps operational data and handoffs reviewable.
The release had to prove the whole agency client portal, not one polished screen
Clients can see decisions and progress without chasing updates, and the agency can manage delivery and commercial context together. The release plan therefore followed representative work across every audience and the complete path through client collaboration, approvals, and delivery reporting.
Acceptance for the agency client portal included ordinary work, missing inputs, repeated requests, failed integrations, permission boundaries, and the route back to a trustworthy state. The team checked whether staff could understand and recover from a problem without direct database help.
- Run the busiest realistic journey from start to operational close.
- Rehearse a failed integration and a repeated customer action.
- Confirm that every role sees only the work and data it owns.
- Trace a management result back to the records that produced it.
What the work established
Clients can see decisions and progress without chasing updates, and the agency can manage delivery and commercial context together.
- 01
The agency client portal now gives clients, delivery specialists, account managers, and agency leadership one shared operating record.
- 02
Client collaboration, approvals, and delivery reporting follow the same product rules.
- 03
The system makes ownership and exceptions visible instead of hiding them in manual follow-up.
- 04
The product can grow from clear workflow, data, and service boundaries rather than isolated features.