The Portal Access tab is where you grant, track and withdraw access.
The table lists every client in your account, with:
- Client Name
- Portal Login & Phone Number — the client’s portal login address and the phone number an SMS or WhatsApp invitation would reach, labelled Primary (mobile) or Alternate (landline). This column shows the login, not the notification list — see below. A dash means the client has no usable address on file at all.
- Invited on — when the invitation was last sent
- Client Status — Active or Inactive in PSS generally
- Portal Status — Not invited, Pending, Active, Disabled or Revoked
- Last Login — when they last signed in, or a dash
Above the table: Send Portal Invite and Disable portal access act on the rows you tick, a Search Client… box, and a filter icon (it gains a green dot while filters are applied). The FILTER panel slides in from the right with two groups:
- Client Filters — Client Status, Client Portal Status, Client Type.
- Property Filters — Tags, Property Type, Service Route Days, Job Status(es).
Each field takes one or more values, shown as removable chips. Apply Filters filters the list; Reset clears everything. Every column header sorts the list, and the list is paged when it is long.
Selecting many clients at once
The checkbox in the table header ticks the current page only. As soon as anything is ticked, a bar appears above the table reading N clients selected, with:
- Select all N clients (or …matching these filters when a search or filter is active) — extends the selection across every page of the list;
- Clear selection — drops it.
A selection carries over when you change page, and is cleared when you change the search or filters. Bulk actions are limited to 500 clients at a time; past that, PSS tells you “You can act on 500 clients at a time. Send or apply this batch, then select the rest.” Disable portal access on a selection disables every ticked client immediately and confirms with “N clients disabled from client portal”.
Which address becomes the login
A client record holds two different email fields, and the difference matters:
- Email is a notification list. It can hold several addresses, and invoices, service reports and announcements go to all of them.
- Portal Login Email is the single address the client signs in with. Leave it blank and PSS uses the first address in the Email list.
Both are on the client’s Profile tab in Clients — click Edit to change them (Section 1 — Clients & Properties).
Before the client accepts, changing Portal Login Email changes which address the next invitation will use. Editing the notification Email list does not move anybody’s login.
Once the client has accepted their invitation, you can no longer move their login. The address becomes theirs to manage, on the Profile page inside the portal (29.12). This is deliberate: the login is a credential, and only the person who holds it should be able to change it. If an accepted client needs a different login address, they change it themselves — or, if they cannot, PSS support can.
When the login and the client record disagree
Because the login is fixed at acceptance and the notification list is not, the two can drift apart — for example when a client changes email and your office updates the Email field. The Portal Access table flags this on the contact line:
- ⚠ Not on this client’s email list — the login still works, but it is no longer an address this client record names. The row menu offers Re-invite with New Email to move the login to the address the record now points at. That drops the client back to Pending and signs them out, so they will need to accept again.
- ⚠ Not on this client’s email list — they have accepted it, so it can no longer be changed here — the same drift, on an accepted login. There is no corrective action in the menu, because there is nothing your office may do. Ask the client to change it on their Profile page (29.12).
Note: An address that already belongs to a PSS staff or support account cannot be used as a client portal login. PSS refuses the invitation with “their portal login address belongs to a deactivated or support account”. Use a different address for that client.
Sending an invitation
- Tick the client or clients you want to invite.
- Click Send Portal Invite.
- The Send Invite to Clients dialog confirms how many clients will receive it. When a single client is selected it also states Portal login will be (the address), so you can catch a wrong address before sending; if this invitation would move an existing login, the line continues “— replacing (old address), which stops working immediately.”
- Choose the channels under SEND VIA:
- Email — sends the invitation link to the client’s email address.
- SMS — sends a text message with the portal link.
- WhatsApp — available only once WhatsApp Business is connected in Settings (Section 13 — Settings); otherwise the row is greyed out and reads Connect WhatsApp Business in Settings to enable this channel.
- Click Send Invite. Email is pre-ticked; at least one channel must be ticked.
PSS reports what happened in a message that counts the invitations sent and, where relevant, the clients it skipped and why — for example “N client(s) skipped — no valid email address on file”, “…already have portal access at their current login address”, “…their portal login address belongs to a deactivated or support account”, or “…no portal slot free, your plan’s client slots are now all in use”. If no Portal URL has been saved yet the whole send is refused: “Please set a Portal URL in the Portal Settings tab before sending invitations.”
