In this video I am going to show you how to
add a custom Client Portal to your website
using a tool called ClientPortal now this
is ideal for so many situations and think
about it I know for me for my cell phone I
use AT&T wireless and what do I do when I
want to contact AT&T wireless or have anything
to do with my billing or see a bill or anything
like that what I do I log into the ClientPortal
same thing I use DirecTV now it's a TV service
if I ever want to change my planner see anything
going on I just log into the ClientPortal
for DirecTV now all of the services that we
use in our daily lives what we do when we
want to reach out to that we log into the
ClientPortal and this is a tool that's can
allow you to turn your WordPress website will
actually not turn in existing website just
added into your WordPress website you knocking
the need to add a new website to your hosting
or anything like that I were to go over ClientPortal
in this video hi my name is Atul from WPCrafter.com
where I make tactics and tutorial videos on
how to grow your income and influence on line
if you know your consider clicking on the
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a thing click on the bell all right let's
just jump right on into this one here's the
ClientPortal website I have some great news
for you today if you visit WPCrafter.com/ClientPortal
one word it's going to take you here to AppSumo
which lined up the most killer deal on this
WordPress plug-in I'm going to show you the
plug and in this video I went to show you
how it all works and all of that and give
you some of the pros and cons and all that
kind of stuff like I normally do but I'm just
gonna let you know right now this is kind
of a no-brainer deal this is it I mean it's
really nice you'll see this in the video okay
so it's only $39 and that's can it allow you
to install this and get updates on one website
one website can have unlimited projects clients
and all that kind of stuff however if your
say a web designer developer there are many
use case scenarios where you would want to
use this for your clients websites and so
if you bought two of these so it's called
the two stack so if you bought two of these
on check out the only differences now you'll
be able to get an unlimited license for it
let me just put this into perspective so if
you bought two these can be at what 78 bucks
this is how much it normally costs on their
websites if I go to pricing it's 279 for a
single site license and the multi site is
479 so it's a really amazing deal and as you
see the quality of this plug-in and what it
can do for you I think you'll agree with me
now normally I would add scroll through this
and go over some of the points but it's it's
all pretty straightforward because it's a
WordPress blog and so you get the plug and
you get a lifetime license email support and
access to all future updates and this is a
plug-in that has received lots and lots of
updates in fact there's a lot of viewers here
on the channel that prepaid the normal price
for this and use it on their website and their
perfectly happy with that because it's that
good of a plug-in let's think a look at their
website and go over what this is and what
this does and then will jump into the website
that I've installed it so I can show you some
things that I discovered with it and also
talk about some maybe alternatives that you
might want to consider as well okay so here's
the ClientPortal's website I encourage you
if you're interested in checking this out
definitely jump over to their website WB crafter.com/ClientPortal
it'll take you over here and you can first
see the live demo and that's going to give
you an idea of what this does so essentially
just a WordPress plug-in install it on your
website you can create client projects you
add clients when they login they see their
project and this is pretty much what it's
going to look like if I go to the demo right
here so you have the option to put in the
clients logo you can changes to their colors
if you want to just said global colors that
match your brand and then here's a little
bit bit of information you can put in on how
they can reach you here's some phases as you
can let them know where you currently are
in the project what's next in the project
and what the deadline is you can have as many
phases to the project that you want you can
have as many of these boxes now each of these
boxes can do one of three things number one
they could take you someplace else so say
you have a travel board that you want to let
them know that you have will they can click
on this will take them to that trail aboard
you can have one of these just for that or
say you want one of these to link to a file
and you could also have one of these linked
to a content page that is unique to the client
to the customer that you've created this for
it's very flexible and these checkboxes here
that you see on the top right these just are
indicators that the task of this part of the
phase is done and so you get these options
to have checkboxes you don't have to if you
don't want to so if I click on this one and
I'm just on their website right now you can
see it shows you one of their content pages
you can have this custom looking portal available
to each of your clients for content you want
to give to them and the navigation off to
the side but there is also other things you
can obviously do so if you click on this it's
going to jump open into a new tab and taken
to a Google doc so this is how you can have
everything consolidated into one location
normally what you're doing is you're emailing
them links the things your email your client's
