Multiple service portals or 1 service portal with multiple service catalogs?

[Pat Surtan]

Hi,

I am in the process of creating 4 additional service catalogs, 1 for each department. We already have a service portal for IT. My idea is to have 1 portal, then a page for each catalog, IT, Finance, Accounting, etc. Is this the best design? Would each department have a chance to add whatever content they want on their home page of their service catalog? Can they control their own branding and have it different from the main service portal?

Should I have an individual service portal for each department and link them instead? What is everyone's opinion on this? How would you approach it? Please provide guidance.

[Hung]

Hi Pat,

To answer this question, let's have a look at the end-user, who is the target audience for this portal.

If the end-user is only a normal employee who raises requests, it is better for them to remember one single portal only. One place where they can raise whatever request they want. Employee Service Centre's portal is a very good example of this use case. 

If you want to customize the experience for each department, you can design a single portal, and have multiple buttons. Each button is a link to a different page for each department to display content for each department. Although I would not recommend this idea as it will require much more effort to develop, and would cause technical debt in the future.

Best regard,

Hung Nguyen

[Pat Surtan]

Hi Hung,

What if each of my departments want their own branding? Would I be able to stay within one portal or create 4 separate service portals?