Working with others
When your client uses their own platform
Uploading the same thing to five different places, and how to stop duplicating.
You work for five large clients and each has their own portal. All five ask for the same things — insurance, tax clearance, your people's training — and it has to be uploaded five times, with five different renewal calendars nobody keeps together.
What to separate
| What | Where it lives | Who maintains it |
|---|---|---|
| Your actual documentation | Your case, once | You |
| The copy on client A's portal | Their portal | You, uploading it |
| The copy on client B's portal | Their portal | You, again |
Important
The mistake is treating the client's portal as where your documentation lives. It lives in yours; portals are copies, and when something is renewed all of them must be updated. If the original lives in five places, there is no original.
How to stop duplicating the work
- 1
One single case of your own
With the good version of each document and its expiry marked.
- 2
A list of where copies exist
Which client's portal holds which document. Without that list, renewal always gets forgotten somewhere.
- 3
On renewal, update all of them
That is when it gets done, not when a client tells you something has lapsed.
Watch out
An expired document on a client's portal can block your site access or your invoice, even if yours is current. For that client, the truth is what is on their portal.
If the portal allows it
Some clients accept a verification link instead of a copy. It is the best of both: they check on the spot and you stop maintaining copies. Ask: it is granted more often than it is requested.
Worth knowing
If an agent can log into that portal to upload the documentation, this is one of the tasks where it pays off most — mechanical, repetitive and verifiable.
›Can I give the client access instead of uploading?
It depends on their policy; worth asking.
›What if each portal wants a different format?
Keep the original and adapt copies; never the reverse.
›How many portals are too many?
Past three, without a list of where copies exist you will forget one.
A real case
The situation
A subcontractor renews its insurance and three weeks later a client blocks its site access.
What you do
- Keeps its own case with a list of portals holding copies
- On renewal, updates all five
What you get
Stops discovering through blocked access that one was forgotten.
The situation
Five clients each have their own portal and the team maintains the same documentation in six places.
What you do
- Keeps a single current file of your own
- Uploads to each portal from there, not from loose folders
- Records what was uploaded to each and when
What you get
Renewal happens once and gets replicated, instead of being repeated five times in different versions.
The situation
A document is renewed and updated in only three portals.
What you do
- Checks which clients it must be replicated to
What you get
No client is left holding the old version.
The situation
Each portal asks for the same document under another name.
What you do
- Keeps the original and adapts on upload
What you get
The underlying work happens once.
The situation
The client's portal rejects the document without saying why.
What you do
- Asks the specific reason before re-uploading
What you get
The second attempt is aimed.
The situation
Nobody knows what expires in which portal.
What you do
- Records expiries in your own file
What you get
One warning covers every portal.
The situation
The client changes portal and everything starts from zero.
What you do
- Keeps your own file independent of the portal
What you get
The client's change does not cost you the history.
The situation
Two people upload different things to the same portal.
What you do
- Assigns an owner per client
What you get
The portal receives a coherent version.
This article answers
- my client requires me to use their platform
- uploading documents to several portals
- every client has their own system
- duplicating documentation for clients