bills or emailing all these things and it
can be a bit much to stay organized so kind
of the intention of this tool is to have one
location that your clients can log into and
everything is there links to everything is
there links to the bills the PDFs the information
it's all right here in one location for each
of your clients slowly scroll down here to
give you an idea of how some of the documents
work with it so you can have a section set
up for your documents so here's a real interest
on interesting one invoice receipts and when
you click on it this a beautiful pop-up comes
up and you have a link for them to each of
the various bills that you might have sent
them and they're all right here someone can
click on this and I will just open up all
just downloaded the PDF so let me go ahead
and close that and it will just download the
PDF like that and so some of these right here
you click on it and it's the same thing you
can have all of the documents organized in
one place you can have the different design
assets like logos things like that all linked
here in one spot is actually a really cool
app and so when you come to their homepage
one thing I like when you scroll down here
it's saying don't think of this as a project
management software it's not a project management
software is a ClientPortal the one centralized
location that your client can log into and
access everything and it really solves a huge
need of having that centralized location that
is easy to put together looks super professional
that you can give to your clients so you're
making working with you as easy as possible
and I really like this right here so on the
homepage they kind of list out a typical workflow
and this is a typical workflow when you go
through it so yet you're using Google Docs
for document collaboration using dropbox to
share files and keep files in sync hello sign
for signing and storing contracts are new
see or hear it is newsy for proposals or better
proposal or something like that you're using
for all your proposals you have something
separate for your website prototypes etc.
etc. your Trapelo your slack so what this
is doing is giving you a central location
for your client to login to access all of
these resources that you already using your
current workflow this is really the easiest
software for providing a custom experience
like this on brand on your website to come
across as professional as possible to your
clients it's very impressive it's very impressive
to me let's go to the top take a look at the
normal pricing and then I will show you the
plug-in in action on my website but I've deftly
encourage you to come here and check out the
demo so I'm to go ahead and click on pricing
you could check it out it's normally 279 for
a single site license you can have as many
clients and projects as you want on the single
sites of your just a single design agency
and you're making these or any kind of business
that you would benefit from having a centralized
location of four clients to login to this
is all you would need right here now if you
were a developer and you wanted to make these
four customers or add this to projects based
upon the requirements of various projects
now Juergen have an easy way of actually doing
this without custom coding or using any kind
of substandard plug-ins that might currently
be available it's 479 now I about three years
ago did a project for someone where a custom
portal ClientPortal like this was required
at that time I looked at all the options available
in the same options world available today
with the exception of ClientPortal and so
your option was to custom code something and
that was the ideal solution back then but
you're the cost of custom coding the solution
is very very high and the potential for something
to break in the future is also very high so
that was one thing that I had in mind but
there was also free plug-in and it was very
restrictive and ugly and not flexible so it
wasn't really a great solution anyway we tried
going that route and then we had to go a custom
coded route so the cost of this is actually
very affordable for this type of functionality
it's very affordable okay so let's go ahead
and jump on into it all let me show you one
more thing so if you click on the support
and I definitely would suggest clicking on
support on their website it goes here and
this is a ClientPortal but it's public so
they actually use their own tool to make their
own support portal so when you come here they
just put their logo in there and you can tell
the only thing I don't like about using it
for your own support is you if you look at
the URL right here the slug is/client and
you can't get rid of that and that's okay
that you can't get rid of that but this is
what they use for their own support but it's
a beautiful support area so the same thing
you have your information here a lot of things
I showed you earlier you can enable or disable
and I'll show you how to do that in this video
but then here instead of phase 1 phase 2 phase
3 well section 1 getting started and this
is exactly the solution but she's using it
to the website using it in this way I really
like that because I liked it a lot helped
as before and they don't look as friendly
and inviting as this this looks really good
so there's a lot of other use case scenarios
for this plug-in but you're primarily gonna
really just want to use it for ClientPortal's
but it's pointing out that you can use it
for a public portal and so you want to actually
go through here there some things to consider
so when you're going through here you will
realize it so one of the things was when I
scroll down here to where was it it's under
