Table of Contents
Purpose
This article provides in depth information on how to set up and customize your Customer Portal!
The Customer Portal in Aspire is a great tool to use because it:
Allows the addition of electronic signatures to proposals
Allows customers to self pay their invoices
Helps customers view upcoming or past visits to their properties
Hosts a place for customers to view pending or past requests for their properties
Allows self management of payment methods on file
This reduces the need for direct contact for routine tasks and also gives your customers more control and visibility into their business with your organization! Freeing up your time allows you to focus on providing exceptional customer service and also supporting your internal teams.
Enabling Your Customer Portal in Administration
The first thing you’ll need to do is to turn on Customer Portal 2.0 in Administration.
Start by clicking on your profile icon in the blue side menu, and select Administration from the list:
Once you are in Administration, click on the Configuration tab then click on the Customer Portal 2.0 sub tab.
Turn on the Customer Portal by clicking on the toggle button:
Once you turn the customer portal on, you can configure the portal to fit your needs!
Branch Level Configuration Checkbox
🧠This checkbox allows you to set up multiple customer portals for the different Branches of your company. This is ideal for companies that need to manage multiple branches with properties that accept electronic payments.
If the checkbox is clicked, then you would use the Branch dropdown to select the Branch that you will be configuring the Customer Portal for.
You can also see which Branches have active customer portals as they will have a checkmark next to them.
🧠 If you only have one branch to set a customer portal up for, you can leave this box unchecked. Leaving this unchecked means that you will set up the System Customer Portal.
Setting up Additional Customer Portals for More Than One Branch
In the previous section of this article, we talked about enabling Branch-Level Configuration. This means that each branch will have a unique, custom URL, and need invites to this branch portal, set up by you! This makes it easier for customers to understand invoices, etc. if they have properties in more than one of your branches.
If you plan to set up multiple Customer Portals for your branches with different logos and branding colors, the set up in Administration would follow the same process for each Branch. You would need to set up each Branch’s Customer Portal individually.
🧠Here’s an example to clarify which customers would need access to multiple Branch Customer Portals:
If Camilla Sailor has Properties in both the Main Branch and the West Branch, she would need to receive an invite to both Customer Portals! After accepting her invites to each portal, she would bookmark each URL so she can access each property's invoices, proposals, and more!
Follow the steps outlined in this article for as many branches you need to customize for your system.
Using Only the System Branch Invite
Here's another option depending on your organization! If you want your customers to see all of their properties in one customer portal with your company’s main logo, designs, and not have to use multiple branch URLs for the customer portal, then you would send the System Branch Invite, only.
🧠Here’s an example to clarify when you'd use only the System Branch Invite:
Camilla Sailor has two properties, Meadow Ridge which is serviced by the Main Branch, and Alora’s Place which is serviced by the West Branch. You are only planning to use the System Customer Portal, and not creating portals for your additional branches. You’ve set up your Customer Portal this way because the branding, logos, and messaging are all the same for all of your Branches.
You’d send Camilla her Customer Portal Invite, and she would be able to view all of her properties in the same Customer Portal. She only needs one log in with this option, which is easy for her to remember!
If you need your customers to review properties in separate portals, with each branch’s unique design, logos, etc. Then you would need to set up portals individually as mentioned in the previous section.
Next, you’ll set up your subdomain and add a portal link description.
Creating the Customer Portal Invite Email for Customers
In order for your customers to use the Customer Portal, an email invite will need to be created first.
Enter information in the following fields:
Customer Portal Subdomain
The domain appears in the URL you give to your customers to access the portal. It's recommended to use your company's name.
📌 Note: Aspire adds to your portal subdomain to include: .propertyserviceportal.com.
Here’s an example of what your Customer Portal URL will look like after you add a subdomain:
Customer Portal Link Description
This is the hyperlink your customer will see in their Invitation Email Body. The text you enter in the Customer Portal Link Description field becomes the clickable link in the invitation email your customers receive.
Example: Entering the text in the link description above appears as Click here to accept your Portal invite inside the body of your customer portal invitation email instead of your actual URL.
Look at the example below to see the Link Description in action!
Then, you can set up your Invitation Email Subject and Email Body that your contacts are going to receive when they're invited to the portal.
Invitation Email Subject
Next, set up the Invitation Email Subject.
Use tokens to personalize the information being sent in your customers' invite by clicking the magnifying glass ( 🔍 ). In the example above, we used [ContactName]. which pulls from the contact record of the customer.
When the Customer Portal Invitation is received, the subject line will include the contact name of the contact record you are sending the invitation to.
For John Smith, the email subject would read: John Smith, you've been invited to the Customer Portal!
Next, set up the Email Body information that will be sent to your customer.
Invitation Email Body
Write an email body that is easily understandable for your customer.
Tokens are helpful here as well when setting up your email.
