The day a client gets its own portal
Roll out the client portal to a new client in one afternoon
Name the owner and add the team. Set the vault. Then show the client tickets, bills and security, all in one afternoon.
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How to do it
Pick the client and the person who will own the portal.
Open the client record and press Edit. Name the person under Primary Contact. That person is the client's portal owner and gets the Owner and Full Access badges. Choose someone who can decide things for the company, because the owner can approve quotes and save a card.
Open Users > Portal Access and add the rest of the team.
Portal Access sits next to Contacts. A contact is only a record, and nobody signs in because they are listed there. Use Add User above the list and search the person's name or email. Click the person. They are added at once as Billing, so change the role in the dropdown right away. Someone who has never had an account is emailed an invite.
Note: The dropdown offers three roles: Primary Contact, IT Admin and Billing. Owner is not a choice. Picking a role saves at once, with no Save button.Match each role to the job.
The owner, Primary Contact and IT Admin can see the Users and Security pages. Billing lands on Tickets and sees only the tickets they raised. Give each person the role that fits the job. You can change a role later in the same dropdown.
Decide what the client can see in the vault.
Open the client's Documentation. Set each password and document to MSP Only, Visible to all client users, or one named person. Do this before the first sign-in. MSP Only wins over the other two.
Warning: A client who can see an entry can reveal its password with the eye icon. Keep anything you would not hand across the desk on MSP Only.Set up card saving, only if you want it.
Open Integrations and find the Stripe card. Save both Stripe keys. Let clients save a card, and charge it is on by default, so saving the keys is what makes My Payment appear. Turn it off if you do not want card saving. Fill in the Billed-by line so clients see who they are authorizing. To charge cards you must also set Deposit collected funds to, an account from your chart of accounts. Leave it blank and no card is charged. Until both keys are saved, the My Payment page does not exist for your clients.
Warning: Card saving also turns on charging. A client with a card on file is charged when an open invoice comes due, once that invoice has reached your accounting system. Tell the client this before they save a card.Send the owner a short note with your portal address.
Tell them to open your portal address, type their work email, and press Email me a sign-in link. There is no password. A one-time link arrives, and they press Continue. If the client uses Microsoft 365 or Google, they can use those two buttons and skip the mail.
Walk the owner through their first ticket.
On a call, ask them to press Get Support, write a Subject and a Description, and press Submit Ticket. Then open it on your side. It is the same ticket your techs work. Show them the reply box, Attach, and Close on send, which turns the button into Send & Close. If they close too soon, Reopen ticket brings it back.
Show them what they owe and what is waiting.
Open Billing. The tiles show Outstanding, Paid and Active Plans. The tabs are Service Plans, Invoices and Quotes. A quote marked Sent shows Approve and Decline to the owner and Primary Contact only. Decline is final. If card saving is on, show My Payment in the left menu and read the agreement above Add a card together.
Show them the Security page and a training.
The owner, Primary Contact and IT Admin see Security. It shows what you caught and what you did, in plain words. Users and Billing do not see it. A person with a training finds it under Security Training. They read the lessons and press Confirm Training Record.
Have the owner check who can see what.
Ask them to open Users and click a person. The page lists every section of the portal with View, Edit, Admin or Personal beside it. This is how the owner confirms a role without asking you. Then open System Logs > Audit Log on your side. Each role change is on record with who made it and when.
The pages behind each click
- How the client portal works for your clients →
- How tickets work in the client portal →
- How bills, plans and a card on file work in the client portal →
- How to save, check and remove your card on file →
- What security alerts show in the client portal →
- How to change a client user's portal role →
- Choose which passwords and documents each client can see →
- How to onboard a new client in the first week without the spreadsheet →
What you will have
- Name the client's portal owner and add the rest of the team with the right roles.
- Set what the client can see in the vault before anyone signs in.
- Decide whether clients can save a card, and know what that switches on.
- Sign the owner in with a one-time link. Walk the first ticket, the bills and the security page.
- Check who can see what, and find each role change in the Audit Log.
Why it works this way: Roll out the client portal to a new client in one afternoon
The portal is your own records shown to the client. The ticket a client raises is the ticket your techs work, and the invoice they open is the one your accounting raised. So the afternoon is mostly about who sees what, not about copying data.
What a person can do is decided by one role on their record. That is why you set roles and the vault first, and invite after.
Card saving is one switch for two jobs. It adds the My Payment page and it lets a saved card be charged when an invoice comes due. Say so before a client saves a card.
If it did not work: Roll out the client portal to a new client in one afternoon
- If the sign-in link does not arrive, check the email address on their record. Look in junk mail too. The link works once and for a short time, so an old one will not work.
- If a person is not on Portal Access, use Add User above the list. A contact on the Contacts tab has no sign-in until you do.
- If My Payment is missing, check that both Stripe keys are saved. Check that the Let clients save a card, and charge it switch is on. Only the owner, Primary Contact and Billing role see the page.
- If a client sees a vault entry you meant to hide, open the entry and turn on MSP Only. It overrides the other two settings.
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