How to build a client portal with monday.com for your agency

Learn how to build a branded agency client portal connected to monday.com, where clients can track projects, approve deliverables, contact their team, and access account information and contracts.

Use the navigation below to quickly jump to your desired section and learn more about each topic.

Agencies often manage client projects, deadlines, deliverables, contacts, and documents in monday.com. The challenge begins when clients need access to selected information without being invited into the agency’s internal monday.com workspace or relying on manual status updates by email.

In this guide, we build a branded monday.com client portal for a fictional agency called Nexus Studio. The portal is connected directly to its monday.com boards and gives every client a personalized place to track projects, review deliverables, approve work, contact their assigned team, and access account documents. Watch the complete setup in the video below, or continue reading for an overview of how the portal is structured.

Explore the finished agency portal

Want to see the result from the client’s perspective? Sign in to the Nexus Studio demo portal to explore the Dashboard, projects, assigned team members, account information, and contracts.

Final result

What we are building

Nexus Studio manages several clients through the same monday.com workspace. For this example, we preview the finished portal as Sarah Mitchell from their Northbridge Properties client. The portal contains four pages.

Dashboard

The Dashboard focuses on information that requires immediate attention. Sarah can see projects waiting for her approval, review the related deliverables, check upcoming projects, and use teaser sections to navigate to the other portal pages.

Projects

The Projects page shows work that is currently in progress and projects that have already been completed. Each section only displays information that is useful to the client, such as progress, status, assigned team members, and due dates.

Team

The Team page introduces the Nexus Studio team members assigned to Northbridge Properties. Each profile includes a photo, name, position, short description, and an option to leave a message directly on the related monday.com item.

Account

The Account page combines company information with important client documents. Sarah can review her primary contact details, country, account manager, Service Agreement, Statement of Work, and Data Processing Agreement.

Did you know?

Although Nexus Studio manages multiple clients through the same boards, Sarah only sees the projects, team members, and account information connected to Northbridge Properties.

Workspace

The monday.com boards behind the portal

The example workspace uses three main boards. The Clients board manages all clients in a single board, the Projects board manages project tasks internally and to share selected information with clients, and the Team board keeps all relevant member information.

Clients Board

The Clients Board is the central foundation of the portal. Each item represents one unique client. For Nexus Studio, the board contains information such as: Client name, Account manager, Primary contact, Contact email, Country, Contracts and agreements.

The client item is also where portal access and login methods are managed. Client Portal Builder uses this board to identify each client and control which connected information they can access.

Projects Board

The Projects Board represents the complete agency project pipeline. Projects are organized into the following groups: Upcoming, In progress, Client review, and Completed. The board also contains the internal columns required to manage the work.

Not every internal column needs to be shown in the portal. Nexus Studio can continue using the full board internally while selecting only the information that is relevant to clients. Because the board contains projects for several different clients, the setup uses the board source option to show selected items to specific clients only.

Team Board

The Team Board contains all Nexus Studio team members. Each item includes: Name, Position, Short client focused description, an Email address, and a Profile photo.

The relevant team members are connected to each client. This allows the portal to display a personalized team directory instead of showing the agency’s entire staff.

Portal setup

Create the portal structure

The portal is built through the Client Portal Builder board view next to the Clients Board. In the video, four empty portal pages have already been created: Dashboard, Projects, Team, and Account. Portal pages define the main navigation. Each page can contain several content sections, including board tables, board grids, client information, text, callouts, teasers, and embedded content.

Build the client Dashboard

We start with the Dashboard because it contains the most important client workflow: Viewing and interacting with projects that are waiting for client approval, and all related upcoming projects in the next weeks.

Show projects waiting for approval

The first section is a Board Table connected to the Projects Board. Since the Projects Board contains work for multiple clients, we choose the option to show selected items to specific clients. The setup creates a connection between the Projects Board and the Clients Board.

Section headline

We then add the client facing headline Waiting for your approval to let the client know what they see and what action they may need to take on the displayed information and data.
Filter board items

A filter limits the section to projects inside the Client review group. Board filters can be used to show only items that match specific conditions, helping clients focus on what is relevant.
Column visibility

For this section, we make the following columns visible so the client can only see what they have to with this section: Project name, Progress, Deliverables, Status, and Due date.
Client communication

Item comments are also enabled for the section. This allows the client and the Nexus Studio team to discuss feedback directly on the relevant project instead of moving the conversation into a separate email thread. Comments and shared files remain connected to the individual monday.com item.
Client approval

An action button called Approve is added to each project in the section. The button uses the Action ID approve. On the Projects Board, a monday.com automation listens for that action ID and changes the project status to Approved when the client clicks the button. Action buttons allow clients to trigger predefined monday.com automations directly from portal items. Each button uses a unique action ID that connects the portal action to the automation on the board.

