What a client approval portal actually needs to do
Approvals that live in a WhatsApp thread are approvals you cannot prove. Here is what a portal has to do to be worth having, and what to check before buying one.
Most client portals are sold on the wrong feature. 'Your client can log in and see the project' is a nice thing that changes very little.
The thing that changes something is narrower: six months later, can you produce the exact revision the client approved, the date they approved it, and the account that did it — without searching anything?
Why approvals drift into messaging
Not laziness. Messaging is where the client already is, it is instant, and it feels informal in a way that keeps a relationship comfortable. Every practice starts there for good reasons.
It breaks in a predictable way. The approval was a voice note. It referred to 'the layout' rather than to revision B. It arrived between a site photo and an unrelated forward. And the thing that was approved has since changed twice.
The five things that make a portal worth having
- 1Approvals attach to a specific revision, not to a project or a message. This is the whole point; a portal without it is a file share.
- 2The record is timestamped and attributed to an account. 'The client approved it' is weaker than 'approved by this account at this time'.
- 3It is read-only by construction. Not by permission settings somebody might misconfigure — the client should be structurally unable to see your costs, your team's tasks, or any other client.
- 4The client does not need training. If it takes explaining, they will reply on WhatsApp anyway and you have gained nothing.
- 5Comments live against the drawing. Feedback attached to what it refers to, rather than described in prose.
What to ask a vendor
- Show me an approval record from six months ago. Which revision was it against?
- What exactly can a client see? Ask them to log in as one, live, rather than showing a screenshot.
- Can a client see other clients' projects if they guess a URL?
- What happens to the approval when the drawing is revised again — does it stay attached to the revision it was given for?
- Can the client approve from a phone? Most will.
The fourth question is the one that separates real implementations from cosmetic ones. If a new revision quietly inherits the old approval, the record is worse than useless — it is misleading.
Ofivio's portal is read-only by construction, and approvals bind to the revision they were given for.
See the client portalRelated reading
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