What your people see on their portal

You build the portal, so you see the admin side of it. The people you invite see something quite different, usually on a phone, usually once, often at an inconvenient moment. This article is that page described from your side, so you know what you are sending before you send it to fifty people.

There is a separate set of articles written for them, at help for the people you onboard. Send people there rather than here.

What arrives

One link. It has /v/ in the path followed by a long random string, and that string is the whole credential.

There is no account, no password and nothing to install. They tap it, the page opens in whatever browser they already have, and they are in. That is the biggest reason people complete these: most document collection loses people at "create an account", and there is no such step here.

The flip side is that the link works like a password. Anyone holding it can submit as that person, so each person gets their own. If one goes astray, revoke it and issue a new one: see resending and revoking a link. Their earlier submissions stay on their contact record.

What is on the page

Top to bottom:

• My portals, a link to a page listing every portal they hold a link for with you. If someone asks what to bookmark, it is that.
• Your logo, if you have set one under Branding, and your brand color on the buttons. Worth ten minutes before your first send: the page then looks like it came from you rather than from a service they have never heard of.
• The portal name, as you typed it. They see this, so name portals for them, not for you. "Northgate Facilities contractor onboarding" reads better at 7am than "Onboarding v2 FINAL".
• A "This page is for" line with their name and email, which is how they confirm they opened the right link.
• Your notes, the ones for everyone first, then any note written for them alone.
• Their requests, in the order you arranged them.
• A progress box reading "3 of 8 answered" with a bar, while anything required is outstanding.
• Links you added for them, then files and links shared with everyone on the portal.

They only see their own list. Someone outside a section you limited to other people never knows it exists, and nobody sees anyone else's submissions.

Finishing: the Submit bar

Answering the last required item does not finish the job. A bar pins itself to the bottom of the screen reading "Everything is answered. Check your answers, then send them to finish." with a Send my answers button, and only pressing it marks them complete. That is when their confirmation email goes out and the page shows your completion message.

If people tell you they finished and you see them as incomplete, this is the usual reason. The headline, hint, button and completion message are all yours to reword: see changing the words people see.

There is no deadline on the page

A portal page shows no date and no countdown. Nothing on it tells somebody when to finish.

So if your intake has a real deadline, say so where they will read it: the invite email, or a note at the top of the portal.

What they can and cannot do

They can upload files, answer questions, pick options, sign terms, and tick off checklist items. Progress saves as they go, so they can do the easy half now on the bus and the certificate later at their desk. Closing the tab loses nothing already saved.

They can also redo a terms acceptance they got wrong, which replaces the old one and asks again.

They cannot see your other portals, your other contacts, or anything about your account. And they cannot edit their contact record directly: what reaches it is what they submit through your requests.

Working offline

The page caches itself on their device after the first successful load, so it opens again later with no signal. Useful for someone checking their list on a site with no coverage.

Submitting needs a live connection. Uploads, answers and signatures made offline fail rather than queuing, so nothing syncs later on its own. If somebody says they submitted and you cannot see it, rule this out first.

The two dead ends

Two messages replace the whole page, and they mean different things.

"Link not active" means that link was revoked, or the address got mangled in transit: split across two lines in a message, or cut short in a copy and paste. Resending takes a few seconds, and their previous submissions are unaffected.

"This portal is closed" means you closed the whole portal, which switches off every link on it at once and stops self-registration. Their link is fine. Reopen the portal and everyone is back in. See portal lifecycle.

Before your first real send

1. Set your branding. An unbranded page from an unfamiliar domain gets treated as spam by exactly the people you most need to hear from.
2. Send yourself one. Add yourself as a contact on the portal, open your own link on your phone, and work through it, Submit included. Ten minutes here catches the question that is clear to you and ambiguous to everyone else.
3. State the deadline in the Portal invite wording under Automations or in a note at the top of the portal. The page will not do it for you.

Where to go next

• Getting started builds the portal they will be opening.
• Creating requests for documents and info covers the request kinds in detail.
• A fully branded workspace is the branding side.
• Help for the people you onboard is the set written for them. That is the link to paste when someone gets stuck.