---
key: give-a-customer-portal-access
title: Give a customer access to the portal
audience: staff
section: accounts
routes: ["/accounts/:accountUid", "/accounts/:accountUid/:tab"]
features: ["crm.accounts"]
since: 0.0.1
updated: 0.0.1
status: published
summary: Let a customer's contact sign in to your customer portal, choose what they can see, send them a sign-in link, and turn their access off again.
keywords: [portal login, customer login, invite customer, portal invite, sign-in link, customer password reset, portal user]
related: [work-on-a-customer-account, see-and-revoke-links-shared-with-a-customer, sign-in-to-the-portal, add-a-contact-to-an-account]
---

In the sidebar, open **Accounts**, then **All Accounts**, and open the
customer. Open the **Portal Access** tab, or press **Actions** and choose
**Manage portal access**. The page address ends in `/portal`. The
**Portal users** list shows everyone who can sign in to the portal for this
customer.

## Before you start

- The person must already be a contact on the account, with an email address
  ([[add-a-contact-to-an-account]]).
- Your role needs permission to create portal users. Without it the
  **Portal Access** tab only shows what already exists, or is missing.

## Steps

1. Press **Add portal user**.
2. Pick the contact in **Select contact**. You can type a display name; leave
   it blank to use the contact's name.
3. Choose a **Role**: **Owner**, **Billing**, **Technical**,
   **Office manager** or **Viewer**.
4. Choose which addresses they can see: **All account locations**,
   **Single account location** or **Subset of account locations**, then pick
   the locations.
5. Leave **Send invite link after creating the user** ticked to email them a
   link to set up their sign-in.
6. Press **Create user**. Nova says **Portal user created.**

## Manage someone who already has access

Open the menu at the end of the person's row:

- **Edit** changes their role or the locations they can see.
- **Send sign-in link…** (or **Send password reset link…** once they have
  signed in before) opens a window. Press **Email it to them**, or
  **Copy link** to send it yourself. A new link replaces any earlier one,
  including one the customer asked for themselves.
- **Verify email** confirms their email address, by sending them a message or
  by confirming it yourself.
- **Sign out everywhere…** signs them out of the portal on every device.
- **Turn off access…** signs them out and stops them signing in. Press
  **Turn off access** to confirm.

## What you see

Each row shows the person, their role, the locations they can see and a
status: **Invited** until they first sign in, **Active** after that, and
**Disabled** when access is turned off. **No login yet** means they have not
signed in.

## If something looks different

- "Selected contact must have an email for password resets": add an email
  address to the contact first.
- The window says the email could not be sent: the link shown still works.
  Copy it and send it another way.
- You turned someone's access off and need it back: the confirmation says
  access can be turned back on later, but the **Portal Access** tab has no
  button for that yet. Contact Nova support.