Project Portal
Share curated project content with your end-customers through a secure, branded, per-project portal
The Project Portal turns any project into a secure, customer-facing collaboration site. Instead of emailing status updates, exporting specs, or chasing feedback across inboxes, you publish exactly what you want your customer to see — and they log in to a branded portal to follow progress, comment, upload documents, and request changes.
The portal is per-project, fully curated (nothing is visible until you choose to share it), and password-protected for invited external users. You manage everything from the Project Portal tab on the project; your customers access it through a separate public link.
Engagement in action: A delivery lead enables the portal on the "Acme Corp Cloud Migration" project, shares the project overview and three approved specs, invites two stakeholders at Acme, and turns on customer comments. Acme logs in, reviews the specs, requests a change on one of them, and uploads a network diagram — all without a single email thread, and the delivery team is notified automatically.
Who Is This For?
Internal team (project owners/editors)
Enable the portal, curate what's visible, invite customers, review uploads, send updates, and audit activity
External end-customers (portal users)
Log in with email + password to view shared content, comment, upload documents, and request changes
Key Benefits
Curated by default
Nothing is shared until you explicitly enable it — overview, specs, threads, and more
You control exactly what the customer sees
Branded & secure
A dedicated portal URL with per-project, password-protected access
A professional, trustworthy customer experience
Two-way collaboration
Customers comment on threads, request changes, and upload documents for review
Feedback and assets land in one place
Stay in the loop
Your team is notified on comments, uploads, and change requests
Nothing from the customer slips through
Controlled uploads
Customer files land in a review queue before being added to the knowledge base
Vet incoming content before it's indexed
Audit & compliance
Every portal action is logged, with export and data-management controls
Transparency and accountability for the engagement
How the Portal Works
Enable Portal
An editor turns on the portal for the project, which generates a unique, shareable portal link
Curate Content
Choose what to share — project overview, specs, discussion threads, sidebar details, links, and app
Invite Customers
Add external users by name and email; they receive an invite with the portal link and a temp password
Customer Collaborates
Customers log in to view content, comment, upload documents, and request changes
Team Notified
Comments, uploads, and change requests notify project owners and admins via email (and mobile push)
Enabling the Portal
The portal is managed from the Project Portal tab on the project detail page. The tab is available to project editors and owners when your plan includes the Customer Portal feature.
Open the Project Portal tab From the project, open the Project Portal tab.
Enable the portal Click Enable Project Portal. DarcyIQ generates a unique portal link for the project and sets the portal to Active.
Curate what's visible Use the Settings sub-tab to choose which parts of the project to share (see below). Changes save automatically.
Invite your customers Add external users by name and email. Each receives an invite email containing the portal link and a temporary password.
You can pause the portal at any time — paused portals block customer logins with a friendly message — and resume it later. Use the copy/open link controls to grab the portal URL to share manually.
Nothing is shared until you say so. When you first enable the portal, customers see only the project name and description. Every other section — specs, threads, sidebar details, links, and the app — stays hidden until you turn it on.
Curating What Customers See
The Settings sub-tab controls visibility. Each toggle maps to a specific part of the project:
Share Project Overview
The project definition (optionally limited to specific sections)
Project Specs Curation
All specs, or hand-pick individual specs to publish
Share Discussion Threads
Publish your team's discussion threads to the portal
Allow Customer Comments
Let portal users post comments and replies on shared threads
Share Project Details
Sidebar metadata such as client name and start/end dates
Share Project Links
The project's external links panel
Share Project App
A read-only view of the linked project app
What stays private
Even with the portal enabled, the following is never exposed unless you explicitly share it:
Internal team threads (unless Share Discussion Threads is on, or a customer is in their own thread)
Other customers' change requests and private threads
Tasks, meetings, development logs, and internal knowledge base files
Internal file paths on uploads and full internal user profiles (staff appear by name or simply as "Staff")
What Your Customers Can Do
Once logged in, portal users see a clean, branded view of the project organized into tabs:
Overview
Read the project description and shared definition; select text to request a change
Project Specs
Read shared specs and request changes on any of them
Threads
Read published threads and their own posts; comment and reply when comments are allowed
Upload Docs
Upload documents (PDF, TXT, MD up to 10 MB) and track each file's review status
App
View a read-only version of the project app, when shared
Customers can also open the notification settings (bell icon) to control which emails they receive and how often.
Change requests are private. When a customer requests a change on the overview or a spec, it's captured as an internal request for your team — it isn't visible to other portal users.
Inviting and Managing Portal Users
External users authenticate with email and password, scoped to a single project — they do not use your organization's staff login.
Invite flow
From Portal Management → Settings, add a user by name and email.
DarcyIQ generates a temporary password and emails the user the portal link. The temporary password is sent in the email — never embedded in the URL.
On first login, the user enters the temporary password and chooses a new one. The temporary password expires after 24 hours.
Passwords must be at least 8 characters with one uppercase letter and one number.
Managing access
Revoke access
Immediately blocks the user from logging in
Reset password
Issues a new temporary password and re-sends the invite
Pause portal
Blocks all customer logins for the project until you resume
Uploads & Review Queue
When customers upload documents, the files don't go straight into your project. They land in a review queue on the Uploads sub-tab, where your team can:
Accept — adds the file to the project knowledge base so it's searchable in Darcy Chat
Decline — removes the staged file
Uploads are limited to PDF, TXT, and Markdown files (up to 10 MB each, 10 files per request). Customers can see the status of their own uploads (pending, accepted, declined) and download files once accepted.
Notifications
The portal keeps both sides informed without manual follow-up.
Your team is notified when a customer:
Posts a comment or reply
Project owners and users with project admin access
Uploads documents
Project owners and users with project admin access
Requests a change
Project owners and users with project admin access
Notifications are delivered by email (with a link to the project) and, when enabled, mobile push.
Customers are notified about:
Their invite and any password reset
New published thread posts and replies they can see
Spec status changes on specs they can see
Manual broadcasts you send from the portal
A daily or weekly digest, depending on their preference
A master switch lets a project owner disable all customer emails for the portal, and project owners can send a manual "Notify portal users" broadcast at any time. Every customer email includes a one-click unsubscribe.
Audit & Compliance
The Audit Logs sub-tab records portal activity — logins, views, comments, uploads, change requests, and more — so you have a complete trail of what was shared and when. From here you can export logs, configure retention, and run data export or deletion for compliance needs.
Best Practices
Share approved content only
Publish specs once they reach Approved, and review the project overview before sharing it
Start with comments off
Enable customer comments deliberately, once you're ready for two-way discussion
Review uploads promptly
Keep the upload queue clear so customer files make it into the knowledge base quickly
Use broadcasts for milestones
Send a manual notification when you publish a major update so customers know to log in
Re-check visibility after changes
When you add new specs or threads, confirm your curation toggles still reflect what you intend
Pause between phases
Pause the portal during quiet periods or internal rework, then resume when there's something to share
Pro Tip: Pair the portal with the Weekly Status Report automation. Generate the report internally, refine it, then publish a clean summary thread to the portal so customers always have a current view of progress.
Next Steps
Create and refine the content you'll share
Manage discussion threads
Control who on your team can manage the portal
Manage access with groups
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