Client Portal by Filevine

The Client Portal helps your clients communicate with you and view details and an overview of the steps of their case.

In this article, you’ll learn how to enable the Client Portal in a project and invite your clients, how to send messages in the portal, how your clients can make payments in the portal, and how changing the project’s phases affects the client portal. 

For more information on setting up the portal’s messaging, billing, and timelines, read Set Up the Client Portal. To see how your clients will use the client portal, read The Client Portal for Clients.

• Enable the Portal for a Project
• Send Client Messages
• Finalize an Invoice or Add Project Funds
• Change the Timeline

Enable the Portal for a Project

If the project type has been set up in the Client Portal Manager, then Org Admin and project Admin users can enable the portal for a project by inviting a contact. To enable, click Portal OFF in the project’s header bar.

In the flyout, click Invite Contacts. Search the project’s contacts, or click the plus icon on a contact in the Suggested Contacts section. 

Once a contact is selected, it appears in the Pending Invites section. If a contact has multiple forms of contact, Select an invite method and choose the desired form of contact from the dropdown. (Note: Phone numbers must be marked as a “Personal Mobile” phone number to be chosen.)

If Spanish is marked as a supported language in the Client Portal Manager, you will see the language selection option. By default, the language is the one selected in the Client Portal Manager. You have the option to change the language for this client’s notifications and automated messages. Note: This selection affects only the language for notification and automated message. It will not translate other messages sent through the portal.

Add multiple contacts to this section if desired. If a contact has multiple email addresses, you can click on the email address and select another from the dropdown. When you are finished adding contacts, click Send Invites. 

Once the invite is sent:

• the Portal OFF button changes to Portal ON, indicating that the portal has been enabled for this project. Click on this button to open the client flyout again.
• the contact receives an email or text message welcoming them to the client portal. The header and text of this message is set in the Client Portal Manager. 
• the portal flyout shows the contact under the Invited Contacts header with a Pending acceptance status
• the initial message sent to the client appears in the project’s activity feed as a client item

If you need to resend the invite to a contact, find that contact in the Invited Clients list and click the vertical ellipsis. Select Resend Invite from the dropdown. You can also send another invite by selecting a different contact method—an invite is sent via the new method upon selection. 

If you need to remove a contact from the client portal, click the contact’s vertical ellipsis menu and select Remove from Portal. The contact will be removed, and the client will no longer be able to access the portal.

Send Client Messages

Each of your invited clients will receive a welcome message in the client portal. This message appears as a client message item type in the project’s activity feed. 

Client messages are a new type of activity feed item. These messages are marked with a purple message icon. Like text message items, comments on client message items are sent as responses to the client within the client portal. Attached documents will also be sent to the client portal for the client to view.

The client will be notified when they get a message in the client portal, and can view attached documents and send attachments back in their responses. 

Tags added to client message items are internal-only. Clients cannot see tags added to these items.

Create a New Client Message Item

You can comment on the welcome message item to respond to the client in that thread. To create a new item, which appears as a new thread in the client portal, click in the Write a note textbox and select person chat bubble icon. 

In Send as Client Portal message to, select the recipient. Enter your message and attach any documents, and then click Create to send the message as a new thread in the client portal. Translation options are not available for these messages: they are delivered as written.

Finalize an Invoice or Add Project Funds

If the billing section of the portal is turned on in the Client Portal Manager, actions taken in Filevine’s billing sections are reflected in the portal. When you finalize an invoice in the project, that invoice PDF appears for the client to view in the portal.

Depending on the options you’ve selected in the Client Portal Manager, the client can also view any changes made to the project funds, and can make a payment through the portal to the invoice or to project funds. All payments made in the Client Portal are reflected in the Filevine project.

Change the Timeline

When the portal is turned on for a project, phase changes that correspond to a step change in the client-facing timeline will be reflected in the portal and will trigger an update notification for the client. Phase changes between phases that are both mapped to the same timeline step will not send an update to the client.

Learn more about how internal phases are mapped to the client-facing timeline.