Show upcoming projects

The approval section is duplicated to create the next section for the upcoming projects. Because both sections use the same Projects Board, only a few settings need to change. We keep the Item comments enabled, but remove the Action buttons and follow with these adjustments.

Section headline

The headline becomes Upcoming projects.
Filter board items

The filter is changes from Client review to Upcoming.
Column visibility

The visible columns are reduced to: Project name, Status, Due date, and Kickoff date. This gives clients an early view of planned work without exposing unnecessary internal planning details.

Add links to the other pages

A Teaser section is added with three links to complete the Dashboard. They link to the Projects, Team and Account pages. These teasers give clients a quick overview of the relevant portal areas and provide a visual way to continue navigating.

Connecting clients to projects

The Connect Boards column on the Projects Board links each project to the correct item on the Clients Board. Each client then only sees the project items connected to them.

Add the Projects page

The Projects page follows the same setup as the Dashboard tables. Instead of creating another board setup, we duplicate the existing Upcoming projects board section on the Dashboard and move it to the Projects page. Then the headline, filters and column visibility can be adjusted.

Projects in progress

This section is filtered to the In progress group and displays: Project name, Assigned team, Progress, Status, and Due date. Clients can quickly understand what the agency is currently working on, who is involved, and when each project is expected to be completed.

Completed projects

The second section is filtered to the Completed group and column visibility is simplified to the relevant columns. This creates a simple archive of finished work without requiring Nexus Studio to move completed projects to a separate client facing monday.com board.

Did you know?

The agency continues managing the complete project pipeline in one monday.com board. The portal simply presents different filtered views of the same information from one source of truth.

Add the Team page

The Team page uses a Board Grid section connected to the Team Board. As with the Projects Board, the team members are linked to specific clients. For Northbridge Properties, the relevant Nexus Studio team members are selected through the Connect Boards column.

Each card displays a Profile photo, Name, Position, and a Short description. The result is a personalized team directory showing only the people involved with the current client. Enabling item comments also gives clients a direct way to leave a message for a specific team member while keeping the communication connected to monday.com.

Add the Account page

The information on the Account page is already stored directly on the client item. For this reason, we use Client Item sections instead of connecting another board. The Client Item section uses the signed in client’s own item from the Clients Board as its data source.

Contracts

The company information section is duplicated and the headline is renamed to Contracts. All previously selected columns are removed and replaced with Service Agreement, Statement of Work and Data Processing Agreement. This gives each client a central place to access the documents stored on their item without searching through emails or shared folders.

Customize and publish the portal

Once the portal content is complete, the final step is to adjust its presentation and settings. For Nexus Studio, we rename the portal to Nexus Portal, select a theme preset, adjust the brand colors, and upload the agency logo.

The portal settings also provide options for areas such as custom domains and Google authentication. The Theme and Settings areas are managed alongside the Builder inside the main Client Portal Builder view. The preview is then used to review the Dashboard, Projects, Team, and Account pages before publishing.

Did you know?

Publishing makes the portal available online, but it does not automatically grant access to every client. Login methods on behalf of each client on the Clients Board provide an authentication and access layer to the portal.

Create client access

After publishing, we return to the Clients Board and open the Northbridge Properties item. Inside the Client Settings view, we enable the client, create a credentials login method, generate a password, and save the login method.

Sarah can now sign in and access the personalized Northbridge Properties portal. Publishing the portal and enabling an individual client are separate steps. This gives the agency control over when each client receives access.

Conclusion

What this setup gives Nexus Studio

Nexus Studio can continue managing clients, projects, team members, files, and workflows inside monday.com. The client receives a simpler experience that includes only the information connected to their account. With this setup, the agency gets:

One portal configuration for multiple clients
Personalized projects and documents for every client
Approvals connected directly to monday.com automations
Contextual project communication through item comments
A central place for project progress, team contacts, and contracts
Full control over client access and visible information

There is no need to recreate the same project information in a separate portal system. The portal uses the boards that the agency already works with.

Do clients need access to the agency’s monday.com workspace?

No. Clients sign in to the published portal and do not need to be invited into the agency’s internal monday.com workspace.
Can every client see different projects and information?

Yes. Board connections and portal logic determine which projects, team members, documents, and account information are shown to each signed in client.
Can clients approve projects through the portal?

Yes. Action buttons can trigger monday.com automations, such as changing a project status to Approved after a client reviews a deliverable.
Can the portal use the agency’s branding?

Yes. The portal can be customized with a name, colors, logo, and other theme settings. A custom domain can also be connected through the portal settings.

Build your own agency client portal

Client Portal Builder lets you turn your monday.com boards into personalized portals for clients, customers, partners, vendors, and other external users. Try Client Portal Builder free for 14 days, explore the documentation, or follow the getting started guide to create your first portal.