You can’t throw a rock these days without hitting someone that’s trying to sell you a portal.  If you Google the term “portal”, you get over a half of a billion hits.  With that much exposure, it’s not surprising that just about every business owner or manager that can use a Web browser thinks that a portal will solve all of their problems.  But ask yourself something: do you really know what a portal is?

Most people have only a vague understanding of the term.  Many software vendors and consultants like it this way.  They try to distract you and confuse you with a flurry of technical jargon so that you won’t notice that their product doesn’t actually meet your business needs.  At Aware, we live by a very different philosophy.  We like to teach our clients about technology and work with them to figure out the best way to achieve their business goals.  In that spirit, I will do my best to clear the air and shed a little light on one of today’s most over-used technology buzzwords.

That’s not a Portal
I’ve seen quite a few products out there that have the “portal” label slapped on them.  Most of them don’t even come close.  So before I get into what a portal is, let’s take a quick look at what a portal isn’t.

There are several enterprise application publishers out there that think that just because their product includes a Web interface, that they can call it a portal.  Sorry, that’s not a portal.  An online document library…? Nope, that’s not a portal either.  A portal may include a library of documents, or a document management system, but it does not constitute a portal in its own right.  Just because you have a Web site that requires users to login, does not mean you have a portal.  And just because you pull in content from different sources does not give you the right to call it a portal either.  You’re getting closer, but you’re still not quite there.

So What is a Portal?
Ignoring business, computers and the Internet, a portal is traditionally defined as a doorway or entry point.  In very general terms, that is what an enterprise portal is as well.  It is an entry point for your business activities.  Ideally, a portal would pull together all of the information and applications that support your business in one easily accessible place.  This means that all of your product information, policies and procedures, marketing and branding guidelines and handbooks and training materials should be represented on your portal.  It should aggregate and organize the entire knowledge base of your company.

The key to sorting the portals from all of the other Web sites and applications is its purpose.  The ultimate goals of an enterprise portal are to make your employees more efficient, ease the burden of communication with partners or customers and, if possible, automate some of these users’ tasks.  Most successful portals include human resources applications that, for example, allow employees to view payroll information, manage their retirement benefits and request time off.  Other things that are common within successful portals are applications for ordering office supplies, reporting expenses, booking flights and hotel rooms, company and/or department announcements and news and weather feeds.  If your employees and partners are sick of passing around forms and spreadsheets, a portal could be just the ticket.  Customized applications can be included in your enterprise portal that will prevent many of the headaches that traditionally come with collaborative workflows.  In fact, larger companies will often integrate their portals directly with their ERP or CRM applications.  A successful portal implementation will become a cornerstone of the success of your business.  It will leave you wondering how you were able to get by without it.

A Magic Door
You may be thinking that with all of that content and all of the applications that could go into a portal, a person could get lost.  Well, you’d be right.  That is why user and role management is another defining characteristic of a portal.  Very few of the people that use an enterprise portal are interested in all of the content that will be available through it.  More than that, there will most likely be a fair amount of content within the portal that you don’t want all of your users to access.  Therefore it is essential for your portal solution to allow you to set permissions on content at a very granular level.

The result of such a flexible system for managing what particular users can and cannot see is that every person who signs on to the portal has a completely different view of the business.  I think that’s why the people who came up with the idea called it a portal instead of a door.  It sounds more magical.  Each person who opens the door goes to a different place.  If it is set up correctly, each person who opens the portal will find an environment that is specifically designed to help them work more efficiently.

Technology is not Enough
No matter how good your portal solution is, if people don’t use it, it is all for naught.  If people can’t figure out how to use your portal within 30 seconds, they will be reluctant to use it at all.  For that reason you should employ the help of design and usability experts to make sure that every corner of your portal is easy to use. 

Aware can help you figure out which information and applications are most important to each of your user groups.  We will then make sure that each user has easy access to the most relevant parts of your portal.  We’ll take all of that info and wrap it up in a nice and pretty bundle that reflects your corporate brand strategy.  Give us a call if you’d like to hear more about how Aware will approach your project.

Companies often need to change the culture of the company in order to focus attention directly on the portal.  This is bound to cause more than a few headaches.  Marketing campaigns are often necessary in order to get all of the users on board.  Changing company procedures and the work habits of your employees and partners will take time, planning and patience.  While much of this work will have to be done internally, Aware’s experience with utilizing technology to support business needs will help you avoid the common pitfalls of such a venture.

How to roll out an enterprise portal could be an article of its own.  Look for more on this in the coming months.  In the mean time, please contact us to learn more about how Aware can help you streamline your business processes.

If you have any comments or questions about any Aware InSites, feel free to contact us at info@awarewebsolutions.com or call 800-783-8919.