If you’d like to link to the Resource Center currently available for the Customer Portal 2.0, use: https://guide.youraspire.com/customer-portal
This is helpful for customers who are using the portal for the first time!
⚠️ You must include the CustomerPortalLink token in your Invitation Email for customers to set up their account. Otherwise, your customers won’t be able to sign up.
In the example above, we used the tokens Contact Name and Customer Portal Link.
Next, we'll talk about the design settings for your customer portal, which are found on the same set up page for customer portal settings.
Keep scrolling down 👇 the Administration window in Aspire so you can edit the next section called Customize!
Designing Your Customer Portal in the Customize Section
The next section of the customer portal setup is to determine how you want your portal to look to your customers when they sign in to their accounts.
You will set up the look in the Customize Section of the Customer Portal 2.0 screen.
The Customize section allows you to set your company or branch branding for the Customer Portal.
All of the settings you add here can be previewed in real-time in the Preview section for both desktop and mobile layouts!
Header Subtab
Start to customize the branding of your Customer Portal by adding information to the Header subtab of this section.
Background Color
Set your Background Color for headers with a hex code or, you can click on the color square and bring up the color selection tool!
In this example, we have updated the hex code and now, the color has been updated from the default blue that was displayed to green:
Logo
Upload your company or branch logo here by clicking on the image under the header.
3:2 (300x200 pixels) or 3:3 (300x300 pixels) ratioed images are recommended for the logo upload.
Any size can be added but please note that it’ll be condensed to fit into the header!
Use an image that is saved on your desktop or take a new picture.
Then, click Save to finish uploading your logo.
After your image has been added, you’ll see it appear in the Logo section and also reflected in the Preview section!
Next, you can work on setting up your Page Title.
Page Title
Set an optional Page Title which can function as a welcome message!
This is also is a great place to add Company or Branch Name if it isn’t included in your logo like the example below:
📌Note: Any changes to the Administration side of the Customer Portal can take up to 15 minutes to reflect in the portal. Use the Preview function to see how changes will appear.
If you still don't see changes after 15 minutes, try using an incognito window or clearing your local storage.
Homepage Subtab
The next subtab in the Customize section of Customer Portal set up is called Homepage.
There are four checkboxes that control the visible sections of your portal. Check or uncheck these based on what you want your customers to see!
✅ Show Requests Checkbox
Use this if you want your customers to see and respond to their Issues, which are known as Requests in the customer portal.
✅ Show Invoices Checkbox
Use this checkbox if you want your customers to see and pay towards their invoices.
⚠️ Accepting Electronic Payments must be set up in Aspire before your customers are able to self pay in the Customer Portal. To learn more about our electronic payment partner that integrates with Aspire and the Customer Portal, click here.
✅ Show Proposals Checkbox
Use this if you want your customers to be able to view and sign proposals in their customer portal account.
✅ Show Visits Checkbox
Use this if you want your customers to see upcoming and past visits for their properties
Carousel
Think of using this section for a bit of optional marketing for your company! It is not required to use this section, but this is an easy way to display messaging, marketing photos, and more!
Use the Aspire Default Welcome Graphic which displays the User Name of the customer when they log in:
You could also add up to 3 custom images, or you can use a mix to include the Default Welcome Graphic and your own custom images!
🧠It’s recommended that you are uploading images that follow a 16:9 size (or 1920x1080, or 1280x720 pixels) format, so there are no parts of your image cut off when viewing the Carousel images!
You can also add Headlines in the Carousel section, which are displayed over each image. These can be used for system-wide messages, to share a greeting, to promote a new service or special, to request reviews. The opportunities are endless!
You have the option to add an Image URL, which if your customers click on the image, it will redirect them to an external webpage, like to your company website!
Colors Subtab
The next section to customize is the Colors subtab.
Here, you can enter a hex number or use the color selection tool here to set your primary color for buttons and links displayed in your customer portal.
In this example, the default primary color of the customer portal has been changed to blue.
After entering the hex code, we can see that the change has already been made and is updated in the preview!
Settings Subtab
The final subtab of the Customize section is called Settings.
Service Contact
So customers are able to reach out to your team easily, the Service Contact section allows you to display either the Office Number or Mobile Number to customers in their view of the Customer Portal.
The Mobile Number displayed on Proposals and Invoices would be for the Sales Rep tied to the opportunity.
The Mobile Number displayed for Requests and Issues would be the Account Owner tied to the property.
Select which phone numbers are visible.
By default, no numbers are displayed, but you can use these check boxes to display them!
📌Note: Email contact information is always displayed regardless of your Service Contact settings.
Pricing Display Options
You can use the Display Detailed Service Pricing option to make each service's price details visible on your proposals and invoices!
If you like to show lump sum, or bulk pricing, you can leave this unchecked.
