A portal is a web system that has the needed features to identify the users and make sure they are who they say they are. It also gives them an easy,personalized and user friendly way to move along information and services that are of interest to the users. The organization that creates the portal will have a system that gives a variety of functions for said organization to put together many different avenues of information, making them available to the various users according to their specific interests and needs. Therefore, the main reason to set up a portal is bring all the information and resources that are available to these users in a way that is effective.

A portal is needed today so that the multitude of organizations that make use of the web to break down information and give services to their users, for example, customers or staff members, can do it successfully. In order to handle the different needs of various users, the many types of information and services that are available to all types of users were grouped together and presented on the web according to the way they functioned. What this means is that the information and services are organized according to the way service-providing departments are divided. The users need to have a general idea of what sort of information or services can be given by which department so they can get what they need easily. If the users have too little information about what they are looking for, it can be more difficult to find what they need. To help these problems, such as improving the user friendliness and enabling easier access to the different information and services put on the web by users, it is easier to set up a portal to channel this vast amount of information to different users in an efficient and effective way. In this way, the user’s identification by the portal can provide information and services that are of interest according to that user’s profile.

There are some functions and features that a portal should have. These include:

• Allowing the different information and service providing departments to update their own information.
• Present the information and services that a user would need according to this profile.
• Set up things from the users’ perspective.
• Allowing for a single sign-on feature for the users.

Portal development is one way to bring together the different web-based applications to support the delivery of information and services by a system that is convenient, effective, and unified. This system gives users easy access to the information needed. As the web applications to support the way the information and services are delivered to the users can be erected by different groups in an organization, it is crucial to make the right choice of a platform. Organizations that have elected to create a portal have been quite satisfied with the results.