The application is ready. Six documents are not.

Droplana is a client document portal for immigration consultants and advisers. Each applicant gets one private, persistent portal for two-way exchange: they send the evidence a file needs, and you return drafts, submission copies and correspondence. Applicants need no account.

Why this is the hardest version of document collection

Most professions collecting client documents deal with five or six items from someone in the same country. Immigration work has every difficulty at once.

The lists are long. A single family application can need passports, birth and marriage certificates, police certificates, proof of address, employment letters, payslips, bank statements, tenancy agreements, photographs and sworn translations, multiplied by each person on the file.

The client is somewhere else. Different country, different time zone, sometimes limited connectivity, usually on a phone rather than a laptop. Anything requiring a desktop, a scanner or an installed application will not happen quickly.

Documents exist only on paper. A certificate issued twenty years ago in another country is a physical object. There is no PDF of it anywhere.

Some items depend on third parties. A police certificate or an official translation arrives when it arrives. The client cannot make it faster, and if that item is buried in an undifferentiated list they will not know to start it first.

The deadline is real. Applications have windows. Documents have validity periods. A police certificate that was fine in March may need reissuing by August. Delay is more than annoying: it can invalidate work already done.

And the client is anxious. This is their life, not a business process, and an ambiguous request is not treated as ambiguous. It is treated as a risk to be handled carefully and slowly.

Email is a poor container for that. A per-client portal with a visible checklist is a much better one, because it turns a twenty-item request from a thread into a list the applicant can work through on their own time. If the category is unfamiliar, our client portal guide covers what these tools do and what to compare.

A client portal for immigration consultants, from request to correction

Create a document checklist naming each item the application needs, or reuse a saved template for the same visa route. Where several family members are involved, put the person and the document in the item name. The applicant sees the missing items and chooses files to upload against them.

If a submitted document is incomplete, put the correction on that file: "Page 2 is missing. Please upload a new complete copy with all edges visible." The applicant reads the request beside the document instead of decoding a general email about missing papers.

Actual product views using fictional sample documents.

The applicant can upload an existing scan or photograph paper with the portal's Take Photo button. Tell applicants that a clear phone photo is fine where it is, and ask for all relevant pages. Phone upload does not replace a requirement for an original, a certified copy or a prescribed verification process.

After checking the returned files, send draft forms, cover letters and submission copies back through the portal. Approved or Rejected is a file status either side can change, not a decision on the application or on the document's authenticity.

Why consultants use Droplana

The checklist and reminders replace the chase

The applicant opens their portal, sees eleven items received and nine missing, and deals with the nine without waiting for your next email. If they do nothing for 7 days, they get an email naming the missing items. After 14 days, the reminder comes to you, so you know which files are stuck.

Due dates for the items that expire

Give a checklist item an optional due date, such as the police certificate that must be recent. Reminders are prepared two days before and on the date, and reach the applicant with their next email, which can be later that day or the next day. You or the applicant can switch them off. They do not replace your case deadline diary.

One link, for as long as the case lasts

Applications take months and often come back for renewals or a further stage. The portal address does not change. In month fourteen, the answer to "where do I send this?" is the same as it was on day one. On an active paid plan, files stay until you set an expiry or delete them.

Drafts and submissions go back the same way

Draft forms, cover letters, submission copies and decision correspondence go into the same portal instead of out as attachments, next to the evidence they rely on.

A team and a record

Practice has a team size of 5, including the owner. Studio has unlimited team size. The account owner can view and export (CSV) an activity trail of logins, portal visits, uploads, downloads, deletions, comments and approvals, which shows when a document arrived.

Access ends cleanly

Revoke access when the matter closes and it takes effect immediately. The files stay with your business.

Data protection in immigration work

These files are unusually sensitive even by professional-services standards. They routinely contain identity documents, family relationships and financial history, and sometimes health information, criminal record certificates or material relating to a protection claim. Here is what Droplana provides, so you can check it against your own obligations:

• Storage in Germany. Files, comments and metadata sit on Hetzner infrastructure in Germany, under opaque randomly generated identifiers. They are never named after a person, a filename or its contents, and never exposed on the public internet.
• Encrypted at rest, per file. Every file is encrypted with a key derived specifically for it. This protects against a breach of the storage platform. It does not protect against a compromise of the application host, where the master key sits alongside the storage credentials, and we prefer to state that than to imply more than is true.
• Three portal security levels. New accounts default to Strict, where clients verify by email on every new device. Controlled allows one-time or email magic links only. Relaxed also allows permanent links, which for this kind of work is usually the wrong choice, and it is opt-in, not the default. Email verification identifies the portal session; it does not establish the holder's legal identity.
• DPA on every plan, countersigned on Practice and Studio. It leaves the decision on special-category data, such as health information or criminal records, to your firm.
• EU providers. Hetzner in Germany for storage, Brevo in France for mail, Creem in Estonia for payments. Mail and payment providers never receive file contents.

