Partner and Dealer Portal Development

What partners and dealers actually need from a portal

Channel businesses come in different shapes. A window manufacturer sells through independent dealers who also install. A security hardware maker works with integrators who design systems for each site. A software company runs referral partners, resellers and implementation firms at the same time. Each group logs in for different reasons, and a portal built for one usually frustrates the others.

Tepia starts by listing the jobs partners do every week. In most programs those are:

• Register a deal and find out quickly whether it is protected.
• Pick up leads the manufacturer passes along and report what happened.
• Check stock, place orders and see shipment status without emailing inside sales.
• File warranty claims and register installed products by serial number.
• Complete training so installers stay certified.
• Download current brochures, spec sheets and co branded marketing material.

If your channel team spends its day answering those requests by phone and email, the portal is not a nice extra. It is the operating system of the channel, and Tepia designs it that way.

Partner portal features by role

Tepia scopes features around the people who use them, because a dealer principal, a counter salesperson and a field installer look for very different things.

Tepia usually ships the first release with registration, leads and ordering, then adds claims, training and scorecards once partners are logging in every week.

Deal registration, lead routing and channel conflict

The hardest part of a partner portal is not the screens. It is the rules that decide who owns an opportunity. Tepia works through them with your channel leadership before design starts:

• Protection window: how long a registration holds, and whether activity extends it.
• Conflict checks: matching on company domain, address and project name so duplicate registrations are flagged rather than approved twice.
• Territory and tier: whether a partner may register outside its region, and whether higher tiers get first claim.
• Lead acceptance: how many hours a dealer has to accept a lead before it moves to the next eligible partner.
• Direct sales overlap: what happens when your own reps already work the account.

Tepia encodes these as configurable rules your channel team can adjust without a release, and logs every decision so disputes are settled with facts. For lead routing logic shared with internal sales, see our CRM integration and automation work.

Integrations behind a partner portal

A portal that keeps its own copy of everything goes stale within a month. Tepia connects it to the systems that already hold the truth.

• CRM: approved registrations become opportunities in Salesforce, HubSpot or Dynamics 365, and stage changes flow back to the partner.
• ERP: catalog, availability, orders, shipments and credit status come from NetSuite, Business Central or your existing system. See NetSuite integration.
• Identity: single sign on for partners who use Microsoft or Google accounts, with partner admins inviting and removing their own staff.
• Documents: spec sheets and training files served from a managed library with version history.
• Messaging: Twilio and SendGrid notices for new leads, approvals and shipment updates.

Tepia has built role based admin portals alongside mobile apps before, including the iOS, Android and admin portal for Maximum Controls, where installers and property managers each need different access to the same gate and IoT data. Many partner portals also need a field app for installers, which our B2B mobile app development team builds on the same backend.

How Tepia approaches partner portal development

Tepia’s six phase process fits channel programs well because partners must be involved early. A US based project manager runs the plan with your channel and IT leads.

1. Discovery: interviews with three to five partners of different sizes, your channel managers and inside sales, plus a review of current registration and claim forms. Deliverables are an Investigation Summary, an Interview Summary and User Stories such as an installer registering a product at the job site.
2. Design: a design questionnaire, moodboards matched to your brand, a style guide and wireframes for registration, ordering and claims, tested with partners.
3. Development and Testing: an Alpha with your channel team and a Beta with a pilot group of partners, with test plans for permissions, conflict rules and ERP sync.
4. Training: recorded and live sessions for partner admins, who then onboard their own staff.
5. Launch: migration of partner accounts and open registrations, a tiered rollout by region, and support reps answering partner questions.
6. Support: bug tracking and new features such as scorecards or a partner mobile app.

Discovery typically takes 1 to 3 months, development and QA 2 to 6 months, and launch about a month. Read more about our process.

Off the shelf PRM or a custom portal

Packaged partner relationship management tools and CRM portal add ons work well for software companies with standard referral and resale programs. If your partners mostly register deals and download content, Tepia will tell you to start there.

Custom wins when the portal must handle ordering against ERP data, serialized warranty claims, installer certification that gates what partners can sell, or a mix of partner types with different rules. It also wins when you want the portal to feel like your brand and to grow into a mobile app for dealers and crews. Compare the paths in build or buy software, see related vendor portal development, and talk to Tepia about your channel.

Frequently asked questions