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Portals

Create focused AI experiences for different teams and audiences using dedicated portal websites with custom apps, access control, and branding

Portals let you package ChatBotKit apps into dedicated experiences for specific groups of users. Instead of giving everyone access to everything, you can create purpose-built spaces for support, operations, sales, or internal teams - each with its own URL, branding, and set of capabilities.

What Portals Are

A portal is a standalone workspace where selected users can access selected apps with a custom experience. Each portal gets a unique slug that becomes its live URL at {slug}.chatbotkit.agency. Portals are fully isolated from each other - different portals can expose different apps to different users with different branding, all under a single ChatBotKit account.

Every portal is defined by:

  • Name and Description: A recognizable label and summary for your portal
  • Slug: The unique identifier that forms the portal URL
  • Apps: Which applications are available to portal users
  • Users: Who is allowed to access the portal
  • Layout: How the portal looks and feels (header, footer, sidebar)

Available Apps

Portals can include any combination of these applications:

  • Chat: Conversational AI interface where users interact with your bots. You can specify which bots are available, set starter messages, customize the title, and enable model selection or knowledge sources.
  • Task: Task management for scheduling and running automated AI agent actions on behalf of contacts.
  • Connect: Contact management for managing and interacting with contacts directly.
  • Inbox: Conversation review dashboard for monitoring, filtering, and managing conversations. Supports filter controls for integration, safety, and console conversations.
  • Usage: Usage analytics and reporting dashboard for tracking platform consumption and activity.

If you only need chat, enable just that. If your team needs full operational visibility, enable inbox, usage, and task together. The combination is entirely up to you.

Configuring Apps

Each app can be toggled on or off, and some apps accept additional configuration to tailor their behavior within the portal.

Chat Configuration

The chat app has the richest set of options:

  • Bots: Select specific bots to make available in the portal. Users will be able to start conversations with any of the listed bots.
  • Initial Messages: Define suggested starter prompts that appear when a user opens a new chat. For example: "@bot welcome" or "Help me with onboarding".
  • Title and Description: Customize the chat heading and description shown to portal users.
  • Models: Enable or disable the ability for users to select different AI models.
  • Sources: Control which knowledge sources are available - datasets, skillsets, spaces, MCPs, web search, and creative mode.
  • Save: Allow users to save their conversation history.

Inbox Configuration

The inbox app lets you control which conversation filters are visible:

  • Integration Filter: Show or hide conversations from integrations (e.g., Slack, WhatsApp)
  • Safety Filter: Show or hide conversations flagged by safety moderation
  • Console Filter: Show or hide conversations from the developer console

This is useful for creating focused review portals - for example, a safety review portal that only shows moderation-flagged conversations, or a support portal that only shows integration conversations.

Controlling User Access

The users section determines who can sign into your portal. Access is controlled through email matchers - patterns that match against the email address a user signs in with.

You can use two types of matchers:

  • Exact email: admin@company.com - grants access to one specific person
  • Domain wildcard: *@company.com - grants access to anyone with that email domain

Add one matcher per line. For example, to allow your entire company plus a specific external collaborator:

  • *@company.com
  • contractor@partner.io

Users who do not match any pattern will be denied access when they try to sign in.

Customizing Layout and Branding

The layout section lets you shape the portal's visual presentation so it feels like your own product.

Toggle the top header bar on or off. Useful for embedding portals where you want a cleaner look.

  • Made With Branding: Show or hide the "Made with ChatBotKit" badge
  • Privacy Policy: Add a link to your privacy policy
  • Terms of Service: Add a link to your terms of service
  • Title: The name displayed at the top of the sidebar navigation
  • Logo: A logo image URL shown in the sidebar
  • Icon: A smaller icon image for compact views
  • Link: Where the sidebar title/logo links to when clicked

Together, these options let you white-label the portal experience for your team or customers.

Common Use Cases

Customer Support Portal Give your support team a dedicated inbox with integration conversation filters enabled, so they see exactly the conversations coming from your live channels.

Safety Review Portal Create a focused portal for your trust and safety team with only the inbox app, filtered to show safety-flagged conversations.

Developer Portal Set up a portal with inbox (all filters visible) and usage analytics so your engineering team can debug and monitor bot activity.

Team Chat Portal Build a chat-only portal with a curated set of expert bots, starter prompts, and a custom title - perfect for onboarding a department to AI assistants.

All-in-One Internal Portal Create a broader portal for internal users who need access to chat, inbox, task management, and usage reporting in one place.

Portal Templates

When creating a new portal, you can start from a built-in template that pre-configures the apps and settings for common scenarios:

  • Chat Portal: A simple portal with just the chat application
  • Customer Support Portal: Inbox configured for integration conversations
  • Safety Review Portal: Inbox configured for safety-flagged content
  • Developer Portal: Inbox with all filters plus usage analytics
  • All-in-One Portal: Chat, inbox, usage, and task together
  • Team Chat Portal: Chat with pre-configured bots and starter messages

Templates are a starting point - you can customize everything after creation.

Getting Started

  1. Go to the Portals page and click Create Portal.
  2. Choose a template or start from scratch.
  3. Set a clear name, description, and unique slug.
  4. Select which apps to enable and configure their options.
  5. Add user access matchers for who should be able to sign in.
  6. Customize the layout with your branding (logo, title, footer links).
  7. Save and share the portal URL with your team.

Best Practices

  • Start focused: Begin with one app and a small set of users, then expand as you learn what works
  • Use descriptive names: When you have multiple portals, clear names help you manage them at a glance
  • Scope access tightly: Use domain wildcards for teams, exact emails for external collaborators
  • Leverage templates: Start from a template that matches your use case and customize from there
  • Brand consistently: Set sidebar logo, title, and footer links so the portal feels like part of your product
  • Create separate portals per audience: Rather than one portal with everything, create targeted portals for each team or workflow

Portals give you the flexibility to create tailored AI experiences for every team and use case - from a simple single-bot chat page to a full operational dashboard - all managed from your ChatBotKit account.

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