One password, taped to a monitor
Your members' area holds guidance notes, technical bulletins, model contracts, webinar recordings and the latest survey results. Benefits for everyone at a member firm. But the portal was set up with one login per member, held by the main contact. So the main contact shares the password around the office. Or staff email your team asking for a document, which your team sends as an attachment. Or they simply do not know the portal exists.
When a firm lapses, its shared password keeps working until someone remembers to change it. When the main contact leaves, the login goes with them. And your team has no idea how many people at each firm actually use the portal, because they all look like one person.
Why single logins persist
- The portal was built on the idea of a member as one person, which fits professional bodies but not trade associations.
- Adding users at a firm is a manual job for your team, so it rarely happens.
- There is no link between a user and their firm's membership status.
- Access tiers (which content each membership tier includes) are applied to logins, not to firms.
- Leavers keep access because nobody tells you they have gone.
What shared logins cost
Members get less value from their subscription because most of their staff never see the portal. Content leaks to lapsed firms and, through shared passwords, to non-members. Your team spends time emailing documents. And you cannot show a firm how much its people used the portal, which is exactly the evidence you need at renewal.
Think about who at a member firm actually needs your content. The estimator wants the latest cost guidance. The health and safety lead wants the technical bulletin. The HR manager wants the model employment contract. The new graduate wants the training webinars. None of them is the managing director who holds the login, and most of them will not ask the managing director for a password to a website they have never heard of. So the firm pays for benefits that a handful of people could use and nobody does.
Security and data protection come into it too: shared passwords are hard to control, and your own policies may not allow them.
Access that belongs to the firm
We rebuild portal access around member firms, on your existing portal or CMS where possible.
- Each member firm record holds its approved email domains, and its main contact is named as the firm's portal administrator.
- Staff self-register with their work email; a matching domain on a current member links them to that firm automatically, or the firm administrator approves them if you prefer.
- What each user can see depends on the firm's membership tier, read live from the member record.
- When a firm lapses, all its users lose member content at once; when it renews, access returns.
- The firm administrator can see and remove their own users, and users who have not logged in for a long time are prompted to confirm or removed under your rules.
- Usage reports per firm show which content its staff used, feeding the renewal conversation.
| Event | What happens to access | Who does anything |
|---|---|---|
| New staff member registers | Linked to the firm by email domain | Nobody, or the firm administrator approves |
| Firm upgrades its tier | More content visible to all its users | Nobody |
| Firm lapses | Member content hidden for all its users | Nobody |
| Staff member leaves | Removed by the firm administrator or on inactivity | Firm administrator |
| Personal email used | Held for approval | Firm administrator or your team |
Single sign-on through Microsoft Entra ID or Google can be added for larger member firms that want it, so their staff use their normal work login.
Portal life afterwards
Staff at member firms find the portal, register themselves and see what their firm's tier includes. Your team stops emailing documents on request. Access follows membership automatically. At renewal, the membership manager can tell a firm how many of its people used the portal and what they read.
Signs your portal access is stuck on one login
- Member firms share one portal password among staff.
- Your team emails members' area documents on request.
- Lapsed firms can still log in.
- You cannot say how many people at a firm use the portal.
- Adding users is a manual job for your staff.