CtrlPortals · Dashboards and UI that make M-Files yours

Q: What is the difference between a dashboard and a portal?

A dashboard is a vault-wide overview in the main area of M-Files, opened from the left-hand menu. A portal appears in the right-hand pane when you select a record and shows what relates to it, with a form for the record itself. Both use the same components, and portals are set up per kind of record.

Q: Can we control who sees which dashboard?

Yes. Dashboards are collected in groups in the M-Files menu, and a group can be limited to a user group. A dashboard can also open from an M-Files view, or take the place of the M-Files home screen.

Q: How is it different from a BI tool?

It is a user interface for M-Files with charts and boards built in. Unlike data exported to a BI tool, a chart keeps the way back: click it and the M-Files records or SQL data behind it open. More in data visualisation in M-Files .

Q: How is it licensed, and is there a trial?

Per normalised M-Files user: read-only counts 0.5, a named user 1, a concurrent user 4. The trial runs 30 days, and we extend it when a rollout needs longer. Tell us how many people would use it and we answer the same working day.

A screen for whatever you keep in M‑Files

Your administrator sets CtrlPortals up around your own records, fields and wording, so each screen is built for the job it serves. The same add-on serves a quality system, a project office or a sales team.

A page for every record

Open a customer, a project or a document and everything about it is on one page: its fields, the records that belong to it, charts for it alone and the conversation about it.

A form for the occasional task

Someone who is rarely in M‑Files opens the record their task is about and gets a short form with the instructions beside it, for a document review or a training record.

Boards, plans, lists and calendars

The same records as a board to move work along, a plan with its dates, a list to edit or a calendar, switched with one click.

Dashboards with the figures

Managers open a dashboard from the M‑Files menu and read the key figures and charts, each one a way into the records it counts.

Pick the layout that suits the job

Switch the same records between a board, a plan, a list and a calendar with one click, and what you select in one layout stays selected in the others.

A CtrlPortals kanban board for a project called Hall 3 extension, with four columns from To do to Done, task cards showing the responsible person and end date, the sum of hours at the foot of each column, and a legend of four people below

Drag a card and the record moves with it

With your workflow states as the columns, dragging a card to the next column moves the record to that state, and the workflow's own rules still apply. Each column adds up the hours, the value or whatever number matters, so the board answers "how much is still to do" without a report.

Columns from any field, so the board can be stages or owners.
Colour the cards by owner or by customer, with a legend.
A right-click menu opens a card or filters the board by its value.

A CtrlPortals gantt chart of the same project, grouped into Design, Procurement and Installation phases, with a bar per task from its start to its end date, arrows from each task to the ones that depend on it, a vertical line for today, and Year, Month, Week and Day zoom buttons

Spot a slipping date early

A gantt chart draws each record from its start and end dates and groups the bars however you like, by phase or by person. Arrows show which tasks wait for which, so a slipping date is visible before it becomes a problem. Zoom from a year down to a day.

Drag a bar to change its dates in M‑Files.
Bars are coloured by any field, with the same legend as the board.
Filter the plan down to one person or one phase.

A CtrlPortals list of the same project's tasks grouped by phase, showing the responsible person, hours, start date and state for each task, and a sum of hours in the footer

Update a list without opening each record

Edit values straight in the list, and a number column keeps a running total as you change them. Group the rows by any field to see each phase or owner with its own count.

Narrow the list by kind of document, process area, region, workflow state or free text.
Colour the rows by owner, phase or any other field, with a legend underneath.
Send the whole list to Excel with one button.

A CtrlPortals month calendar for October 2026 with the same project's tasks on their start dates, each dot in the colour of the person responsible, and Today, Month, Week and Day buttons above it

Every deadline on one calendar

Anything with a date shows on a calendar by day, week or month: audits, review deadlines, tasks or recorded hours. Drag an entry to another day and its date changes in M‑Files, or drag across empty days to add a new one.

Each kind of record or each owner keeps its colour, with a legend.
CtrlTime, for recording hours, is built on CtrlPortals.

