Development Agency
Contact Sign in Get a project quote

Service

Professional community platform development

For founders and community leads of professional networks, peer groups and industry communities who need vetting, professional profiles, discussion spaces, a resource library, introductions and conduct enforcement designed around how their members actually help each other, rather than a chat workspace or a social group they do not control.

Get a project quote See the software package

The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A community of eight hundred finance directors began as a chat workspace invited by hand.

  • Applications now arrive through a web form, are checked against a professional networking profile by the founder in the evenings, and are approved with a copy-and-paste welcome.
  • Nobody can say later why a member was admitted.
  • The workspace has forty channels; the useful answers to the same question about a lease accounting standard have been given six times and cannot be found because search stops at ninety days on the free tier.
  • Members share templates as attachments in threads, where they disappear within the week.

Where it gets harder

The community lead knows that three members are the experts on treasury and that questions should go to them, but the only way to make that happen is to tag them by hand.

  • A member was rude to another in a thread; the lead has no record of previous warnings and no way to act except by deleting the message or removing the account.
  • Events run on a ticketing site, the resource library is a shared folder with no owner, and partner offers are posted as messages that scroll away.
  • Introductions between members who should know each other happen when the lead remembers.
  • The community works because of its people and in spite of its tools, and the lead is doing the work of a platform by hand.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom professional community build normally covers:

  • An application with the questions the community sets Vetting criteria recorded against each decision, referrals from existing members and an approval queue with reasons kept
  • Professional profiles with role Sector, specialisms and an expertise signal that members and the team can see
  • Discussion spaces by topic with membership rules per space Threaded replies, attachments and search that keeps everything
  • A questions-and-answers area Where questions are routed to members tagged as experts in that area, answers can be marked as accepted and the archive becomes a knowledge base for members
  • A resource library contributed by members with a moderation step Versions, ownership and tagging
  • Events and webinars with member pricing Recordings filed in the library afterwards and attendance on the profile
  • Member-to-member introductions suggested From profiles and made by a member or the team with both sides consenting
  • A code of conduct with reporting A case record per report, warnings with history, suspensions and removal, visible to the moderation team only
  • Partner offers in a managed area with redemption tracking
  • Optional paid membership with renewals through the payment adapter
  • Segment email by sector Specialism or activity

How discovery works

Discovery works through a month of the community with the founder, the community lead and a moderator: how applications are judged, which spaces exist and who belongs in them, how questions find the right people, what members contribute and what they take, how conduct problems are handled and how partners are managed. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: apply, vet, join, participate, contribute, meet, enforce.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Producing the editorial content, the webinar streaming platform itself, the accounting ledger and any public forum open to non-members. Those stay in the tools that own them and are connected where it earns its place

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A community of three thousand vetted practitioners in six sectors, with paid and complimentary membership, forty spaces including some restricted to senior roles, a resource library of two thousand documents, monthly webinars and a conduct process run by five volunteer moderators.

That needs

  • Vetting with referrals, space membership rules by role, expert routing for questions
  • A library with versions and ownership
  • A case record per report and reporting that shows which spaces are alive

That is a different build from a peer group of forty who want somewhere better than a chat tool, and the scope document says so plainly.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from a month of the community: applications, spaces, questions, contributions, events, conduct cases and partner activity
  • A written scope document naming each stage from application to enforcement, with what is out of scope
  • Design of the application and vetting queue, the profile, the space and thread views, the expert question flow, the library and the moderation case record, checked on phones and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of members, profiles, selected threads, resources and event history from the chat workspace, folders and ticketing site, where relevant
  • Training for the community team, moderators and any partner managers, with a short written guide
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts and a look at the application form, the chat workspace and its channels, the resource folder, the ticketing account and any conduct notes kept so far.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the founder, community lead and a moderator; vetting criteria, space structure, expert areas, library rules and the conduct process are agreed in the scope document with a milestone plan.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the vetting queue, the profile, spaces and threads, the question routing, the library and the case record, reviewed with the team and two members.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: applications, vetting and profiles first, then spaces, threads and search, then questions with expert routing and the library, then events, introductions, conduct tools and partners.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    The team and a group of invited members run a test month on migrated threads and real questions and tell us where it does not match how the community behaves.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Vetting questions, space rules, routing, library moderation and case record fields are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Members and resources migrated, invitations and digests tested on addresses you control, moderators briefed, payment flows checked where membership is paid, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The community moves across and the old workspace is archived; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card payment providers for paid membership, renewals and event tickets
  • Email providers for digests, question notifications and event reminders
  • Webinar and video meeting platforms with recordings filed to the library
  • Professional networking platforms for profile import during application, where members choose it
  • Single sign-on for communities run alongside an employer, publisher or association
  • Calendar feeds for events and office hours
  • Document storage already in use for the resource library

