Corporate Portal Setup in Bitrix24
A company purchases Bitrix24, distributes logins to employees—and stops there. The portal looks like a blank template: standard menu with dozens of options, half of which are unnecessary. Employees don't understand where to click and keep working in Excel and messengers. After a month, management decides Bitrix24 "didn't work." The reality: it was never configured.
Initial Setup
Portal configuration starts with basic company parameters:
- Company info and name—displayed in document templates, signatures, print forms. Fill once—used everywhere.
- Company structure—department hierarchy with managers. Not just an org chart—access rights, approval routes, and report filters depend on it. Without structure, CRM, tasks, and workflows function at half capacity.
- Work schedule—working days, hours, holidays. Affects deadline calculation in tasks and processes: "in 3 business days" accounts for weekends.
- Time zones—critical for distributed teams. Each employee sees time in their own zone.
Branding
The portal should feel like your company's tool, not a vendor demo:
- Logo—in the portal header, in emails, on the login page
- Color theme—matches brand identity. Bitrix24 supports custom themes with color changes.
- Authorization page background—instead of a standard login screen, a branded page with logo and background image
- Favicon—small detail but distinguishes your portal tab from dozens of others
Navigation and Menu
Standard Bitrix24 left menu contains everything: CRM, tasks, Drive, calendar, sites, marketplace, automation. For a regular employee, 70% of these items are clutter.
What we do:
- Remove unnecessary items—hide menu sections most employees don't need. A warehouse worker doesn't need "Sites."
- Group related items—combine connected sections. CRM, analytics, reports—in one "Sales" group.
- Add custom items—links to external systems (1C, ERP, corporate website), internal guidelines, knowledge base.
- Customize by role—a manager sees CRM and tasks, accountant sees documents and reports, director sees analytics and HR. Each role gets its own menu.
Widgets and Homepage
The homepage is an employee's work screen. Default is the activity stream, but you can configure widgets:
- My Tasks—task list with deadlines and priority
- Today's Calendar—meetings and events
- CRM Alerts—new leads, deal tasks
- Announcements—pinned messages from the stream
- Quick Actions—buttons "Create Task," "Call," "Message"
Widgets are configured by role. A manager sees CRM widgets, HR sees absence and request widgets.
Users and Roles
User setup isn't just "add an email":
- Invitations—mass invites via CSV or Active Directory / LDAP integration
- Roles—admin, manager, employee. Each role determines section access, configuration abilities, data visibility.
- Onboarding—welcome message for new employees, mandatory tasks (read regulations, fill profile, take quiz).
What We Configure
- Company info, department structure, work schedule
- Branding: logo, colors, login page
- Navigation: custom menu by role, hide unnecessary sections
- Homepage with widgets for each role
- Users: mass invites, roles, onboarding
- Active Directory / LDAP integration for SSO