Client Section

What type of stuff do you guys put in your client sections? (The sites like rounDPIxel which have a passworded login.)

Ahhh one of the great mysteries of life Telemakhos - What do we put in the client section?

Around 4yrs ago I was searching for an answer to the very same question and found answers pretty sparce on the ground. Some of the nice folks over at www.sitepoint.com and their forums came to my rescue (in part) the rest I cobbled together from what I know about my business and its clients.

There are no hard or fast rules really. I have included an ftp facility for clients to upload their files and to gain access to files I want them to look at (ie, work for appro).

You might also want to include a checksheet of work done/work to do. Include an area for the client to include any work requests.

To be honest, only include useful or relevant items, clients have an uncanny knack of wanting to make things as hard as possible at the best of times. It is best not to confuse them or give them too much of an opportunity to snow you under with work or features that baffle them.

Prototype sites are also normally contained in this area as are features that are not yet concrete or still in dev.

The best advice I could give would be to make a client access area with what you envisage the client will need, include a feedback form so that the clients can suggest areas of the site that could be developed for their benefit and refine it over time. It will become obvious over time which features are needed and which may not be.

rounDPIxel has a client area because some of my customers want to see constant updates on their sites. So I upload the stuff I do for them there - and the username/password combination takes them to a directory intended for their use only - it can be anything - for instance one of my customers used that login to read his mail on my domain....I usually make them e-mail accounts for the occasion - then disable the accounts as the work gets finished... some check up on the progresss from work....
but mostly it's mockups of their sites and updates... many customers feel better when you tell them it's a secure area... even though the site they have in the works will sell icecream....what can you say - if it pleases them - it pleases me