What the client receives
The email is branded with your logo and carries a Set Up Your Account button, the client’s login address, and a note that the link expires in 14 days. Opening it puts a one-time 6-digit verification code in front of the Set Password screen — PSS emails the code to the invited address, so the client proves that address reaches them before the account is tied to it (29.1).
The text message carries the same wording with the link written out, since a text message has no button to tap.
Note: The wording of both messages comes from the Client Welcome tab (21.11). The link, the login address and the expiry notice are added by PSS and are not editable.
The client’s Portal Status becomes Pending and the header slot meter goes up by one immediately — the slot is committed from the moment the invitation goes out.
Managing a client’s access
The … menu at the end of each row offers what makes sense for that client’s status.
For a client who has never been invited, the only action is Send Invitation.
Once an invitation exists — pending or accepted — the menu offers Resend Invitation, Disable Portal Access and Revoke Portal Access.
Resend Invitation issues a fresh link and restarts the 14-day clock. Use it when an invitation has expired or the client has lost the email. Their password, if they already set one, is untouched. Resending also invalidates the previous invitation, so a client who opens an older email is told “This invitation is no longer valid” and pointed at the newest one.
The first item changes name to match what it would actually do:
| Row | First menu item |
|---|---|
| Never invited | Send Invitation |
| Invited, login matches the client record | Resend Invitation |
| Login has drifted from the client record, not yet accepted | Re-invite with New Email |
| Login has drifted, client has accepted | no invite item — see “When the login and the client record disagree” above |
Which of the other items appear also depends on the row: Disable Portal Access is offered on Active and Pending rows only — a client who is already disabled does not need it — while Revoke Portal Access is offered on Active, Pending and Disabled rows alike.
Disabling a client
Disable Portal Access takes effect at once — there is no confirmation step. PSS confirms with “Portal access disabled for (client)” and the row’s Portal Status turns to a red Disabled.
A disabled client can still sign in, but the portal becomes read-only: they can pay invoices and view their history, and nothing else. The controls that would change anything — New Request, Approve, Deny, file uploads — are greyed out with the reason shown on the page, so the client is told before filling anything in rather than after pressing Send. If you disable a client while they have the portal open, those controls go inert on their next action. What they see is frozen at the moment you disabled them, so jobs, properties, work requests and visits created afterwards never appear. Invoices and payments stay current, so a bill raised later can still be settled. Section 29.13 shows this from the client’s side.
The slot is still held. Note in the screenshot above that the counter beside the panel title drops to 0 active while the header meter stays at 1 of 10 slots and 9 slots remaining — disabling removes the client from your adoption count but not from your plan.
A disabled client’s row menu drops Resend Invitation and offers Reactivate Portal Access instead.
Revoking a client
Revoke Portal Access asks you to confirm first, and the Revoke Client Portal Access dialog describes what revoking will do to that particular client, so read it rather than skipping past it.
It says one of three things:
- The client can sign in today — “(client) will keep their login but will only see your portal home page — not their invoices, payments or service history.”
- They accepted, but cannot sign in at the moment (their PSS account was deactivated, or a re-invitation put them back to pending) — “(client) cannot sign in to the portal at the moment, so there is no access to take away today. If that changes they will only see your portal home page…”
- They never accepted — “(client) has not accepted their invitation yet, so there is no login to take away. Revoking cancels the invitation — they would have to be invited again.”
If revoking this client would actually free a slot, the dialog adds “This frees one client slot on your plan.” It does not say that when the row costs you nothing today — a lapsed invitation, or a disabled client who never accepted.
The dialog also names the softer option where it applies: “Use Disable Portal Access instead if they should still be able to view records and pay invoices.” On a client who is already disabled it says so instead — “They are already disabled, which is the softer option… Cancel to leave it that way.”
Click Revoke Access and the row’s Portal Status becomes Revoked, with the message “(client) removed from client portal”.
A revoked client can still sign in, but reaches only the Home page, and Home shows a notice in place of their records — see 29.13. Revoking is the only action that frees a slot: the header meter drops back to 0 of 10 and the panel now reads 10 slots remaining.
A revoked client’s row menu offers only Reactivate Portal Access.
Putting access back
Reactivate Portal Access restores a disabled or revoked client immediately — one click, no confirmation, no new invitation, and the client keeps the password they already set. The row returns to Active, and the header meter and slot count return to what they were.
Note: Reactivating a revoked client takes a slot again, so it can be refused if you are already at your plan’s limit. Reactivating a disabled client cannot be, because that client never gave the slot up.