Give a customer access to the customer portal
By the end of this article your customer will have an email that gets them into your customer portal, where they see their bookings and vehicles, manage their addresses and plans, and book with you.
How the portal signs people in
There are no passwords. A customer opens your portal, enters the email address (or phone number) on their record, and receives a 6-digit code to type in. That is why the Email on the customer’s record matters: it is their identity in the portal, and no code is ever sent to an address you do not have on file. A customer with no email cannot be invited.
Turn the portal on
Sign-in is off until you allow it. Go to Settings → Company, open the Customer Portal tab, switch on Allow customers to sign in to the portal, then Save Portal Settings. While it is off, customers cannot request a code, and the invitation buttons below are hidden.
Invite one customer
- Open the customer’s page.
- Click Send portal access in the header. The button is disabled, with a note explaining why, when the customer has no email address.
- The customer receives an email in their language saying you have set up their portal, with a button to open it and the instruction to enter that same email address for a code.
You see Portal access email sent. If someone on your team already sent it in the last hour you see “A portal access email was already sent recently — we didn’t send another” instead, so a customer is never mailed twice for one click.
Invite many at once
From the Customers list, in the table view, tick the customers you want and click Send portal access to 3 (the number is your selection). The confirmation tells you how many will be emailed and, before anything goes out, how many of the selection have no email and will be skipped. After sending, one summary says how many were sent and how many were skipped and why.
The selection is cleared when you change page, search or tab, so you only ever act on customers you can see.
Know whether they made it in
On the customer’s page:
- Email Verified or Phone Verified appears once the customer has signed in with that channel.
- Last Login shows when they were last in the portal.
What the customer can do there
Book a new appointment; see their upcoming and past bookings, with the photos your technicians took; keep their vehicles and their addresses up to date; see their contact details as you have them (they ask you to change those); and, on the plans they subscribe to, see what was charged, open each invoice, and — if you allow it in Settings — pause or cancel the plan themselves. Quotes are approved and invoices are paid from the links in the emails you send, which work with or without a portal sign-in. They see only their own records with your business, never anyone else’s.
Good to know
- A deactivated customer cannot sign in, even if they were invited before. See Deactivate or delete a customer.
- Every email you send them carries a portal link when the portal is on — invoices, receipts and confirmations all end with a way in — so an invitation is a convenience, not the only door.
- Changing their email changes their login. The code goes to whatever address is on the record at the time.