Main page → Your dashboard → Dashboard Businesses → Businesses → Client Portal
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Quick links
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I generally recommend against using a client portal regardless of the platform. Some exceptions are Adobe Creative suite and other wire-framing or proofing solutions that have been purpose-built for collaborative development. Typically what you are supplying a client is the production of something with minimal effort for them. Going to, learning about, and interacting with another platform is not minimal effort. Most clients would prefer to receive a simple email with a clear question like “Do you approve of the attached copy?”. Or, “Here’s a list of your published content for this month.”
I would recommend using a client portal only if your client has asked for a better solution, more functionality, or something that the client portal delivers. Even after doing this I recommend checking in with them, and being very open to moving back to an email workflow if that is their preference. The client is always right.
Originally Notion was not able to share only some rows of a database. The “Client portal” was designed as stand-alone data for each client. This was secure, but requires staff to intentionally visit each portal to complete work. Because the only people who found this beneficial were content creators, it is heavily focused on that industry.
Notion now has the ability to share rows in a database based on the presence of Notion users in People properties. This Complete Business Management Suite has used this extensively with automations. The Integrated Client Portal shows clients only their things from within your main Notion setup. It is set up as “View only”, but the foundations to share as “Can edit” are there too.
So, if you want staff to work as normal, from their dashboards, and give clients view-only access to things related to them, then the Integrated Client Portal is the best option.
Otherwise, if you like what you see in the original Client Portal and don’t mind having to go there or duplicate views from there to manage it, and you are a content creator, maybe this is still useful to you.
The client portal provides a collection of pages for managing the development of content or deliverables for your client. It has been designed to solve the problem with Notion not being able to share only part of a database. While it is very functional, it is based on only two databases, both of which exist inside the client portal. This means that you can share each client portal with a different client, and they will never be able to see each other’s information.
Every time you create a new business in a Client view, it generates both types of client portals for that new client at the very bottom of the page.