See CtrlPortals set up for a process like yours

Book a CtrlPortals demo

Everything about one record on one page

Open a record and its page is there: the fields to keep up to date, charts for that record alone, and the conversation about it. A project shows its tasks and documents, a supplier its contracts and audits, a customer its deals.

What belongs to it, in one list — The records related to the one you opened sit in a list built on an M‑Files view, so the columns, sorting and filters you already maintain carry over.
Charts for this record alone — A chart on the page counts only this record's deals, tasks or documents, drawn from the same vault data as the dashboards.
Guides beside the work — Knowledge-base pages written in Markdown open beside the record, pictures included, so onboarding pages and FAQs live in the vault next to what they explain.

The page of one project in a CtrlPortals portal: its product, customer, project type, contact person, dates, project manager and completion in a two-column form, a comment thread with a reply and mentions beside it, tabs for its documents, events and calendar below, and the workflow state in the footer.

A threaded comment feed on a record in CtrlPortals: three comments, a reply indented under the one it answers, mentions highlighted in the text, and a new comment being written with a colleague's name suggested as it is typed.

The conversation stays with the record

Comments are kept on the record itself, so whoever opens it later reads the whole discussion where it belongs.

Threads, with replies in place — A reply sits under the comment it answers, so a long discussion keeps its shape instead of becoming a flat list.
Mentions that reach people — Mention someone by name and they get an email about it, whether or not they have the record open.
On the records that need it — Your administrator adds comments to the kinds of record that need them, such as customers, projects, documents or audits.

A screen made for the occasional task

Someone who reviews a document or completes a training record a few times a year should not have to learn M‑Files first. A portal shows them the steps, the document to open and the fields the task needs, all on one screen and in your company's own words and order.

Instructions beside the fields — Written steps, a picture or a video sit next to the form, so people see what to do and do it on the same screen.
Only the fields that matter — The form shows the fields the task needs, in columns and groups that fold away, with lookups you can click. A field can appear, become required or lock as the answers change, and what is filled in is saved on the record in M‑Files.
The next step on the same screen — When the review is done, the reviewer moves the record on in its workflow from the portal itself, with a comment when one is required.

A review record's portal in M-Files: the record's dates at the top, an Instructions panel on the left with the steps Read Details, Open Document and Accept or Reject and a green Open Document button, the editor's comment, the reviewer's comment and the people under Assignment Information on the right, the document under Documents by Record, and the workflow state Accepted in the footer.

Charts that lead back to the records

Charts read the vault itself, or SQL Server for figures from other systems, and every bar is a way into what it counts.

A CtrlPortals dashboard. Four tiles count the documents awaiting approval, the reviews due this month, the overdue tasks and the open deals, each with a link to the records. Below them, a stacked bar chart shows documents in progress by department and state, and a line chart shows the hours recorded per week.

The figures your managers ask for

A dashboard reads the vault itself, not an export, and shows the figures your managers ask about as tiles and charts, drawn from your own fields. Figures from an ERP or another system can sit beside them, read live from Microsoft SQL Server.

Key figures as tiles, each with a link to its records.
A group of dashboards for each team, opened from the M‑Files menu.

A list titled Details for Production in Draft, opened over the dashboard after a click on the Draft part of the Production bar, showing six documents with their document type and owner.

Any bar opens the records it was drawn from

The records behind a bar appear in a list on top of the dashboard, where you can open them one by one, filter them further or send them to Excel. A BI tool working from exported data has no such way back into M‑Files.

Pick a record from the list and its page opens beside the dashboard.
The whole list in Excel, past the limit M‑Files puts on its own export.

You decide who sees what

Set up once, in M‑Files Admin

Your administrator builds the dashboards and portals in M‑Files Admin, a screen for each kind of record, and decides what each one shows.

Each dashboard for the right people

A group of dashboards can be limited to a user group. A dashboard can also open from a view, or take the place of the M‑Files home screen.

Their own rights on boards, lists and forms

Boards, plans, list views, calendars and forms work under each person's own M‑Files rights: they show what M‑Files lets that person see, and change records only where M‑Files already lets them.

Dates and figures in each person's format

Charts, lists, calendars and Excel exports show dates, times and numbers the way each person's computer writes them, and the titles, instructions and guides are in your own words.

