Summary
The access levels for External Users are defined by data model permissions and workflow permissions in External Roles, as well as whether Sections/Pages have been shared with them
Data records need to be shared to Portals, in addition to sharing the Sections/Pages that house them
It's easy to "impersonate" individual External Users to check what they can see/do in their Portal
Internal Users (you and your colleagues) can be assigned the "Portal Super Admin (New App)" workflow permission in Roles, to view/edit all Portals in your tenant
You can customize colors for each Portal
Portal invite emails come from Planhat, and the email address should be whitelisted
Who is this article for?
Planhat users managing Portals as a whole for their organization (e.g. Ops)
Planhat users creating and managing individual Portals for their customers/prospects (e.g. CSMs)
Series
Portal FAQs ⬅️ You are here
Article contents
Introduction
While our main range of Portal articles (see "Series" above), such as setup guides, will answer many questions you may have about Portals, in this article we have collated a variety of "Frequently Asked Questions", including troubleshooting tips. If you have any Portals queries, this article is a great resource for you!
We don't cover every possible question here, so if you can't find an answer, as well as checking the other Portal articles, you can reach out to your Customer Manager (CSM) or our Support team. Let us know if you have a good question/answer you think we should add here!
We have organized the questions and answers into some general themes. Note that there is some overlap in the questions/answers, to make it easier when searching for specific wording.
📌 Definitions
"External Users" are people accessing Portals who are from outside your organization - your customers and prospects (corresponding to the Planhat "End User" model). You define permissions for them in External Roles
"Internal Users" are people accessing Portals who are from within your organization - you and your colleagues (corresponding to the Planhat "User" model)
External User access
📌 Important to note
You will be able to configure either just one External Role, or multiple External Roles, depending on your Planhat package. Speak with your Customer Manager if you would like to discuss subscription options.
What actions can External Users perform in Portals?
Each External User is assigned an External Role, where you can define access levels in workflow permissions (whether they can upload/download files) and data model permissions (create, view, update etc. for different models and fields).
It's possible for External Users to own Workflow tasks and mark them as complete, and add comments in Portals.
You can also give External Users different access levels to specific Portal content (Sections/Pages).
Can External Users edit data in fields in a Portal?
Yes, you can give External Users the ability to edit field data within their Portal. You define the access to specific fields, on a granular level, via External Roles (configured in Portal Manager > Users & Roles). Note that External Roles can apply across all your Portals, rather than being set up within each Portal.
Can External Users contribute to Document Pages and tag other users?
Yes, they can edit Document Pages in their Portal (if the Page has been shared with them with edit access), and this includes tagging applicable External Users (from their organization) and applicable Internal Users (from your own organization).
Is there a permission in External Roles to allow End Users to upload files in their Portal and download files from their Portal?
Yes, you can enable this for your choice of External Role(s). In Portal Manager > Users & Roles > External Roles > Workflow, you can enable External Users to upload/download files, via toggling on the permission "File Download / Upload Access".
See our separate article here for more details about files in Portals.
Are External User permissions configured per Portal?
No, data model permissions (including field permissions) and workflow permissions are configured/defined via External Roles within the Portal Manager, and External Roles can be applied across Portals.
Nevertheless, you can configure Section or Page access by Portal (e.g. sharing Section X to Company Y's Portal). See our separate article here for a discussion of Portal content and sharing options.
How are External Roles applied to External Users (End Users)?
When you add an End User to be an External User in a specific Portal (see here for details), you assign them an External Role, and choose whether to invite them then or later. You can also change their External Role later if you like (if you have multiple External Roles), via the Portal Manager.
(This is not configured via fields/settings on the End User within the main Planhat app/tenant.)
Can I view/check what a specific External User sees in a Portal?
Yes, you can "impersonate" any External User, which is really useful to help check what they can see so you can confirm they have the correct access, for example.
To do this, within a specific Portal (i.e. a Portal belonging to a particular Company), go to "Portal Settings" (in the bottom left), and you will find "Impersonation" at the bottom of the "General" tab.
Click the image to view it enlarged
Once you've selected your choice of External User, the "View Portal" button will be activated. Click this, and it will open up the Portal as if viewed by that External User, with a banner at the top informing you of this. You can navigate around within the Portal, and click "Exit view" to come out of this perspective.
Click the image to view it enlarged
How long do External Users stay logged in?
