A student and alumni portal is an authenticated web application that connects directly to your university systems — SIS, CAS, Shibboleth — giving students secure access to grades, schedules, and campus services. Alumni get a searchable directory, career networking, event registration, and donation tools. Built on Supabase with Row-Level Security, each user sees only their own data. Alumni profiles stay Google-indexable, so they generate real organic traffic instead of sitting in a database nobody visits.
FAQ
How does Supabase Auth handle university SSO protocols like SAML 2.0 and Shibboleth?
Supabase Auth supports SAML 2.0 natively for SSO delegation. For CAS and Shibboleth, we build a lightweight auth middleware that translates protocol responses into Supabase JWTs. Students authenticate through your existing identity provider — no new credentials. The JWT carries role claims that trigger Row-Level Security policies in PostgreSQL.
How does AI mentor matching work for alumni and students?
Students fill out a profile describing their career goals, interests, and target industries. Claude analyzes this against the alumni directory — factoring in graduation program, current role, industry, and location — and returns 5 ranked mentor recommendations with relevance explanations. If the student requests an introduction, the system sends a personalized email to the alumnus with context on why the match makes sense.
Can 50,000 alumni profiles really be indexed by Google?
Yes. Each alumni profile gets a unique URL with structured data markup, proper meta tags, and server-side rendering via Next.js. Google crawls and indexes them individually. When someone searches "[Name] [University] alumni," that profile ranks. Alumni who want more privacy can opt out of public indexing while still appearing inside the authenticated directory.
How does Row-Level Security protect student data?
PostgreSQL RLS policies run at the database level — not the application layer. Every query is filtered by the authenticated user's JWT. A student querying grades only gets their own records back. An alumni member only sees profiles where the owner has enabled visibility. Even if there's an API misconfiguration, the database itself enforces the access boundaries.
What does the Stripe giving integration include?
We build impact-tiered recurring donation flows where each tier shows exactly what the gift funds. Stripe handles PCI compliance, recurring billing, and payment methods. We add matching gift employer lookups, annual giving campaign pages with progress bars, and automated year-end tax receipt emails with full donation summaries. The advancement office gets a dashboard showing giving trends and donor retention over time.
Can this portal integrate with our existing CRM like Salesforce or Blackbaud?
Absolutely. We build webhook-based integrations that sync donor records, event registrations, and mentoring activity to your CRM in real time. For Salesforce, we use the REST API. For Blackbaud, we use their SKY API. Alumni profile updates, giving transactions, and engagement metrics flow directly into your advancement team's existing workflows — no manual data entry required.
Get Your Portal Assessment
Tell us about your university's needs. We'll deliver a scoped quote within 48 hours.
Get Your Portal Assessment
Let's build
something together.
Whether it's a migration, a new build, or an SEO challenge — the Social Animal team would love to hear from you.