Turn on the portal for a client

The portal is off for every client until you turn it on. This page shows how to turn it on for one client and invite the person who will run it on the client’s side. Once they have accepted, they can invite their own colleagues, or you can do it for them.

Before you begin

• Turning the portal on needs clientportal:manage. Inviting people needs clientportal:users.
• Decide what the client’s people may do before you invite anyone. The defaults allow every portal permission except remote access, which is off until you turn it on. See Set portal roles, groups, and the permission ceiling.
• To show your own branding from the first email, set it up first. See Brand the client portal.

Turn the portal on

1. Select Clients, then Record on the client’s row.
2. Select the Client portal tab. It opens on Overview, and the tab shows Portal off.
3. Turn on Client portal is on for this client.

The tab now shows Portal on. Overview shows the portal’s address with a Copy button. Invitations, invoices, and ticket emails link to it. When a custom domain becomes active, it replaces this address. See Serve the portal on your own domain.

Invite the client’s first owner

1. On the Client portal tab, select Users.
2. Select Invite user.
3. In Email, enter the person’s work email. In Name, optionally enter their name. They can change it after signing in.
4. Leave the roles clear to make them the owner. With no role chosen, the first person invited to a client becomes its owner. Everyone invited after that needs at least one role to see anything.
5. Select Send invitation.

They get an email with a link that works for 7 days, or the number of days set in Portal defaults. Signing in needs a password and a second factor, or the client’s own sign-in when single sign-on is set up.

If the person already has a portal account for another of your clients, they sign in with it to accept, and the new organization appears in their organization switcher.

Turn the portal off

Turn off Client portal is on for this client on Overview. The client’s people can no longer reach the portal for this client. Every user, role, and setting is kept, so turning it back on restores them. Turning it off signs nobody out of the console.

Verify

Overview shows adoption: Active users, Invited, not yet signed in, Suspended, and Last sign-in. Once the owner accepts, they count as an active user, and Users lists them as Active.

Next steps

• Invite and manage portal users
• Send the guide to your client
• Connect a payment provider