What it needs to run

Any M‑Files edition, in M‑Files Cloud or on-premise, with M‑Files 25.1 or later on the server and in the clients.
M‑Files licences for the users.
The new or the classic M‑Files desktop client, or M‑Files Web.
Nothing else: no M‑Files Reporting Server and no external database. A Microsoft SQL Server source is optional, for figures from other systems.

The set-up guide is in the CtrlPortals documentation.

Tell us what your people keep asking for

Name the records, the figures and the tasks that take too long today, and we'll show you pages, boards and dashboards set up for work like yours.

Book a demo Ask for a 30-day trial

Questions about CtrlPortals

What is the difference between a dashboard and a portal?

A dashboard is a vault-wide overview in the main area of M‑Files, opened from the left-hand menu. A portal appears in the right-hand pane when you select a record and shows what relates to it, with a form for the record itself. Both use the same components, and portals are set up per kind of record.

Can we control who sees which dashboard?

Yes. Dashboards are collected in groups in the M‑Files menu, and a group can be limited to a user group. A dashboard can also open from an M‑Files view, or take the place of the M‑Files home screen.

Do we need the M‑Files Reporting Server?

No. CtrlPortals reads the vault directly, with no external database. Charts and boards can also read Microsoft SQL Server, which suits larger datasets and figures from an ERP or another system, and one chart can show SQL and M‑Files data together.

How is it different from a BI tool?

It is a user interface for M‑Files with charts and boards built in. Unlike data exported to a BI tool, a chart keeps the way back: click it and the M‑Files records or SQL data behind it open. More in data visualisation in M‑Files.

What can a board, a gantt chart or a list be built on?

A kanban board takes its columns from any property you choose; when that property is the workflow state, moving a card moves the record, and the workflow's transitions are respected. A gantt chart takes start and end from any date properties and draws the dependencies between records as arrows. In the list, values can be edited in place, and a number column shows a sum that follows the values as you change them.

How does the Excel export work?

A view, or the data points behind a plot with labels and legends, opens as XLSX without saving a file first, past the item limit M‑Files applies to its own export. The same data can be copied to the clipboard. More in exporting M‑Files to Excel.

Can we put our own content in a portal?

Yes. An HTML component takes your own text and buttons, and can play a video. It can open documents and related records and pull in the record's metadata. Markdown files attached to a record render as pages in the pane, images included, which is how onboarding pages and FAQs become a knowledge base in the vault.

How is it licensed, and is there a trial?

Per normalised M‑Files user: read-only counts 0.5, a named user 1, a concurrent user 4. The trial runs 30 days, and we extend it when a rollout needs longer. Tell us how many people would use it and we answer the same working day.

More CtrlDocs add-ons for M‑Files

CtrlShare

Co-author in Office on any M‑Files, cloud or on-premise

Open an M‑Files document for colleagues and outside parties to edit together, in desktop Office or the browser. It comes back to M‑Files as a new version.

See CtrlShare

CtrlScout

AI for your M‑Files vault, cloud or on-premise

Ask your M‑Files vault in plain words. CtrlScout finds the records, counts and charts them, summarises documents, drafts the email and suggests the details for a new document. It only sees what you can see.

See CtrlScout

CtrlProcesses

Show your people how the work is done, inside M‑Files

Your Elements.cloud process maps inside M‑Files. Every step leads to its procedure, the record it produces and the standards that apply.

See CtrlProcesses

CtrlTeams

Microsoft Teams, governed from M‑Files

Start a project in M‑Files and its team in Microsoft Teams is ready, with the right people in it and your folders and templates in place. What they write there is kept in M‑Files.

See CtrlTeams

CtrlSync

Teams and SharePoint, filed with metadata and rights

People work in Teams or SharePoint, and the documents you want kept are copied to M‑Files with metadata, filed under their project with the access rights preserved.

See CtrlSync

CtrlConnect

M‑Files details, right inside Teams and Outlook

An M‑Files link pasted into Teams or Outlook shows the record's title and description, and in Teams it comes with buttons that open the record. You can also search M‑Files from the Teams chat, on a phone too.

See CtrlConnect