At time of writing, session length is limited to 18 hours for security reasons. (External Users need to request an email to log into the Portal as part of a new session.)
Workflows and tasks
How can we share specific tasks from a Workflow to a Portal?
When looking at the shared Workflow in your Planhat tenant, ensure that the "Shared in Portal" toggle switch is enabled for the tasks you would like to be visible in the Portal - see example images below. You can click the images to view them enlarged.
Can External Users own and complete tasks?
Yes, tasks can be owned and completed by External Users.
Branding and customization
Can we personalize the Portal with branding for each customer?
Yes, you can personalize colors. Colors are automatically applied from the Portal Template if one is applied, but you can also set or modify colors/branding for each individual Portal via its "Portal Settings" in the bottom left.
Can we change who the Portal invitation email comes from?
At time of writing, Portal invitation emails only come from Planhat. We may consider branded invitation emails for our future roadmap.
Can we change what the notification emails look like?
They come from Planhat - similar to the existing notification emails. We may consider branded notification emails as a future product development.
Implementation and analytics
Do we need to give Internal Users access to each individual Portal, or is it possible to give "all access" to certain Internal Users?
As well as being able to invite individual Internal Users to a Portal (see here for details), you can also give a Role (e.g. "Administrator") the workflow permission "Portal Super Admin (New App)", which gives access to view and edit all Portals in your tenant (regardless of ownership/invite).
Can we embed Portals in our own app so customers/prospects don't have to go to a separate site to access their Portal?
Yes, it's possible to integrate Portals into your own app, so that External Users can access their Portal from there. You can follow the setup instructions here.
How can we analyze Portal usage?
The User Activity "End User Portal activity" is automatically tracked, and you can also add the Calculated Metric "Active End Users in Portals last X days" from the Metric Template Library.
Troubleshooting
Why isn't an External User receiving any Portal sign-in emails?
The intended recipient should check that they have not blocked the emails sent from Planhat - they should add the email "bot@mail.planhat.com" to their whitelist (safe list), as this is the email address that Portal sign-in emails will come from.
Why can't an External User see files (e.g. uploaded images and PDFs)?
To be able to see the "Files" part of their Portal, External Users need to be assigned an External Role that has the "File Download / Upload Access" workflow permission enabled. You can read more about Portal files here, and External Roles here.
Why isn't any data showing in a Data Table Page?
For security reasons, each data record needs to be shared to the Portal, in addition to sharing a Page itself. See this separate article for details of how to share individual records.
From within the Planhat app, you can see if a record is shared to a Portal via the "Shared on Portal" field - e.g. see the example screenshot below from a Company Full-Page Profile, followed by a screenshot from the equivalent Portal. You can click the images to view them enlarged.
Within a Portal, you can also click on the "Share more records" button (shown in the top right of the above screenshot) to view which records haven't been shared yet, and easily bring them into the Portal.
Click the image to view it enlarged
Note that even chart widgets in Dashboard and Presentation Pages that show aggregations (e.g. a KPI widget of count of Assets) will only include the data that has been shared to the Portal, so you'll need to go to the underlying data in your Planhat tenant and share it before the widget will populate with data in the Portal - as we describe in the next question/answer.
An External User is viewing a Dashboard or Presentation Page in their Portal, but sees the error message "Can't show this widget. You have no access". How can we resolve it?
This typically occurs due to one or both of these reasons:
The External User doesn't have access to the field that houses the data in their External Role permissions
The underlying data records that populate that chart widget have not been shared to the Portal
To check/edit External Role permissions:
Go to the Portal Manager, and specifically the "Users & Roles" part
In the "External Roles" tab, you can view and edit the permissions (data model permissions and workflow permissions) within your External Role(s). You can read more about this here
In order to view the chart widget, the relevant field(s) need to be viewable by the External Role. For example, if the widget sums the "Hours" on the "Task" data model, check that the "View" permission is enabled for this field
In the "External Users" tab, you can view and edit which External Role is applied to which External User (useful if you have multiple External Roles and would like to change which one is applied to a particular External User)
To check and share data records to the Portal (as described in a separate article here; we summarize specifically this method below):
Go to the relevant Company in your Planhat tenant
Navigate to the data model that populates the widget. Ensure the relevant records are set to "Shared on Portal". For example, if the widget sums the "Hours" field on the "Task" data model, check that each Task record is shared to the Portal. Only Tasks shared to the Portal would be included in the calculations