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A vetted community of three thousand practitioners across six sectors with volunteer moderators

The situation

A community of three thousand practitioners across six sectors ran on a chat workspace with forty channels, a shared folder of two thousand documents without an owner, a ticketing site for monthly webinars and a conduct process that existed in one founder's memory. Applications were vetted in the evenings and the reasons were never recorded.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because vetting criteria, space rules and the conduct process are the community's own, and a chat workspace or a generic community product cannot hold them as records.

The scope we would propose

  • An application with sector, role and two referrals, a vetting queue with criteria ticked and a reason stored against each decision
  • Spaces by sector and theme with membership rules, including senior-only spaces gated by role on the profile
  • Questions routed to members tagged as experts in the area, with accepted answers building a searchable knowledge base
  • A library with ownership, versions, tags and a moderation step for contributions
  • Webinar registration with recordings filed automatically
  • Introductions suggested from profiles with both-sides consent
  • A conduct module where each report opens a case with history, warnings and actions, visible only to the five moderators

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Application questions, vetting criteria, referrals and the volume of applications
  • Number of spaces and the membership rules per space, including role-gated areas
  • Questions-and-answers routing, expert tagging and knowledge base needs
  • Resource library size, versions, ownership and moderation workload
  • Events and webinars, recordings and the platforms involved
  • Conduct process: case records, warnings, appeals and moderator team size
  • Paid membership, renewals and partner offer management
  • Volume of members, threads and resources to migrate from the current tools
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Professional community package

Vetted applications, professional profiles, discussion spaces by topic, expert-routed questions, a moderated resource library, events, introductions and conduct tools for professional networks and peer groups.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is the package enough and when do we need a custom build?

The professional community package covers applications with vetting, profiles, spaces, expert-routed questions, a moderated library, events, introductions and conduct tools with configuration. A custom build is the honest answer for role-gated spaces across many sectors, a large library migration, sign-on with an employer or association, or a conduct process with appeals and several moderator tiers. Discovery tells you which before anything is quoted.

How is this different from a forum or a chat workspace?

Membership is vetted and every member has a professional profile the community can rely on. Questions go to people tagged as experts rather than to whoever is online, the library keeps resources with an owner and versions, and conduct is handled through a case record rather than a deleted message. A forum is open, anonymous and reputation-driven; that is a different topic and a different build.

Can we keep the reasons members were admitted or refused?

Yes. The vetting queue records which criteria were met, who decided and the reason, against each application. When a question arises later, the record is there.

How are conduct problems handled?

A member reports a post or a person; a case opens with the content, the history of previous cases for that member and the actions available under your code of conduct, from a private note to a warning, suspension or removal. Only the moderation team sees cases. What the code says is yours; the system enforces it as written.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. Source code and data are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed, and the platform can move to another provider.

Get a project quote for professional community software

Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

Get a project quote Discuss a partnership
Get a project quote

Cookies on this site. Strictly necessary cookies keep the site working. Allow first-party analytics so we can see which pages lead to enquiries. No advertising, no third-party trackers, no personal data; you can change this at any time on the cookies page.

Manage preferences