Inviting Customers to the Portal (Customer Portal)

Last updated July 6, 2026 · Owners, admins, and office staff

Portal access is granted one customer at a time from that customer’s record. There’s no public sign-up — you turn access on and send the customer a one-time temporary password, and they set their own password the first time they sign in. This article covers granting access, sending the password, checking whether the customer got in, and re-sending when they don’t.

Before you start

  • The portal must be enabled company-wide (Settings → Customer Portal → General → Enable the customer portal). If it’s off, the invite button is disabled and a note points you to Portal Settings. See Set Up the Customer Portal.
  • The customer must have an email address on file. The temporary password is emailed there, so no email means no invite. Add or fix the email on the customer record first — see Update Customer.

Steps

  1. Open the customer’s record and go to the Customer Summary page. Click the Portal tab (in the Portal tab group).
  2. Turn on Portal access enabled. This is the per-customer switch that lets this specific customer sign in. (Turning it off later immediately signs them out and revokes their active session.)
  3. Confirm the Email on file shown on the tab is correct — this is exactly where the temporary password will be sent.
  4. Click Send Temporary Password. The system generates a one-time password, emails it to that address, and records the time under Last invite sent. The button is only enabled once the portal is on company-wide, this customer’s access is on, and an email is on file.
  5. Tell the customer to check their inbox (and spam folder the first time). They open the sign-in link, enter their email and the temporary password, and are immediately prompted to set their own password. From then on they sign in with email + password.

What happens next

The customer’s first sign-in forces a password change, and the temporary password stops working the moment they set their own. The Portal tab shows two indicators so you can see status at a glance:

  • Last invite sent — when you last clicked Send Temporary Password.
  • Last portal sign-in — when the customer last signed in (or “Customer has not signed in to the portal yet”).

If the customer forgets their password later, they can reset it themselves with Forgot password? on the sign-in page — you don’t need to be involved. See the customer-facing password reset guide.

Tips & best practices

  • Re-sending is safe. Each click of Send Temporary Password generates a fresh password and invalidates any earlier one — only the most recent works. If a customer says the email never arrived or the password “doesn’t work,” just re-send.
  • There’s a 30-second cooldown on re-sending, so you don’t accidentally rotate the password twice in a row and confuse the customer. If the button seems unresponsive right after a send, wait a moment.
  • Check “Last portal sign-in” before assuming a customer is using the portal. If it’s blank weeks after inviting, the email may be landing in spam — re-send or confirm the address.
  • No temporary password to hand-deliver. Everything goes by email; there’s no way to read or copy the temporary password from the admin side (it’s never stored in plain text). If a customer can’t receive email, fix the email on file, then re-send.

Troubleshooting

  • Send Temporary Password is greyed out — one of the three conditions isn’t met: portal off company-wide, this customer’s Portal access enabled is off, or no email on file. The tab shows a hint telling you which.
  • The email never arrived — check the customer’s spam folder first; confirm the email on the customer record matches what they expect; wait past the 30-second cooldown and re-send. Fuller checklist in Portal troubleshooting.
  • Customer typed a different email than the one on file — they’ll be “logged in as no one” and see nothing. They must use the exact address on their customer record.
  • Forgot-password email not arriving — the reset page always shows the same generic confirmation whether or not the email matched (to prevent probing), so a typo means nothing is sent. Confirm the email on file, or just re-send a temporary password from their record.
  • Locked out after too many tries — after 5 wrong passwords the account locks for 15 minutes. The customer can wait, use Forgot password?, or you can re-send a temporary password.

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