Client portal for architects and interior designers
A practice has a different problem from a contractor. You are usually the one chasing information, issuing revisions and carrying the risk when somebody builds off the wrong one. A portal helps with two of those three: it gives you one place the current file lives and one place the conversation happens. It does not, on its own, give you revision control.
What actually goes wrong between design and site?
Information moves through too many channels. A revision goes out by email, a query comes back on WhatsApp, a decision gets made on a call, and none of the three is attached to the drawing they concern. Six weeks later nobody can reconstruct why something was built the way it was.
The commercial risk sits with the practice more often than the paperwork suggests. If someone builds off a superseded drawing, the argument about who issued what and when is one you need evidence for, not recollection.
What should a portal do for a practice?
Less than the marketing usually claims. Realistically it should hold the current file where everyone looks, keep the conversation attached to the work rather than in an inbox, and record what happened and when.
- One place the live file sits, so nobody works from an email attachment
- Access set per category, so the client sees deliverables and not working files
- Discussion attached to the document rather than in a chat thread
- A record of who uploaded, changed or removed something, and when
- A way to send a deliverable to someone who will never log in
Does Portal Worx do drawing revision control?
No. There is no version history, no check-in and check-out, no superseded-revision trail and no markup on drawings. If your practice needs to demonstrate which revision was live on a given date, you need a common data environment built for that, and this is not one.
What it does give you is a single current copy in a category with a defined audience, and an activity trail recording every upload, replacement and deletion with the person and the time, kept for a year. That is weaker than revision control and considerably stronger than an email chain.
How does it help a practice anyway?
Three ways, in order of how much they matter. Per-category access means your client sees the deliverables and not the working files, on the same project, without you maintaining a second folder somewhere. Threaded messaging is membership-gated, so a conversation with the contractor does not have to include the client. And document reminders chase outstanding information on a schedule rather than by you remembering.
Reports are the other piece. Eleven block types including captioned photos and on-screen signatures, conditional logic that shows or hides sections based on answers, and a PDF export carrying your logo. Site visit reports and condition surveys come out of it looking like something you would put in front of a client.
Where is it the wrong answer?
No revision control, no markup, no BIM or model handling, no drawing comparison. No time recording against a project, no fee tracking and no invoicing, which several practice management tools do and this deliberately does not.
It is also browser-only with no offline mode. Fine in an office and on a site with signal, useless without one.
Common questions
- Does it replace practice management software?
- No. There is no time recording, fee tracking, resourcing or invoicing. It covers documents, photos, reports, messaging and the activity trail for the project side.
- Can the client be kept away from working files?
- Yes. Each document category and photo folder carries its own audience, so deliverables and working files can sit in the same project with the client seeing only one.
- Does it handle drawing revisions?
- No. There is no version history, check-in and check-out, superseded-revision trail or markup. Replacing a file replaces it, with the change recorded in the activity trail.
- Can contractors and clients be kept in separate conversations?
- Yes. Message threads are membership-gated, so being in the thread is what grants access. Clients and collaborators also cannot see each other at all.
- Are site visit reports any good?
- They are the strongest feature. Eleven block types including captioned photos and on-screen signatures, conditional logic, and a PDF export carrying your logo.
Related
What else Portal Worx does
This page covers one part of it. Portal Worx is a full project workspace: projects holding your documents and site photos, reports with conditional logic and captioned photos that export to a logo-stamped PDF, threaded messaging where being in the thread is what grants access, a year-long activity trail, and AI that catches you up on where a job stands without ever seeing more than you can.
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