Customer Portal

Overview

A Customer Portal is a great way for an organization to allow its customers to login into their dedicated internal system and access restricted data. Instead of building their own authentication and security mechanisms, users can use Zoho Creator portals. Users can sign up with their portal instead of signup with Zoho. Users can login into their dedicated portal, access applications shared to them, submit data, and most importantly, view and edit only those records which they submitted.

Steps to Enable Customer Portal

To enable customer portal,

• Go to Edit mode of the application.
• Click on Application Settings-->Customer Portal.

One Time Setup

When the portal is enabled for first time, it will prompt for the web address that will be used to access the portal. Enter the web address name of your choice and click on Submit button.

On successful configuration of the portal, the admin is redirected to the portal settings page as shown below.

 

Portal Authentication for Application

Settings

The portal settings tab allows you to set following properties.

• Customer Portal URL: By clicking the portal link, the login page of the portal opens where the Email Id and the password the portal user has to be entered. 
• Allow Self Registration: This feature allows the user to signup for the portal by themselves only if the option is set to Yes.
• Requires Approval from Admin: By enabling this feature, the access to signed up portal is allowed, only if the approval is given by the admin.
• Auto Approve for ZohoCRM Contacts: Approval process is exempted for the contacts present in ZohoCRM contact module.
• Configure Google Analytics: You can configure Google Analytics account for your domain and get a detailed report about your portal's traffic. To configure Google Analytics account for your domain:
  • Create an account with Google Analytics.
  • Sign in to your Google Analytics account, and go to the admin page.
  • Select an account from the dropdown in the Account column.
  • Select a property from the dropdown in the Property column.
  • Click Tracking Info.
  • Use the unique identifier code in the GA Tracker ID field. This will link your portal with your Google Analytics account. The tracking ID is a code which looks like UA-xxxxxx-xx.
  The Google Analytics tracking code collects data for your portal, and returns that data to Analytics. This data can be viewed in Events under Reports of your Google Analytics account. The following events are tracked:
  • Sign-up page loads
  • Sign-in page loads
  • Live page loads
  • New user registrations 

  

  User Management

  Once the initial Portal configurations are set, it is possible to map users to the portal from the Users tab of the Customer portal. From the Users tab the following actions can be performed.

  Add New User

  You can send invite to new users to access the portal. To add a new user to your portal,

  • Click on +Add New User button.
  • The Add new user dialog box appears when you click the Add New User button. Enter the Email Id of the user to whom the invite has to be sent.
  • You can invite multiple users to the portal by adding the Email Id's separated by a comma.
  • Click on Send Invite button to send the invitation to access the Portal.
  • Once the invitation is sent, the success message appears.
  • The user will be added to the Users list with status as "Unconfirmed" and once the invitation is accepted, the user becomes an Approved user.
  • To reinvite a user, mouse over to a particular user and click on the re-invite button against the username.

  Import Users

  The Import Users option enables the admin to add users by importing the contacts list. The formats supported to import the files are excel file (.xls), Comma separated Values (.csv) and table separated Values (.tsv). To import the user list,

  • Select the Import Users button. The Import Users dialog will be displayed as shown in the screenshot below.
  • Browse and select the required .xls, .csv, .tsv file from the local drive.
  • Click on Upload button. On successful import, you can send invite to the list of Email Id's.

  

  Note:

  • While importing the .xls file to your users list, the excel file should contain only the list of email address without header.

  Delete Users

  A user can be deleted by the admin of the portal. This can be done in two ways.

  • From the list header, select the checkbox of the user to be deleted and click on Delete button.
  • Alternatively, mouse over to a particular user and click on Delete link against the username.

  To delete all the users in the portal, select the checkbox in the list header next to the Delete icon and click on Delete button. If deleted, users will not be able to access the portal anymore.

  Search Users

  The Search tab allows the admin to search a particular user from the list of portal users. You can enter the search name and view the search result. The search tab displays the list of users based on the search Keyword as shown in the screenshot below.

  

  Filter Users

  You can filter the users based on the access permission to the portal. Users are categorized as:

  • Approved Users

    The Approved Users option lists the users who have been granted permission to access the portal. It also lists the users to whom the invitation is sent by the admin.

  • Pending Users

    The Pending Users option lists the contacts who have signed up for the portal and yet to obtain the approval of portal admin. The Pending Users will list the users only if the Requires Approval from the <Admin> checkbox is enabled in the Settings tab of Customer portal page.