security. His right here how do I hide ClientPortal
from search results now in your SCO plug-in
it will see the custom post type that gets
created and you can set that to not be indexed
but when you click on here for the support
you might want to add this to your robots.txt
file right there okay so that's one thing
but your SCO plug-in can probably do that
just as easily for you also right here are
my file save if you upload them to the ClientPortal
for your clients and when you scroll down
here it makes reference to an update that
was supposed to come out this year I will
have to test it myself typically when you
upload a file to WordPress it organizes it
in certain folders of someone had the URL
to that particular file it would show the
file whether it's in the membership area or
not however according to this they put out
an update in early 2018 that made it so when
you uploaded a file in ClientPortal it would
be secure and not accessible unless someone
was actually logged in that is a really good
option there so earlier today I posted a link
to the essay and I was can make a review on
this website this product and show you guys
how to add it to your website and the conversation
started flowing in the Facebook group I have
a link in the video description box to the
Facebook group if you're interested in joining
it it's free of course and the conversation
came up oh well how is this better than just
Google docs while I think it's obvious that
if you gave your client a login it's a custom
branded log and they come here they have access
to everything and not not just Google docs
related this is a much more seamless and beautiful
experience professional experience a lot more
flexible experience that you have full control
over less of a learning curve the your clients
are ready to know how to log into things all
they have to do this is login as ever clients
never use Google docs before now they've got
a login to Google docs and it's just not so
easy and the same would go for cello if you
just wanted use a trail aboard and said something
like this and you just hang your client billing
to travel aboard their probably not get a
look at it ever because doesn't fully make
sense to them so what you know and what you're
comfortable using your experience using various
tools is going to be much different than your
client you want to make everything as easy
as humanly possible for your client and not
make any assumptions about what they feel
comfortable using this insanely easy big boxes
nice symbol however affect icon it goes to
custom content to them or the various items
for them to download it's an absolute no-brainer
for your clients okay so here I am I've already
installed the plug-in on the website here
and I want to show you what happens when you
activated it adds this link right here or
this new menu item sorry called ClientPortal
now when you hover over it you have the option
to add a new project or to see all your projects
at a new project and one things I like is
you can set project templates up so a lot
of the different projects that you do were
probably going to have the same structure
and same flow there might be a different link
to different drillable order different contractor
something like that but the whole structure
of everything is pretty much probably to be
the same and most of them so when you're getting
this system implemented for you you just pretty
much create a project template that is all
set up for the way that you work and then
when you want to go and create new projects
you would base it off of the template you
can convert a project into a template as well
okay and here's where you can manage all of
the content pages some to show you how to
create content pages super easy and here's
some overall settings of the first thing you
want to do is jump into the settings of this
organist at some global settings now each
of these are actually customizable based upon
the project so if you wanted to have a project
with some logs and have it to really wow them
and have it match their colors you could do
that if you wanted to so you want to come
here first and feel this on out so you pop
your logo in here and really you're gonna
want to set your colors so the background
color so right here it's his primary background
color that is this color right here so you
can choose whether you wanted to be your brands
color or your clients Brands color it's up
to you but you would set that right here and
here are the various colors that you get control
over you can drop some custom strips scripts
in here this is cool if you wanted add maybe
some live chat or something to it you can
definitely do that and have a just appear
in the back and for the ClientPortal not on
the front end that some great support popping
your phone number your email and then there's
this general information area so they already
have some text here that you could use if
you wanted to and you can customize us on
a client by client basis this blob of text
right here is what it appears right here so
you can just set it up and in this one location
and have that be what everybody sees in the
example here it's being used to relay contact
information and stuff like that so that's
this area right here and it comes prefilled
out this text I really like that and then
you have the granular control over the visual
aspects of the tool so you can show the project
status if you want the markets complete boxes
if you want what is the default behavior when
someone clicks on one of those boxes does
it open up in a new tab collapse all modules
and here's a display the powered by link in
the example I'm in a show you I disabled that
