Preparing Client Portals

In this article:

• Invite Clients to Client Portal
• Explore the Client Portal
• Add Connections to the Portal

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Invite Clients to Client Portal

The Client Portal is how you share files, client requests, and send other information back and forth with your clients.

Before you begin sharing those things, your contact needs access to the portal. 

You invite a client to the client portal using the email address you have on their file. 

It’s important to remember that Clients cannot make their portal - they have to be invited with their email address to get portal access.

To invite a client to the client portal:

1. Click on a Client’s Record. 
2. On the left-hand side, click the + button next to Client Portal.

In the Client Portal invite window, you have several options before inviting this client.

1. First, Confirm the client and client email address - this will flow into this window from whatever email they have in their record.
2. Next, You have the option to add another individual with their email. They will also have access to this portal.
   1. If doesn't have to be a current contact either. It can be someone outside of your contact list.
3. Last, you can leave a personalized message if you choose to.
   1. You have the option of using an email template here as well. If you have a template you like to use for onboarding, you can drop that here. You can also use one of these preset templates stored in Canopy.

There are various ways to communicate here, but we recommend creating a template that explains and instructs your clients on how to exchange info here.

Now you’re ready to send!

Explore the Client Portal

Let’s take a quick look at what the invitation looks like.

In the email, they will see your message and a button to create their account.

After clicking Create Account, they can create a password using the email address to which the invitation was sent.

They will start on the Home tab when they first log in. The portal is laid out so your client can see several tabs for:

• To-do: shows a list of all tasks assigned to them.
• Files: shows all of the files kept on the account.
• Billing (if applicable): shows outstanding balances and lists all of your invoices and payment history

As you add files, those will appear under Recent Files and a client can upload any relevant files by selecting Add a File, on the Files tab.

Lastly, they can navigate to their user settings at the bottom, by selecting their initials. 

They can edit their information or find resources to help them use the portal. 

Add Connections to the Client Portal

In some of your cases, you might have more than one user—or contact—linked to a contact you just sent a portal to. This might be spouses, business partners, or family members.

Let’s do another example of a client portal where a spouse is linked. 

Click on the main contact and select the + button for the portal. 

In the client portal invite window, you'll see that it’s showing the main contact, Jack Ryan, and his spouse, Cathy Ryan. 

This means that Cathy, who is linked to Jack’s contact account, can be invited to Jack’s client portal, as long she has provided an email address! 

Keep this in mind! Even if Cathy Ryan is not active (and therefore not a billable contact), she can still be invited to Jack’s client portal.

This way, Cathy can still provide information as part of the portal to-do’s.