Communicate with Clients
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      Set Up a Board for Client Access

      Applies to ConnectWise ticket boards and Autotask ticket and task boards.

      Kanban boards can be presented to clients so they can get their own updates about the progress of a project, the status of a particular ticket, or see what's waiting on them to complete.

      This doc explains how to make a board available to your clients. You'll also need to license the companies and invite the contacts.

      Client Portal is available in two modes:
      1. Via the regular web app. In this mode, access is granted via the company/account records and their contact records already in your PSA.
      2. Via CloudRadial. In this mode, access is granted via the company/account records and for a licensed company, all contacts who can use CloudRadial can use the Client Portal.

      We recommend you make Kanban boards dedicated to sharing with clients, not shared with your managers and technicians, because you'll want to set them up in special ways. For example, you might want to show fewer details on the cards, disable WIP limits, or omit certain columns compared to your usual Kanban boards.

      Data Visibility and Limitations

      Clients are always restricted to only see records that correspond to their company (or in Autotask, a child company of their company) or to their own contact. You do not need to set up separate boards for each licensed company. When you view a Kanban board as a TopLeft user, you will see records for multiple companies, but the clients will not.

      Client users are limited in functionality. These functions are hidden from contacts:

      1. Using filters
      2. Showing the statuses assigned to columns
      3. Viewing the general ticket/task editor that staff use to edit tickets, enter time, and assign technicians.

      Setting Up a Client Portal Board

      To let clients view a Kanban board, do this:

      1. Navigate to the Kanban board you want to share with clients and click Edit to open the board editing page. Or you can create a new Kanban board for this purpose. Not all board types support client portal. For ConnectWise, ticket boards are supported and for Autotask, ticket and task boards are supported.
      2. On the edit/create page, go to the Portal tab.
      3. Enable the Client portal option
      4. Choose what contacts can see and do on the board:
        1. Show notes and time entries: Enable this option if you want contacts to be able to view notes and time entries. Internal notes are not shown even if this option is enabled.
        2. Card visibility: choose which cards will appear to a client- any cards assigned to the client's company (typical for project use) or only cards assigned directly to the client him/herself (typical for service use).
        3. Contact can add notes: Permits a client to add notes to a ticket or task.

          When a client adds a note to a ticket or task, an email is sent to all members assigned to the ticket or task. In ConnectWise, it also sets the client responded field on the ticket.
        4. Contact can drag cards: Permit a contact to drag and drop cards between columns and within a column. Dragging is not permitted between swimlanes. When a client moves a card, an email is sent to all members assigned to the ticket or task. In ConnectWise, it also sets the client responded field on the ticket.
        5. Show project/phase time and budget summary: When using project or phase swimlanes, show the time and budget information in swimlane headers. Disable this field to hide this information from contacts.
        6. Contact can create tickets/tasks: Permit a client to create service tickets, project tickets, or tasks from the board. Also set the ConnectWise board/queue/status/priority/project ticket type fields as needed.

          On Kanban boards with project or phase swimlanes, clients can create project tickets/tasks/issues. On boards with other types of swimlanes, or with no swimlane, then they create service tickets.

          For example, on a project swimlane board, the Create Ticket button within a swimlane is used to open the form.

          The ticket creation form:

      1. If you want to restrict the board to a specific set of companies, select the companies in the Company access field. When no companies are selected in this field, contacts from any licensed company can use this board.
      2. Save the board.

      If you've already licensed companies and invited contacts, then you're done. You can see how the board will look to a particular client by impersonating them.

      If you haven't licensed companies or invited contacts, do that now.