💡This does not impact your Report Layout settings used in your system, this only impacts what is displayed in the View Proposal and View Invoice screens of the Customer Portal.
Payment Section
This section allows you to set accepted Payment Types, allow your customers to make partial payments, and also set minimum or maximum payment ranges for customers to use.
📌Note: In order to use this section, you are required to have Electronic Payments turned on for your organization’s Aspire account.
Accept Partial Payments
Using the Accept Partial Payment feature allows you to offer flexible payments from your customers on their invoices!
💡 If you are going to be setting maximum amount limits, which we will discuss next, you’ll need to turn the Accept Partial Payments toggle button on.
Payment Types
📌Note: In order to use this section, you are required to have Electronic Payments turned on for your organization’s Aspire account.
Depending on your company’s billing preferences, you can choose to accept ACH or Card payments from your customers. Set the accepted payment types here!
ACH
Click the ACH payment checkbox on if you accept ACH payments from customers.
You can also set a minimum or maximum ACH payment amount, which is especially helpful when you also have Accept Partial Payments enabled.
Card
📌Note: In order to use this section, you are required to have Electronic Payments turned on for your organization’s Aspire account.
Depending on your company’s billing preferences, you can choose to accept Card payments from your customers.
Click the Card payment checkbox on if you accept card payments from customers.
Set a minimum or maximum Card payment amount, which is especially helpful when you also have Accept Partial Payments enabled.
Understanding When Content Appears in the Customer Portal
Once an estimate or your invoice batch is marked as complete, that's when the portal can publish your Proposals or Invoices!
For Proposals
Printing Proposals
Let’s look at an example:
Navigate to an opportunity. Click on the three-dot menu and select Print Proposal.
At the bottom of the Report Settings window that appears, you’ll see a checkbox that says Publish Proposal in Customer Portal.
When you’re ready for the proposal to be sent to the customer, you can click Print and it will appear in their portal.
If you want to use an internal layout instead or are not ready for your customer to review this information in their proposal, then you should leave this box unchecked.
Emailing Proposals
Not planning to print out paper proposals? No problem!
Emailing Proposals follows the same process; on the Email Opportunity Proposal window, you will see a Publish Proposal in Customer Portal checkbox.
📌Note: This checkbox is turned on by default for emailing proposals!
If you have already published a proposal to the portal, and you need to make changes and republish it for your customer to review in the portal, you will receive an alert with a timestamp of the previous publish, the layout name and who published it:
For Invoices
You can also choose to publish Invoices to the Customer Portal.
Navigate to the Invoicing module.
In the Invoice Batches tab, when you are on the Complete Batch screen, you can choose to use the checkbox Publish Invoice in Customer Portal!
Inviting Your Customers to Your Customer Portal
Requirements
✅You've set up your Customer Portal in Administration.
✅The role permissions of Bulk Email Contacts and Send Customer Portal Invitation are enabled for the user sending the invitations.
💡System Administrators, Branch Administrators, Branch Managers, and Account Managers can send Customer Portal invitations.
Sending Customer Portal Invitations
Anytime you need to send a customer an invite to your portal, you will do this in the Contacts module with the Bulk Actions feature.
This process is the same regardless of having one customer portal for your company or multiple portals for your company!
Select the contacts from the list that you want to send your invites to by clicking the checkboxes next to their contact record.
Then, click on the Bulk Actions dropdown.
Select Send Customer Portal Invite from the list of options:
Edit the template email if needed.
Remember, the default email comes from what you had set up in Administration.
The email sender's email address is the user that is sending the invite!
⚠️You must include the CustomerPortalLink token in your Invitation Email for customers to set up their account.
📌 Note: Customer Portal Invite links, once sent, are valid for 30 days. If 30 days have passed, and your customer never uses their invite link, you'll have to send them a new Portal Invitation Email.
🧠If you have multiple portals set up for your system, then you will see the Branch dropdown menu, which allows you to set the invitation that goes to the customers you have selected.
If you only have one customer portal set up for your system, this will default to System Portal in this section.
Portal invitations can get sent multiple times to your users, which helps if they lose their initial invites or never activate their portal account.
⚠️Contacts have to have Branch set on their Contact Record and be tied to the property in order to be able to be invited to a Branch specific portal.
Click Send to finish sending your customers your customer portal invite link!
Verifying If Your Customer Has Signed Up For The Customer Portal
If a customer calls and says they can't get into their account, the first step would be to check and see if they have accepted their invite.
To confirm if your customer has accepted the Customer Portal Invitation, add a Display to include Customer Portal Verified and press Save.
The Contacts module display column will show a column with the name of the Branch that a customer portal account has been created for your customer.
If the Customer Portal branch set up is not used, you will only see System in this column if they have been verified!
If the customer is verified for multiple Branch Customer Portals, they will see the Branch Names listed in this column.
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