Technology · 15 Portals & Intranets
A client portal, a member portal and an intranet solve different problems with the same engineering underneath: sign-in, permissions, documents, notifications. Here is what we build for each audience and how we choose between custom and off-the-shelf.
Updated September 2026 You own everything Reply within one business day
Portal
1,284
Members
99.9%
Uptime
0
Access issues
OlDevs, a full-stack studio in Vancouver, builds portals and intranets around one workflow at a time: the approvals, renewals or onboarding that hurt most today.Every build shares the same foundation of single sign-on, role-based access, audit logs and document storage, and we recommend off-the-shelf tools like SharePoint or an association management system when they genuinely fit. Clients own all code and accounts, and see a working demo every week.
Key facts
15 · Portals & Intranets
Each card says who the portal serves, when it is the right choice, and what it will cost you later in upkeep or limits.
The right choice when clients keep emailing for project status, documents or invoices. We attach a secure portal to your existing website with approvals and e-signature built in. The later cost is discipline: someone must keep statuses and files current, or clients drift back to email.
For associations handling renewals, directories, continuing education, events and payments. We integrate with iMIS, Wild Apricot or Member365 rather than replacing a system that works. The later cost is sync: membership rules evolve, and the portal and AMS must be kept agreeing.
Right when HR documents, onboarding and internal news live in shared drives nobody searches. SharePoint is often enough for a document-centred intranet; we go custom when workflows and integrations matter more than pages. The later cost is governance: an unowned intranet goes stale quietly.
For public bodies taking permits, applications and status tracking online. Accessibility and bilingual obligations are not optional here, so we build to WCAG 2.2 AA in English and French from the first sprint. The later cost is records: retention and audit duties outlive the project team.
The right call when your workflow matches what a product already does well and your budget of change is small. We configure, integrate and brand it instead of writing new code. The later cost is the ceiling: when your process outgrows the product, you migrate rather than extend.
For organisations whose workflows are genuinely their own. We start with the single workflow that hurts most, ship it to real users, then add the next in phases. The later cost is ownership: a custom portal needs a maintenance plan and a named team, which we set up before launch.
Stack
Concrete tools, current at the time of writing; confirmed for your project at scoping.
Identity and access
Application layer
Documents and signatures
Payments and notifications
Association and workplace systems
Hosting and operations
What changed
What moved in this area and what it means for your build.
2025
Major identity providers now treat passkeys as a first-class credential alongside passwords and SSO. For a portal this means phishing-resistant sign-in for members and staff without another password to reset, and we now include passkey support in every new identity setup.
Jun 2025
The EAA began applying to many digital services sold into the EU in June 2025, and Canadian accessibility law keeps moving in the same direction. Public bodies and associations should treat WCAG 2.2 AA as the floor for any new portal, which is how we build regardless.
2025-2026
Microsoft 365 Copilot and similar assistants now answer staff questions from intranet content, and they surface stale pages as confidently as current ones. Document ownership and review dates matter more than they did, so we plan content governance into every intranet build.
Jul 2026
Microsoft's extended support for these on-premises versions ended in July 2026. Organisations still running them face a real decision: move to SharePoint Online or Subscription Edition, or take the chance to rebuild the intranet around how the organisation actually works.
2025
The final obligations of Quebec's privacy law, including data portability, are now live, and other provinces continue reviewing their private-sector privacy rules. Any portal holding member, client or citizen data needs documented consent, retention and breach response, designed in from the start.
2026
Client and member portal products keep adding approvals, payments and e-signature, which raises the bar for building custom. Our advice has shifted with them: configure a product where it fits, and spend custom development only on the workflows that are genuinely yours.
How we choose
A portal outlives its launch team. If your IT group lives in Microsoft 365, a SharePoint-based intranet they can administer beats a custom app they cannot. We match the build to the people who will own it.
We do not scope portals by feature list. We find the one process generating the most email, phone calls and missed deadlines, ship that first, and let real usage set the order of everything after.
If your rules change every quarter, configuration ceilings become expensive fast and custom code earns its keep. If the process is stable, an off-the-shelf product is usually the sober choice.
Member, client and citizen records raise PIPEDA and provincial questions before technical ones. We default to Canadian hosting regions and check retention and residency obligations before choosing a platform.
The identity you already manage decides half the architecture. Staff on Entra ID, members in an AMS and citizens with no account at all each point to a different sign-on design, so we settle this first.
Every choice is judged on how you leave it. You own the code, the designs and every account from day one, and data export is a tested feature rather than a promise, so no platform decision traps you.
Who it's for
Whether the audience is a customer, a member, a citizen, or your own team, the choice has to hold up under real use.
Client portals that take project status, documents, invoices and approvals out of email, plus intranets tied to your existing Microsoft 365 identity. One accountable team handles the portal, the integrations and the sign-off trail your auditors will ask about.
Member portals for renewals, directories, continuing education and events, integrated with iMIS, Wild Apricot or Member365. For public bodies, citizen self-service for permits and applications, built bilingual and to WCAG 2.2 AA because obligation, not preference, sets the bar.
A staff portal that gives every location the same operations manual, training, brand assets and internal news, with permissions per location and per role. Head office publishes once, and each franchisee sees exactly what applies to them, in the field, on a phone.
Our usual advice is to configure an off-the-shelf portal until the workflow proves itself, and spend custom development where the portal is the product. When it is, we build it on the same identity, access and audit foundation, so it can pass a customer security review later.
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ExploreFAQ
A portal serves people outside your payroll: clients, members or the public sign in to do something specific, like approve a document or renew a membership. An intranet serves your own staff with news, policies and knowledge. They share the same engineering, which is why we build both, but they succeed on different measures: portals on task completion, intranets on whether anyone comes back.
Buy when your workflow matches what a product already does and you can accept its limits; setup is faster and maintenance is someone else's job. Build when the workflow is your competitive edge, when integrations rule products out, or when licence terms fight your growth model. We often start off-the-shelf and replace pieces with custom work only where the product pinches.
Yes. For association work we usually keep the association management system as the source of truth for membership records and build the member-facing portal on top: renewals, directories, continuing education tracking, event registration and payments. Where an AMS API is limited we build a sync layer with clear conflict rules so staff never wonder which system is right.
We connect to the identity provider you already have, such as Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, over OIDC or SAML, so staff and clients sign in with accounts they already manage. For member and citizen portals without a corporate identity we add passwordless options, including passkeys, with multi-factor authentication as the default rather than an upgrade.
It depends on scope, but our method keeps the first result close: we launch the most painful workflow first, and you see a working demo every week from the first sprint. A focused first phase, such as a client document and approval portal, typically reaches real users in a few months, with further workflows added in phases after that.
Often, yes. If your organisation lives in Microsoft 365 and the intranet is mostly news, policies and documents, SharePoint with good information architecture is hard to beat, and your IT team can run it. We recommend custom work when the intranet must run workflows, integrate deeply with line-of-business systems, or serve people outside the Microsoft tenant.
We map what personal information the portal collects, why, and how long it is kept before we write code, then build retention, export and deletion into the system. Hosting defaults to Canadian regions, access is role-based with audit logs, and we document everything so you can answer a PIPEDA or provincial privacy enquiry without archaeology.
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