Behind the scenes: what changed when I rebuilt the client portal
A release note on the new portal template, what broke in the old one, and what to migrate first if you are switching.
The old portal template had a problem I couldn't patch: it assumed every client wanted the same level of detail. Some clients lived in it. Most opened it once and never came back. That's a design failure, not a client failure.
The new version ships with three views instead of one. A start-here page with the four links that matter in week one. A session log that clients can skim before a call. And a resources area that stays collapsed until someone needs it. Same content, less surface area. In testing with twelve clients, the start-here page got opened within 48 hours by all of them, versus four out of twelve on the old layout.
If you're migrating, do it in this order. Move the intake form first, because that's the link you send most often. Then the session log, because it saves you from repeating yourself on calls. Leave the resources area for last and use the move as an excuse to delete anything older than a year. Nobody has ever complained about a resource library being too small.
One thing I got wrong: I initially made the session log editable by clients. It sounded collaborative. In practice it created a second place to check for updates, and people stopped trusting either one. It's read-only now, with a comments section underneath. Buyers of the previous template get the new one in their library at no cost, as always.