  • Unconfirmed Users

    The Unconfirmed Users option lists the users to whom the invitation has been sent and awaits acceptance from the user end. Once the user accepts the invitation and signs up for the portal, the user would no longer be listed in the Unconfirmed Users.

  Publish/Unpublish

  The Publish/Unpublish mode is used to change the login status to the portal.

  • When the portal is set to publish mode, users will be able to access the portal with the portal address.
  • If the portal is set to Unpublish mode, the portal is locked and it cannot be accessed by the users. The portal shows the message as Site down for maintenance as shown in the screenshot below.

  

  Permission

  The Permission tab allows the user to select the components that are shared to the users of the portal. You can provide access to a particular form, report, page or to the entire application. The user can access the components of the application based on the permissions set by the portal administrator. 

  

  Note:

  • Newly created Zoho Creator accounts will have "Profiles" instead of "Permissions"

  Email Notifications

  The Email Notfications tab allows the user to customize the email invitation and password reset templates. The templates are specific for each portal. If the template is not customized, then the default template shown in the screenshot below, will be sent to the user.

  

  The Email Notifications tab consist of the following components.

  1. Email Address

  By default, the From Email Address and Reply to Email Address will be that of the administrator.

  •   From Email Address - All the invitations sent to the users will be sent through the email address provided in the From Email Address field.
  •   Reply To Email Address - All the emails received from the users will be sent to the email address provided in the Reply to Email Address field.

  2. Email Invitation Template

  This feature allows the administrator to customize the email invitation. To customize the invitation template, click on the Edit icon available next to the subject of the invitation template in the Email Notifications tab. The invitation template window appears containing the following components.

  Template :

  Template field refers to the default name of the template.

  Subject :

  The subject field refers to the subject of the Email invitation. You can customize the subject of the email from this field.

  Available Merge Fields:

  Each Available merge field consist of selected fields. By choosing a combination of values from Available merge field and the Select field, the Copy merge field value is generated. Copy and paste the generated merge field value in the body of the email. The list of available merge field values are given below.

  • ${Portal.DOMAIN_NAME} - returns the domain name of the portal.
  • ${Portal.ADMINISTRATOR} - returns the name of the portal administrator.
  • ${Portal.SUBDOMAIN_NAME} - returns the sub-domain name of the portal.
  • ${Portal.LINK_NAME} - returns the application link name.
  • ${Portal.DISPLAY_NAME} - returns the display name of the portal.
  • ${Link.PORTAL_URL} - returns the link to access the portal URL.
  • ${Link.ACCEPT_PORTAL_INVITATION} - returns the link to accept portal invitation.
  • ${User.EMAIL_ID} - returns the Email id of the user.
  • ${User.FULL_NAME} - returns the full name of the user.

  The email invitation template can be customized by using the above mentioned merge field values.

  3. Reset Password Template

  This feature allows the administrator to customize the reset password template. When an user requests for password reset from the portal home page, the customized reset password template is automatically sent to the Email Id of the user containing the link to change password. The user can change the password from the link available in the email.

  To customize the Reset password template, click on the Edit icon available next to the subject of the template in the Email Notifications tab.

  

  The reset password template window appears containing the following components.

  Template :

  Template field refers to the default name of the template.

  Subject :

  The subject field refers to the subject of the password reset email. You can customize the subject of the email from this field.

  Available Merge Fields:

  Each Available merge field consist of selected fields. By choosing a combination of values from Available merge field and the Select field, the Copy merge field value is generated. Copy and paste the generated merge field value in the body of the email. The list of available merge field values are given below.

  • ${Portal.DOMAIN_NAME} - returns the domain name of the portal.
  • ${Portal.ADMINISTRATOR} - returns the name of the portal administrator.
  • ${Portal.SUBDOMAIN_NAME} - returns the sub-domain name of the portal.
  • ${Portal.LINK_NAME} - returns the application link name.
  • ${Portal.DISPLAY_NAME} - returns the display name of the portal.
  • ${Link.PORTAL_URL} - returns the link to access the portal URL.
  • ${Link.ACCEPT_PORTAL_INVITATION} - returns the link to accept portal invitation.
  • ${User.EMAIL_ID} - returns the Email id of the user.
  • ${User.FULL_NAME} - returns the full name of the user.

  The reset password template can be customized by using the above mentioned merge field values.

  Note:

  • Both Invitation and Reset Password Template supports upto a maximum of 32,000 characters in the body of the email message.

