How to build your customer portal

Created by Monica Madan, Modified on Wed, 29 Jul at 5:49 PM by Advaith R

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The Customer Portal helps customers stay connected with their projects. Customers can view project progress, access relevant tasks and documents, communicate with your team, receive notifications, and use self-serve resources such as FAQs and training content.

You can also customize the Customer Portal to match your brand and decide what pages, sections, widgets, and content should be shown to customers.

Create a Customer Portal template

You can create a Customer Portal template from the Templates section and customize its theme, colors, buttons, and fonts.

  1. Go to Templates and open the Customer Portal Templates section.
  2. Click New Customer Portal Template.
  3. Add your website URL so Rocketlane can suggest a theme for your portal.
  4. To edit colors, go to the Colors section, click the + icon, and add your preferred color to the palette.
  5. To edit buttons, click Edit near the button style and customize the primary, secondary, and tertiary buttons.
  6. To edit font styles, click Edit near the style option and customize the font name, size, and style for headings and paragraph text.

Button settings include:

  • Shape: Choose the button shape.
  • Text color: Choose the color of the button text.
  • Button color: Choose the button background color.
  • Outline: Choose the border color and thickness.
  • Font: Choose the font and size used on the button.

Create a theme from Settings

  1. Go to Settings and scroll to the Customer Portal section.
  2. Open Customer Portal Theme, click New Customer Portal Theme, and follow the same theme setup steps.

The navigation bar helps customers move between pages in the Customer Portal. Each page you add to the portal is represented by an icon in the navigation bar.


Default pages in the navigation bar

Rocketlane includes default pages that support customer visibility, communication, and collaboration. These pages cannot be disabled or deleted while customizing the portal.

Accounts Overview

The Accounts Overview page gives customers a complete view of account health, engagements, and projects. Customers can track project progress, review documents, and understand their overall relationship with your team.

Chat page

The Chat page lets customers communicate with team members and collaborate on project-related tasks.

Notifications

Notifications keep customers informed about project and account updates, such as task assignments, document mentions, and other activity. Customers can view notifications from the bell icon in the Customer Portal.

Action items

Action items help customers find items that need their attention, such as pending approvals and customer surveys triggered when milestone tasks are completed.

Project Switcher

If a customer is part of multiple projects, the Project Switcher lets them move between projects and work on project-specific tasks.


Build your portal

Before building a portal, decide what information customers need and how it should be organized. You can create pages for project plans, FAQs, training resources, account reviews, and more.

A good portal structure usually includes:

  1. Required pages: Decide which pages the portal should include, such as a home page, project plan page, FAQ page, or training page.
  2. Sections: Decide what each page should contain. For example, the home page can include a welcome message, task list, resources, and footer.
  3. Widgets: Add widgets such as task lists, FAQs, team members, forms, or project updates to make each section useful.

Pages

Pages help organize the Customer Portal into clear areas, such as Home, Project Plan, FAQs, Training, or Account Review. Customers can navigate these pages like a website.

Sections

Sections help divide each page into focused blocks of content. For example, a page can include a hero section, project tasks, resources, training videos, FAQs, and a footer.


Create pages and add sections

Create the page

  1. Go to Templates and select the Customer Portal template.
  2. Click Create New Portal.
  3. Name the portal.
  4. Click the + icon on the left to create a new page.
  5. Name the page, such as Home Page.
  6. Click Add Sections to start building the page.

Add sections

  1. Open the page you want to edit.
  2. Click the + icon to create a new section.
  3. Choose a widget from the list of available widgets.
  4. Add a title and description for the section.
  5. Use smart fills where needed to personalize content, such as customer names.
  6. Add conditions if the section should only show specific data.

Style sections

You can style sections to match your brand and make the portal easier to read.

  • Customize background colors and spacing.
  • Add dividers and adjust their height or style.
  • Set dynamic conditions for Rocketlane sections to show relevant data.
  • Continue adding more sections, such as Features, Resources, and Footer.
 
NoteYou can add as many pages as needed to match your customers’ needs.

Available sections

Customer Portal sections are grouped into Rocketlane sections and static sections.

Rocketlane sections

SectionDescription
Project PlanShows project phases and tasks. Customers can view progress, overdue tasks, spotlight tasks, and upcoming work.
Project Plan Board ViewShows a phase-wise board view of the project flow, tasks, and assignees.
Project Plan Timeline ViewShows project timelines using a Gantt chart format.
FormsShows forms attached to the project. Customers can access, fill, submit, or edit forms where applicable.
Key InformationShows important project fields and summary information.
All FilesShows project-related files such as contracts, agreements, and other documents.
SpacesProvides access to project documents such as scope documents and SOWs.
Team MembersShows all project team members in one place.
Project UpdatesShows project progress updates that are shared with customers.
Task ListShows project tasks, statuses, deadlines, task views, and ownership details.
Project OverviewShows project progress, milestones, risks, team members, and updates.
Project HoursShows hours allocated and tracked on the project.

Static sections

SectionDescription
FAQAdds frequently asked questions for customers to self-serve.
Hero SectionAdds a prominent top section that highlights key information or offerings.
LogosDisplays logos or icons for partnerships and collaborations.
MetricsDisplays company or project statistics.
FeatureHighlights key features of your product or service.
Image GalleryDisplays project-related images.
ResourcesLinks to external resources such as websites, help centers, or landing pages.
VideosEmbeds product, marketing, or training videos.
CTAAdds call-to-action buttons that link customers to useful pages or resources.
FooterAdds contact details, links, disclaimers, and other footer information.
NoteYou can move sections up or down, duplicate them, and delete sections that are no longer needed.
NoteRocketlane sections are dynamic and populate data based on project information.

Configure a section

Each section includes configuration options based on the section type.

FieldWhat it doesUsed in
TitleAdds a title to the section.Most static sections
DescriptionAdds supporting text for the section.Most static sections
ImageAdds an image to visually support the section.Hero, Feature, Resources, Videos, Image Gallery
MetricsAdds numbers or statistics.Metrics
Buttons and CTAsAdds buttons or links that redirect customers to another page or resource.Feature, Resources, CTA, Videos
Question and AnswerAdds FAQ content.FAQ
Group Title and Link NameOrganizes footer links into groups.Footer, Resources
StylingControls background color, spacing, dividers, divider height, and flip style.All sections

Image dimensions

WidgetDimensionsAspect ratioMax size
Logo100 x 100 px1:120 MB
Hero1800 x 600 px3:120 MB
Feature508 x 338 px3:220 MB
Image288 x 288 px1:120 MB
Resources294 x 200 px3:220 MB
Videos300 x 192 px16:920 MB
Forms74 x 74 px1:120 MB
Team member user photo344 x 290 px6:520 MB

Dynamically add pages to the Customer Portal

You can use conditional rules to decide when certain pages should appear in the Customer Portal.

For example, if you want the project chat page to appear only for projects with fees above a certain amount, you can add that condition. The page will then be excluded from portals that do not meet the condition.


Preview the Customer Portal

You can preview the Customer Portal while building the theme to see how it will appear to customers.

  1. Go to Templates and select the Customer Portal Template.
  2. Choose the template you want to preview.
  3. Click Preview from the top-right corner.
  4. Preview the portal in Mobile, Desktop, or Tablet mode.
  5. Use the upward arrow to scroll through the portal in the selected view.
  6. Click Edit Portal to return to editing mode.

Change the Customer Portal language

Customers can change the portal language from the language icon at the top-right corner of the Customer Portal. By default, the portal language is picked from the customer’s browser language preference.

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