Lab 11: Corporate Portal Design¶

Overview¶

Corporate portals are mission-critical B2B infrastructure — employee intranets, supplier portals, dealer portals, and partner extranets handle billions of dollars in commerce. In this lab you will design a complete corporate portal for a realistic scenario: a multi-location retail franchise. You will create an information architecture, access control model, search strategy, and content governance plan.

Scenario¶

FrostBurger is a fast-food franchise with 250 locations across 15 states. You have been hired to design their Franchisee Portal — a secure web portal where franchise owners and their managers access operational resources, place supply orders, submit reports, receive communications from corporate, and access training materials.

Current state: Franchisees email everything. Corporate sends PDF attachments. There is no central system.

Part A — Stakeholder & Requirements Analysis (15 pts)¶

Document in portal_design.md:

1. Stakeholder Map

2. Feature Priority Matrix

Rank these features as Must Have / Should Have / Could Have / Won't Have for launch:

Part B — Information Architecture (25 pts)¶

Design the portal's information architecture in information_architecture.md.

1. Site Map

FrostBurger Franchisee Portal
├── Dashboard (personalized home)
│   ├── My Announcements
│   ├── Pending Actions
│   ├── Quick Links
│   └── My Location Summary
│
├── Orders & Supply
│   ├── Place New Order
│   ├── Order History
│   ├── Approved Vendors
│   └── Inventory Levels
│
├── Training Center
│   ├── My Courses
│   ├── Course Catalog
│   ├── Certifications
│   └── Training Reports
│
├── Operations
│   ├── Policy Library
│   ├── Compliance Checklists
│   ├── Standard Operating Procedures
│   └── Brand Standards
│
├── Financials
│   ├── Sales Reports
│   ├── Royalty Statements
│   └── P&L Dashboard
│
├── Support
│   ├── Submit a Ticket
│   ├── Knowledge Base
│   └── Contact Corporate
│
└── Admin (corporate only)
    ├── User Management
    ├── Content Publishing
    └── Analytics

Extend this site map with 3 more sub-levels for the areas you think need the most depth.

2. Navigation Design

Decide on the navigation pattern (top nav, left sidebar, mega menu, breadcrumbs) and explain why for this specific user base (franchise owners are not tech-savvy; they visit 2–3 times per week from phones).

3. Search Strategy

Design the search experience: - What content types should be searchable? - How should results be ranked (recency? relevance? content type?) - What metadata/tags should content authors be required to enter? - How do you handle misspellings and synonyms? (e.g., "franchise agreement" = "FA" = "operating agreement")

Part C — Access Control Model (20 pts)¶

Design the role-based access model:

## Portal Access Control Matrix

| Content / Feature | Franchise Owner | Store Manager | Corporate Ops | Supply Chain | Training | IT Admin |
|------------------|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| Own location orders | R/W | R | R | R/W | — | R |
| All locations orders | — | — | R | R/W | — | R |
| Financial reports (own) | R | — | R | — | — | R |
| Financial reports (all) | — | — | R/W | — | — | R |
| Training content (take) | R/W | R/W | — | — | — | R |
| Training content (create) | — | — | — | — | R/W | R |
| Policy library | R | R | R/W | — | — | R |
| Compliance submissions | R/W | R/W | R | — | — | R |
| User management (own) | R | — | — | — | — | R/W |
| User management (all) | — | — | — | — | — | R/W |
| Announcements (view) | R | R | R | R | R | R |
| Announcements (create) | — | — | R/W | — | — | R |

R=Read, W=Write, R/W=Read+Write, —=No Access

Extend this table to cover all features from your Part A priority matrix.

Then answer: 1. How do you handle a franchise owner who sells their franchise? (account transition) 2. How do you grant temporary elevated access (e.g., a store manager covering while owner is away)? 3. How do you audit who accessed which document and when?

Part D — Knowledge Management Strategy (25 pts)¶

Write a 600-word knowledge management strategy in portal_design.md:

1. Taxonomy Design Design a 3-level taxonomy for the FrostBurger policy library:

Level 1: Domain (Operations, HR, Marketing, Finance, Legal)
  Level 2: Sub-domain (e.g., Operations → Food Safety, Customer Service, Equipment)
    Level 3: Document type (Policy, Procedure, Form, Template, Reference)

2. Content Lifecycle Define the lifecycle for a policy document: - Draft → Review → Approve → Publish → Periodic Review (how often?) → Archive/Retire

3. Content Governance Answer these governance questions: - Who owns each content area? (content owner = accountable for accuracy) - What is the review cadence for different content types? - What happens when a policy changes — how do franchisees get notified? - How do you handle translated content for Spanish-speaking managers?

4. Search & Discovery - What metadata must every document have? (title, owner, effective date, expiry, tags) - How do you prevent outdated content from appearing in search? - What is the process for a franchisee to request a missing document?

Part E — Portal Success Metrics (15 pts)¶

Define how you will measure the portal's success in governance_plan.md:

For each metric, add: - Why it matters (1 sentence) - Leading indicator that predicts this metric - What you'd do if it drops below target

Submission Checklist¶

• [ ] portal_design.md — Parts A, D complete
• [ ] information_architecture.md — Parts B, C complete
• [ ] governance_plan.md — Part E complete (metrics table with rationale)

Grading¶