Storage location is one input to your decision. Your lawful basis, your retention schedule and who in your office can see what are the rest of it, and no tool decides those for you. The security page has the full storage and encryption detail, and GDPR-compliant file sharing with clients covers the questions to ask of any tool.

Where Droplana is not the answer

• It is not a case management system. No matter records, no deadline diary, no form generation, no fee ledger. Keep using what you have; Droplana is the client-facing document layer beside it.
• No connector to your case system, so nothing syncs automatically.
• Not a translation or certification service, and it does not verify that a document is genuine.
• Everyone added to one client shares that portal, and your team members work across all clients. Create separate clients when family members should not see each other's files.
• In-browser PDF signing records who signed, when, from what IP and with which login, with a public verification page. It is not a qualified or certificate-based electronic signature. Where a document must be signed on paper, the applicant can photograph the signed page so you can check it.
• Not archival storage. Storage is capped per plan with no overage billing.

The page for consultants covers advisory work more generally. Immigration consultants who work with law firms on the same files can use the same per-client structure, because they collect the same documents.

Check our simple pricing (or start free)

Droplana is priced per business, not per applicant. Free includes 3 clients, 2 GB total storage and 100 MB per file, and keeps each file for up to 180 days. Solo costs €19/month plus tax for unlimited clients, 50 GB and 1 GB per file. Practice has a team size of 5 including the owner and a 2 GB file limit; Studio has unlimited team size and 5 GB.

On Free, each file expires 180 days after upload. Your clients and their access stay active, so you can keep sharing new files. Active paid plans have no plan-imposed retention limit. Expiry settings, deletion and cancellation rules still apply; a persistent portal address does not guarantee permanent file availability. Team sizes include you. No setup fees or automatic overage charges. Prices exclude applicable tax.

Compare plan details

Plan limits and services. Team sizes include the owner.

Included	Free	Solo	Practice	Studio
Team size	Just you	Just you	5	Unlimited
Clients	3	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Storage	2 GB	50 GB	250 GB	1 TB
Maximum file size	100 MB	1 GB	2 GB	5 GB
File retention	180 days from upload	No limit	No limit	No limit
Your Droplana address	Includes a random suffix	Your chosen name	Your chosen name	Your chosen name
Data Processing Agreement	Standard	Standard	Countersigned available	Countersigned available
Support	Email	Email	Priority	Priority
Personal setup call	Not included	Not included	Not included	Included

Need more storage?

Add 500 GB for €15/month + tax, or €150/year + tax. Each storage add-on also raises your maximum file size to 5 GB.

Available on all paid plans from your billing page. Add more than one for another 500 GB each. Your team size stays the same.

Questions before you start

Can applicants send documents from abroad without an account?

Yes. Each applicant opens a link to their own portal from any device, with no account and no password. Under the default Strict setting they confirm their email on a new device, by magic link or by signing in with Google or Microsoft, and the browser is then remembered for 90 days.

Can a client photograph a passport or certificate with their phone?

Yes. The Take Photo button opens the phone camera inside the portal, and applicants can also choose existing files. You still check completeness and readability, and whether the receiving authority accepts a photo instead of an original or certified copy.

Can I show an applicant exactly which documents are still missing?

Yes. A document checklist in their portal shows what has arrived and what is missing. If the applicant does nothing for 7 days while items are missing, they get an email naming them, and after 14 days the reminder comes to you. Items can also carry an optional due date, with reminders prepared two days before and on the date.

Does uploading a passport verify the applicant's identity?

No. Droplana collects the file and, in Strict mode, verifies portal access by email. It does not authenticate passports, establish legal identity, certify translations or perform the checks an application requires.

Where is the data stored, given how sensitive these files are?

Files, comments and metadata are stored on Hetzner infrastructure in Germany, and files are encrypted at rest with a key derived for each file. Each applicant sees only their own portal, and your team members can work across all clients. A DPA is available on every plan. Whether a given file belongs in this access model is your firm's decision.

Compared with what immigration consultants use now

• Droplana vs Clustdoc: an onboarding platform with forms and workflows, compared with a narrow two-way portal.
• Droplana vs Content Snare: another document collection tool with reminders, compared on direction and where data lives.
• Droplana vs FileInvite: request-based collection compared with a permanent portal per applicant.
• Droplana vs email: what changes when a twenty-item request stops living in a thread.