Portals
Customer, vendor or partner access to the records that concern them, and to nothing else.
Two related interfaces: controlled external access, and role-based internal visibility.
In scope
What the two interfaces cover
One lets people in from outside. One shows people inside what their role is accountable for.
Dashboards
Role-based visibility and alerts, built on the same records rather than on an export.
What each party may see
The hard part is not the page. It is deciding, per role, which rows and which fields.
What it can do, not just show
Approve, upload, confirm, dispute — a portal that only displays sends people back to email.
Any of this is a week of front-end work. The month is spent deciding which customer sees which order line, what a vendor may change after submitting, and who is told when they do it.
What changes
Three things that stop
Answering by email
The question is answered by the record, at any hour.
Sending reports out
The view is live, and it is the same data.
Over-sharing to be helpful
Access is a rule, not a judgement call made under pressure.