Here’s what you need to know:

• An employee portal allows staff to access information, submit requests, and connect with colleagues.
• Building your own portal cuts costs and provides more flexibility compared to off-the-shelf platforms.
• You'll need a database to store information, workflows to automate approvals, AI features for instant answers, and permission levels for different user roles.
• AI visual development platforms like Bubble let you generate and customize your employee portal using natural language prompts to build the structure, while the visual editor lets you refine the details without writing a single line of code.

An employee portal is your company's digital hub where staff access information, submit requests, and connect with colleagues. 

While purchasing off-the-shelf platforms seems convenient, they often lack flexibility and can cost thousands per month. Building your own cuts license costs while delivering exactly what your team needs.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to build an employee portal with AI, so you can build and deploy faster than traditional development approaches.

1. Set up the database

A database is the foundation for your employee portal, storing and organizing all information from employee profiles to company policies. 

Note: If you’re building with Bubble AI, you’ll have access to a built-in database. 

A database consists of data types (similar to tables in traditional databases) that hold specific categories of information and define how they relate to each other. This structure determines the performance and functionality of your entire portal.

You need at least four data types:

• Employees: Name, role, department, manager, avatar
• Documents / knowledge articles: Title, file, tags, last-reviewed date
• Requests: Category (PTO, expense, IT), status, approver, linked employee
• Announcements: Headline, body, publish date, target audience

2. Design core pages

We suggest at least five core pages that handle most daily interactions: a personalized dashboard, staff directory, knowledge base, request hub, and announcements section.

The dashboard serves as your command center, greeting employees with personalized widgets for upcoming time off, company news, and quick links.

For the staff directory, include photos, roles, and brief descriptions in every profile. By linking the directory to your Employees data type and implementing search functionality, you’ll encourage users to browse profiles, which leads to higher engagement.

• The knowledge base houses all your articles, SOPs, and videos.
• Your HR request hub centralizes all PTO requests and expenses. Design each form with a simple "Submit" button that maps directly to your Requests table.
• The announcements section covers policy changes, birthday celebrations, and company news.

Bubble AI allows you to build all of these pages using natural language prompts and a visual editor.

3. Configure workflows

Workflows automate repetitive tasks, send notifications, update records, and connect different parts of your portal. They turn your employee portal from a static website into an interactive business tool that handles approvals, sends reminders, and keeps data synchronized across systems.

For an employee portal, workflows might handle PTO request approvals that notify managers and update vacation balances automatically, or expense submissions that route to the right approver based on amount and category, or IT ticket assignments that escalate unresolved issues after a set timeframe.

Let's look at how a PTO request workflow functions in practice. When an employee clicks "Submit PTO," this single action triggers a chain reaction. The system first validates your business rules:

• Are all required dates filled?
• Is the end date after the start date?
• Does the employee have sufficient vacation days available?

If any rule fails, an inline alert appears and the process stops.

When validation succeeds, the next action creates a new "PTO Request" record with status set to "Pending." The system automatically identifies the employee's manager and sends notifications through your preferred channels, such as email or messaging platforms like Slack. Bubble’s API Connectors allows you to connect your app to any external services.

Managers might not approve requests right away, so you can customize backend workflows to send reminders. For example, three business days after creation, the system automatically rechecks the request status. If it is still "Pending," it sends a reminder to the manager. If "Approved," it automatically deducts hours from the employee's balance and logs the change. These backend processes run server-side, remain invisible to users, and scale without additional infrastructure.

You don't have to stop at PTO requests. For example, Seagate built an internal portal with 11 micro-apps on Bubble, resulting in 5x time savings and reducing costs by 50%. Their workflows handle everything from order fulfillment to device provisioning.

4. Add AI features

AI features use machine learning models to automate tasks, generate content, or provide intelligent assistance based on your app's data. 

For an employee portal, this might mean a chatbot that answers policy questions instantly by reading through your company handbook, or a smart search that understands "when can I take parental leave?" instead of requiring exact keyword matches.

Here’s how to add an AI feature to your employee portal:

Step 1: Define the AI feature

Start by clearly outlining what you want the AI to accomplish. For example, it could be a ChatGPT-style assistant that answers policy questions.

Step 2: Create and gather the inputs

The chatbot needs data to work with. In this case, that's your Knowledge Base articles: the policy documents, handbooks, and FAQs you've already added to your portal.

Step 3: Connect to an AI model

Install the ChatGPT plugin from Bubble's marketplace and connect your OpenAI account. Bubble handles the technical setup automatically. The plugin uses natural language processing to understand employee questions and generate relevant responses based on your Knowledge Base content.

Step 4: Bring the AI response to your app

Now configure how the chatbot accesses and returns information. Privacy rules control what the chatbot can access, so employees only get answers based on their role.

Learn more about how to build AI-powered features in this tutorial:

5. Set permissions

An employee portal typically requires four distinct permission levels:

• Administrators: Full system access to manage all portal functions and data
• Department mManagers: Approval rights for direct reports and department-specific information
• Employees: Personal information access with limited view of organizational data
• Contractors: Temporary access with expiration dates and strictly limited permissions

Bubble AI lets you create different types of user accounts and permissions for your app, with the ability to control how long users stay logged in to your portal.

6. Brand your portal

Your employee portal should feel like it belongs to your company. Bubble makes it easy to design a professional, branded experience.

You can either import directly from Figma using Bubble's Figma converter or use a pre-built style library for professional layouts and components to speed up the design process. Responsive design is built in, so your portal will automatically adapt layouts for any screen size without requiring a separate mobile development project.

7. Launch and iterate

Before a full launch, test the employee portal with a small group of users to catch issues before they impact the entire team. Once you’re confident rolling out the portal to the company, track:

• Login frequency to see if employees are using the portal
• Request resolution time to measure how much faster approvals happen
• Search success rates to confirm people can find what they need
• Feature usage to understand which parts of your portal deliver the most value

You can add feedback forms directly in the portal so employees can tell you what's working and what isn't. This real-time input helps you keep improving the experience.

Generate your employee portal with Bubble AI

Describe your employee portal in a prompt and watch as Bubble builds a complete solution with dashboards, directory, knowledge base, and an AI chatbot. 

Where other tools might leave you stuck with what they generate, Bubble lets you immediately refine everything visually. You can resize elements, add approval steps, and instantly see your changes across web and mobile devices.

Security comes built-in with configurable privacy rules that protect sensitive data. You maintain complete control over AI-generated content, and the responsive engine automatically adapts layouts for all devices. 

Try Bubble AI for free today.

Frequently asked questions

Can I build an employee portal without knowing how to code?

Absolutely. Bubble's AI visual development platform generates a complete portal structure with AI, then lets you visually edit everything.

Is the data in my employee portal secure?

Yes. Bubble is SOC 2 Type II compliant and encrypts data at rest and in transit. Authentication options include SSO and two-factor authentication.

Can my portal work on mobile devices too?

Yes. Bubble allows you to build an app for web, iOS, and Android devices. The responsive design engine includes mobile view previews so you can test before deploying.