  Map your Domain to Portal

  To map your domain to the portal,

  • In the portal settings tab, Click on "Domain Mapping" link displayed below the the portal URL.
  • Enter your Domain name in the domain mapping dialog box.
  • Is always secure -  Selecting this option will always use a secure connection (SSL) and connects through <https://>. We recommend that you keep this checked. If SSL is not already installed, please send an email to support@zohocreator.com to install SSL to your domain. If this option is not selected, your domain will be rendered through http:// .
  • Click on the "Save" button to save the configurations.
  • You can also edit or delete your domain URL from the same page through the edit or delete icons displayed next to the domain URL.
  • Now the users can login to the domain URL to access the portal. However the portal URL will still be available.
  • Any links that you had coming in to the portal URL earlier will not be broken.
  • Domain Mapping is done via CNAME record because its an easy way to point the customer portal to the domain and it does not require comprehensive knowledge of DNS settings. Ensure that you have mapped the CNAME entry and linked it to customer-creator.zoho.com before you map your domain with creator.

  

  Page Customization

  Page customization allows you to customize the look and feel of your customer portal home page to suit your organizational needs. To customize the customer portal, go to Settings -> Customer Portal -> Page Customization.

  Screenshot displaying the Customer Portal "Page Customization"

  

  Customization of the following pages are supported:

  • Login Page Template
  • Signup Page Template
  • Reset Password Template

  Login Page Template

  Click on "Customize your portal login page" to customize the portal login page using the various attributes present on the page header.

  Screenshot displaying the customization of Login page

  

  Signup Page Template

  Click on "Customize your portal signup page" to customize the portal signup page using the various attributes present on the page header.

  Screenshot displaying the customization of Signup page

  

  Reset Password Template

  Click on "Customize the reset password page for your portal" to customize the reset password page using the various attributes present on the page header.

  Screenshot displaying the customization of reset password page

  

  Customization Attributes

  Page customizations consists of the following attributes, which can be used by the easy drag-and-drop feature or by simply double clicking on it.

  • Heading
  • Paragraph
  • Images
  • Sections
  • Table

  Screenshot displaying the five customization attributes

  

  Heading and Paragraph

  Add a header to the page using this option. It also provides you with options for rich customization of the header. Also add a paragraph if you would like to say something regarding the portal. The following options allow you to create a header or a paragraph of your preference.

  • Font style
  • Font size
  • Font format
  • Font color
  • Highlight color
  • Listing
  • Increase and decrease indent
  • Link and unlink
  • Special characters
  • Border settings
  • Background color
  • Insert fields

   

  Screenshot displaying the customization using "Heading" option

  

  Screenshot displaying the customization using "Paragraph" option

  

  Images

  Upload images that need to be displayed on the portal page using this option. You can upload images using "File Manager" option or the "Web URL" option. File Manager allows you to upload images from your local computer. Web URL allows you to provide an external link of the image.

  Screenshot displaying the page to upload an image using the "Image" option

  

  Note:

  • You can upload images up to 5Mb in the following formats: .jpg, .png & .gif

  Sections

  This feature allows you to enter two different paragraphs, already seperated into different sections. You can choose to have one, two or three different sections. You can also set the proportion allocated to each section in terms of ratio. Along with these, you have border settings, background color and "edit with HTML" options also.

  Screenshot displaying the customization using "Sections" option

  

  Table

  You can choose to enter a table in your portal page using this option. You have options to set:

  • Row - Number of rows
  • Column - Number of columns
  • Border
  • Cell Padding
  • Cell Spacing

  Screenshot displaying the page to set table settings using the "Table" option

  

  Other Settings

  The Settings icon displayed on the top-right corner of the Record Summary page provides options to resize your page, change the current page layout, customize the background color, image and many other options to customize the look and feel of your page. It consists of Dimensions settings, Layout settings and Customize settings

  Using Dimensions settings, you can set the values of resizing and padding of the respective pages.

  Screenshot displaying the "Dimensions" settings

  

  Using Layout settings, you can choose to set one, two or three columns with different formatting options. Page options, Header and Footer can be enabled or disabled from here.

  Screenshot displaying the "Layout" settings

  

  Using Customize settings, you can set the following attributes:

  • Background Color
  • Background Image
  • Border Color
  • Border Thickness
  • Background repeat
  • Display Name

  Screenshot displaying the "Customize" settings

  

  Note:

  • You can always reset the customized pages to their default form using the "Reset Option". Reset option shows up only when the cursor is hovered over the customization options of the pages.
  • To replace the "Zoho" logo in customer portal with any other logo, please refer https://www.zoho.com/creator/help/account-settings/customize-logo-and-links.html