One tool your team logs into. The chaos goes away.
The spreadsheet plus the inbox plus the Slack channel plus the two SaaS tools is doing the work one dashboard should. We build the dashboard. Custom UI, custom workflows, real auth, real integrations. Designed around how your team already thinks, not how a SaaS company wishes they did.
Custom Dashboards & Admin Portals at Compass replace the spreadsheet + inbox + Slack channel + SaaS combo with one tool your team logs into — custom UI, custom workflows, role-based auth, real integrations, Canadian data residency. Designed around your team's actual process through shadowing and process mapping, not how a SaaS product wishes you worked. Built for Canadian SMBs in engineering, law, real estate, and studios — both internal operations and branded client-facing portals. Small single-team dashboards start at $15,000–$30,000 CAD; mid-size admin portals $30,000–$70,000; large multi-tenant client portals $50,000–$150,000+.
Four phases. Real users by month one.
A preview of a typical mid-size admin portal build. The Compass Method applied to internal tooling.
Watch the team operate before we draw anything. Where the friction actually is.
Four phases. One tool that fits.
Shadow, design, ship, tune. Built around real users doing real work, not assumed personas hitting assumed buttons.
Shadow the work first
Before any pixel gets drawn, we sit with the people who will use this every day. Where they keep their spreadsheets. What they hate about the current setup. What questions they ask each other constantly.
Design around the real workflow
Wireframes that mirror how your team already thinks - not how a SaaS product wishes they thought. Workflow logic mapped explicitly: who sees what, what triggers what, what gets approved by whom.
Build in working slices
Auth and the first screen live in week 2. Second screen + integration in week 4. By month two, real users are running real work in it. We ship in slices that immediately help, not big-bang launches.
Tune from real usage
Once people are using it, we watch where they get stuck, what they wish was different, what we missed. Two weeks of post-launch tuning shapes the dashboard around real behaviour, not assumed behaviour.
Same craft. Your operation.
Different teams need different dashboards. The shadow-design-ship-tune pattern stays the same. Here is how it shapes up across our verticals.
Project tracker that replaces the spreadsheet + Outlook combo
Every project in one view: scope, budget burn, milestone status, deliverables outstanding, invoice status, change orders. Filtered per partner. Updated by the project lead, not assembled weekly by the ops manager. The weekly partners meeting becomes a 20-minute review of an already-current dashboard.
Matter cockpit with intake, conflicts, and billing in one place
A single screen per matter: parties, status, conflicts cleared, key deadlines, billing accrued, related documents. Replaces the loop between PracticePanther, the conflicts spreadsheet, and the partner inbox. Built to satisfy Law Society audit trail requirements out of the box.
Branded portal where clients see project status without emailing
Your clients log in and see live project status, document delivery, invoice history, and next steps. Instead of weekly status-update emails, the dashboard is always current. Reduces inbound "what is the status" inquiries by 70-80%.
Operations portal with multi-location, staff, and inventory
Manager logs in: today's class fill rate per location, instructor schedules, equipment maintenance status, retail inventory, action items. The MindBody dashboard you settled for is not built for multi-location operators. This one is.
Modern stack. Canadian data residency.
The specific framework and database depend on what fits your team. The principles below hold on every build. Code you own. Any developer can extend it.
Dashboard questions, answered plainly.
Why custom dashboards instead of Airtable, Notion, or a SaaS tool?
Airtable and Notion get you 70% of the way and then make the last 30% painful: permissions, custom workflows, branded interfaces, integrations that need real code. SaaS tools are off-the-shelf and force your team to work how the SaaS thinks they should. A custom dashboard fits your actual process, with the integrations you actually need, in your visual language.
What can we build into a dashboard?
Authentication and role-based access, data tables with filters and export, charts and KPI (Key Performance Indicator) tiles, custom forms, file uploads, multi-step workflows, approval gates, notifications, integrations with any API (Application Programming Interface), embedded agents (the same ones from our other services). Anything a SaaS (Software as a Service) dashboard does, plus the things they refuse to let you do.
Who would use a custom admin portal?
Operations teams running multi-step processes across many tools. Client services teams who need a single pane of glass per client. Agencies and firms with portal needs (client-facing project status, document delivery, billing visibility). Anyone who currently has "the spreadsheet" plus "the inbox" plus "the Slack channel" doing the work one tool should.
How long does a dashboard build take?
Small dashboards (one team, 4-6 screens, 2-3 integrations): 3-5 weeks. Medium admin portals (multi-role auth, custom workflows, 8-12 screens): 6-10 weeks. Large multi-tenant client portals: 10-16 weeks. Each phase ships working features incrementally, not big-bang reveals.
Will my team be able to use it without a manual?
That is the bar. We design alongside the people who will actually use it - watching them work, mapping their current process, then building UX that mirrors how they already think. If a daily-use screen needs a manual, we designed it wrong.
How much does a custom dashboard cost?
Cost depends heavily on scope and integration complexity. The bill depends on: number of screens, number of user roles, integration count (and whether those integrations have clean APIs), depth of custom workflows, whether multi-tenant client-facing logic is needed, and how much process discovery is required to design around how your team actually works. Small single-team dashboards are the lightest entry. Real numbers come out of the free Bearings call after we shadow the work and map what needs to change.
Your team is switching tools 12 times per task.
The average SMB knowledge worker switches between 8-14 tools a day. Each switch costs 1-3 minutes of context. Multiply that across the team. The custom dashboard does not eliminate every tool, but it removes the daily-use ones from the rotation - and the time savings show up on the P&L within a quarter.
Plot Your
Course.
A free 30-minute Bearings call. Two operators talking about your business. No deck. No pitch. Just an honest read on whether AI is the right tool - and if so, where I'd start.