Portal: Front Gate, But No Less, Inner Courtyard!

A portal is exactly what its name suggests. A gate. We explain this to anyone who wants to implement a portal in their unit.

The portal does not replace operational systems, CRM, ERP, or any other system. As we hoped, it would be the front gate through which people enter to access knowledge, information, and data scattered throughout the organization.

But what happens? Often, the gate remains deserted. The employees, busy with their work, rush from place to place.

Despite placing the most relevant information, the most important knowledge, and even packaging and organizing it properly - we didn't always succeed in bringing them to us, to the gate, so they would enter.

Of course, we can engage in marketing activities; we must engage in training and implementation. However, a conceptual change is also required.

The portal is necessary. We must continue to build it, organize it so that knowledge is accessible to employees as efficiently as possible, and invest in marketing and training.

However, it should also be considered a back gate, an inner courtyard.

A place that people can reach through other gates. And what will these additional front gates be? Ironically, information systems and forms.

How? Forms and templates describe a work process that accompanies employees and guides them in performing their work correctly and with quality.

These forms and templates are typically built from segments and headers.

Let's take a template for planning a new project as an example: there is a heading about "Risk Management," a heading about "Work Plan," and more.

Each such heading is a front gate to the portal. Next to it, a link can be attached, directing you to the relevant page in the portal.

The Risk Management page, for example, could include procedures and/or instructions on how to perform risk management, articles from around the world on the topic, examples from the organization, lessons from incorrectly performed risk management, and more, all according to context.

Similarly, links can be created from any important screen in the information system, where the guiding principle is relevant referral, not from system to portal, but from a specific screen to its relevant page in the portal.

We are not preventing users from entering the portal as a gate. We continue to persuade, market, and implement. However, the portal is no longer a single gate. We create many entrances and various gates.

The portal continues to be a gateway to information systems, forms, procedures, and templates. However, each of these also becomes a gateway to the relevant page in the portal. Complicated? Not necessarily. Simple idea; simple implementation. The main difference is in the results. You're welcome to try.

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