A separate Python-made client portal, integrated with Bitrix24 CRM

The possibility of integrations with third-party programs and services is one of the significant advantages of Bitrix24 over other business software. Although most of today's similar products can also exchange data with third-party platforms, Bitrix24 has a wide set of APIs and allows you to create integrations much faster and easier. A lot of ready-made integrations are in the basic Bitrix24 toolset, and many are also available as applications from Bitrix24.Market. But if you need integration, for example, with the site, it will have to be done exclusively custom. In this case, the developers consider the API of Bitrix24 and the desired product and think about how to make the interaction of the two platforms possible.

But there is a better option. After all, if the customer has a specific business idea, then it is possible to develop a solution taking into account all the needs and provide an API for all the necessary processes. This is exactly what happened in the case of development for the company Nexxess from the United States of America. The management of the company, which specializes in financial consulting, has developed its own vision of the most effective business processes and an algorithm for working with clients. A special client portal was best suited for this, where each client can monitor their own assets and view information from the Bitrix24 corporate CRM entities. Previously, Avivi created a client portal solution with an unlimited number of users for on-premise Bitrix24, but due to many features, this approach became impossible for Nexxess. Therefore, together we started the development of a new idea.

Development prerequisites

A separate customer portal is needed in cases where you need to provide your customers with special tools and features that make work easier and should bring additional benefits. In this case, development costs are a kind of investment that will only help your business in the future. A custom solution allows you to plan everything you need and discard the extra, take care of the convenience for users, which will certainly give your company a positive image. After all, all people love and appreciate the attention you give them. Therefore, the client portal is always good for both its owners and visitors.

The Avivi team received a clear technical statement from Nexxess, which outlined the main points of the future project. The main ones were:

●     Each user has his own account where he can manage the services he receives from the company;

●     Users receive information on the status of invoices and can view checks generated by CRM Bitrix24;

●     The company's clients receive information about their own payments, balance and earnings in Nexxess;

●     The portal contains accurate information about the company's products, including educational videos;

●     Implemented a ticket system for solving issues with the Nexxess support service;

●     The general requirement for UI/UX is that everything should be as simple and understandable as possible for the average user.

Taking into account the requirements and purpose of the client portal, Avivi experts created an individual offer taking into account the future expansion of functionality. The option of custom development of a separate client portal site in Python with parallel two-way integration with Bitrix24 became the most cost-effective. Our clients were satisfied with the proposal and the result.

Technical features

This time, the Avivi team did not use their favorite method of on-premise Bitrix24 editor customization, as there was no need for this in this particular case. The client portal became a separate product that exchanges information with Bitrix24 via API, but is not a component of it. This made it possible not to use the usual PHP, but to choose a more flexible and powerful Python to create a backend without additional load on Bitrix24. Avivi developers have extensive experience in Python development for blockchain, so the task has become fast and high-quality.

The Avivi team also provided practical advice on user interface implementation to improve visitor interaction with the portal tools. We have added new filter conditions for easy searching and sorting. Since invoices are an important section for customers, and there can be a lot of invoices themselves, we recommended creating a dynamic allocator that groups records by a specific date. This makes it much easier for users to navigate through a continuous list of records. There is a similar distribution among tasks in the ticket system, although the number of tasks should not be so large. Also, the ability to display 10 records, 20, 50, 100 or all at once has been added to all lists.

If work with invoices is related to CRM, then calls to the support service take place thanks to integration with the Bitrix24 ERP component. Each client request is entered into the system in the form of a new Task, where the "Title" is the topic of the task, the text of the request is a description, and the answers of the support service are comments. So, if for users of the client portal the appeals look like correspondence in a separate section of the site, for Nexxess employees they are ordinary Tasks in Bitrix24. This is a great example of implementing two-way integration.

Since the client portal is necessary to comprehensively inform clients about the state of affairs, we have added notifications for each of the sections in the left menu. In "Invoices", users receive notifications about the number of unpaid bills and the total amount owed; in "Services" — notifications about new services from Nexxess or changes to existing ones. In the "Tickets" section, important notifications include unread responses from the support service or overdue tasks.

Two-way integration of Bitrix24 allows you to configure the exchange of information between the two platforms and make it possible to change information in each of them. The solution from Avivi allowed the customer company to realize the idea of unique business processes and cooperation with customers. A successful choice of technology, in particular Python, will make it possible to scale the client portal in the future and create new integrations with Bitrix24 if necessary. We will be happy to help you create the best solution for your business!