Services · Technology
Portals
We build and maintain web portals with user logins for customers, suppliers, employees or readers: integrations, roles, security and ongoing operation.
A web portal is a site with user logins that brings together, in one place, the information, transactions and tools a specific audience needs: customers, suppliers, employees or readers. At AVILA®, a technology and business consulting firm based in Monterrey, Mexico, we build and maintain portals for companies and institutions, along with every portal in AVILAPRO Group.
What is a portal and how is it different from a website?
A website informs any visitor. A portal also knows who's logged in: it shows them their own information, lets them complete transactions and grants access based on their role. That's why it combines three things: content, users with permissions and integrations with the organization's systems. If you only need to present your company, what you're after is a website; if your audiences need to do something with their data, you need a portal.
What kinds of portals we build
Customer portal: order status, invoices, documents, service tickets, quotes and downloads, using information that already lives in your ERP or CRM.
Supplier portal: onboarding and data updates, invoice and document uploads, payment and purchase order lookups.
Employee or HR portal: announcements, policies, pay stubs, time-off and leave requests, training and a directory. See also quoting tools and internal systems.
Collaboration portal: shared spaces for teams across companies or countries to exchange documents, handle contingencies and track follow-up.
News or topic portal: frequent publishing by section, with authors, editors and an approval workflow.
Sponsored portal: a topic portal funded by one or more brands, with sponsor placements and exposure tracking.
Who builds the portal and who runs it?
Within AVILAPRO Group we keep technology separate from content operations:
AVILA® builds and maintains every portal: architecture, development, users and roles, integrations, hosting, security, backups and updates.
tresensocial runs the presence portals for its clients: content, publishing and communication, as part of digital presence.
octopus1501 runs sponsored, topic and news portals: editorial direction, publishing and sponsor relationships.
If your organization runs its own portal, as is common with customer, supplier or employee portals, we hand administration to your team and keep the technical side.
What a portal includes
Users, roles and permissions
Each person sees only what applies to them. We define roles (administrator, editor, customer, supplier, employee) and permissions by section and by data, with secure sign-in and, where it makes sense, sign-in with Microsoft or Google accounts and two-factor authentication.
Integrations
A portal shouldn't become another data silo. We connect it to your ERP, CRM, payroll system, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, payment gateways or email, through their APIs or scheduled file exchanges.
Manageable content
Your team publishes announcements, documents and news from a dashboard, with a draft, review and publish workflow.
Audit log and isolation
A record of who did what and when. In portals that serve several companies, each company's data is kept separate.
Maintenance
Security updates, backups, monitoring and adjustments. A portal is a living system: its value depends on it working every day.
How we work
Assessment. Which audiences log in, what each needs to do, which systems it connects to and who will run the content.
Design. Portal map, roles and permissions, data model and prototypes of the main screens.
Iterative build. Complete features reviewed in a test environment with real users.
Integration and migration. Connection to your systems and loading of existing users, documents and content.
Launch. Training for administrators and editors, and support through go-live.
Ongoing operation. With a support plan, the portal stays up to date, secure and backed up.
Experience behind the service
In 2010 we built a collaboration, contingency and crisis management system for a steel company, using the MoProSoft methodology. Today we run Transfers, a file-sharing portal for AVILAPRO Group companies and their clients, with accounts issued by each company's administrator, an audit log, isolation between companies and automatic file deletion; see tools for clients. We also build and maintain the portals run by tresensocial and octopus1501. For broader internal systems, see custom software.
Benefits
- One place where customers, suppliers or employees get things done without back-and-forth calls and emails.
- Information pulled from your systems, with no double data entry.
- Each user sees only what applies to them, with an audit log of every action.
- A technical team that builds and maintains, plus specialized content operators when you need them.
- Security, backups and ongoing updates under a support plan.
- A portal that grows in iterations as its users ask for more.
Frequently asked questions
What is a web portal?
It's a site with user logins that brings together information, transactions and tools for a specific audience: customers, suppliers, employees or readers. Unlike an informational website, a portal recognizes who's logged in, shows them their own data, grants permissions based on their role and is usually connected to the organization's systems.
What's the difference between a portal and an intranet?
An intranet is a portal for employees, usually for internal access. A portal can also serve external audiences such as customers or suppliers. The technology is similar; what changes are the users, the security and the integrations. Many organizations run their intranet on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint and build external portals custom.
Can you integrate the portal with our ERP?
Yes. We connect portals to ERPs, CRMs, payroll, Microsoft 365, SharePoint and payment gateways through their APIs or scheduled file exchanges. During the assessment we define which data is read and which is written, so the portal shows reliable information without putting your main system at risk.
Who publishes the portal's content?
It depends on the portal. For customer, supplier or employee portals, your own team publishes from a dashboard. A presence portal can be run by tresensocial; sponsored, topic and news portals are run by octopus1501. AVILA® always keeps the technical side.
How much does a portal cost?
It depends on the audiences, the number of features, the integrations and whether content or users need to be migrated. We start with an assessment that ends in a written scope and a phased proposal, so you know what you'll get at each stage. You can request that assessment through our contact page.
How secure is a portal with customer data?
We design it with security from the start: encrypted connections, protected passwords, two-factor authentication where it makes sense, role-based permissions, an audit log and backups. Personal data is handled under Mexico's Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties, with a privacy notice and controlled deletion.
What maintenance does a portal need?
Security updates for the server and components, verified backups, uptime monitoring, help for administrators and adjustments when your processes or systems change. We cover it with a support and security plan, and new features are added in iterations.
Case studies with this service
Building materials · 2025
A web portal and catalog CMS for a ceramic tile manufacturer
A ceramic tile manufacturer runs a web portal developed by AVILA®, with a CMS designed to manage its product catalog, update it in high volume, and serve architects and specifiers.