already you can see I chose no so the first
thing you're gonna want to do is jump in here
to the ClientPortal settings so now what you're
going to do is your window when you want to
start a new project you would go and click
on add new first thing you would do is give
it a name and then right here you would choose
if you want to use one of the templates now
the tool does not come with templates done
for you so you would basically set up your
first project and kinda make it as a template
or just go and click on add new project template
and start it out that way but I'm a show you
how you can convert a project into a template
for later reuse okay and so here you can add
some custom branding if you want so this is
going to be the colors that I just showed
you so you can override them if you wanted
so for this particular project if I wanted
it to be a different background color I could
do that different colors I could do that so
to you can add a clients logo if you wanted
to have it really be punchy and look great
you can control the width so you can either
have a go as wide as the logo is that you
uploaded or you can just have it defaulted
to 70 wide okay and you can also put a header
image and also of the rest of this information
is going to pull from the ClientPortal settings
so you don't need to change any of these only
thing you'd want to change probably sell a
logo and if you wanted to customize it just
specifically for this client and so here's
that same general information that I was talking
about that was set up in the ClientPortal
settings so you have that right there and
then right here is where you start putting
in the project information so the project
information was this right here so this is
your project information you can choose to
show this or not show this is completely up
to you if you didn't want that there I like
it I like how kind of stands out visually
so I like that a lot so anyways right here's
where you put current phase next phase and
the complete date nights your three boxes
right so right here current phase next phase
and then the completion date so when you're
managing the various projects this right here
is one of the aspects that you will actually
be changing these two things here the current
phase and the next phase for your client so
this is where you the box that you would be
on and so obvious and right here's where you
can show this or not show this I like it but
you might not want to show it is completely
up to you you get the nice date box pop out
when you click on estimated complete dates
and so and anyways you're gone then there's
this other kind of global aspect it's a call
to action that appears at the bottom of the
content pages and the login page for the client
so by default you want to see all your files
not the greatest call to action we see they
have it here on the demo so here's that default
call to actions you can have this called action
be anything that makes sense to you maybe
if you are web developer and you have care
plans if you wanted to have some information
here about getting different services or care
plans from you here's that call to action
that it's referring to right here so you can
choose to not have it or have it it's completely
up to you and so you can change the text you
can change the button text and what happens
when someone clips clicks on that button so
so far we have covered how you do this part
right here and we've covered how you do this
part in this part and all that's left now
is the phases in in between those areas so
that's going to be right actually looks like
you need to save it before you can do that
and this is actually a perfect chance for
me to go to the project that I've already
created so when you click right here to all
project shall see Alyssa your projects and
you can see that I've already created a project
and I want to show you this here right now
that when you hover over the name of the project
what's nice is you get some options get the
option to just duplicate this project so that's
one way of going about getting new projects
set up in the system really quick you could
just click on duplicate the other one right
here is that as mentioning is you can convert
a project into a template and this is really
good for basically setting up your put your
projects a lot faster so you have these two
options here some go ahead and click on into
this one so I didn't do a ton to it so let
me just show you it right now so I I didn't
change the color in the background I definitely
want to do it I just grabbed a logo for umbrella
corpse if you know what that is for her from
what movie that's from let me know the comment
section down below here is the name of the
project so if I go here see name of the project
and here is the name of the project I would
assume if I didn't put a logo in here just
show the name of the project here's that information
right here you can see it's pulling the font
styling from my theme that's why there are
some gaps here are some spacing so I'd probably
want to adjust that here are my phases that
I've gone ahead and created the discovery
design and I put it due date right there and
I didn't get too much into customizing this
but I'll show you how I added this and added
multiple phases you can as many phases as
you want you can make this say whatever you
want you can change the icon you can have
it do whatever you want and then here's that
call to action right there so let's dig a
little to actually before we dig into it a
little deeper let me show you what happens
when a client logs in a because this is a
question that I had so I'm going to open up
a incognito tab to just show you so let's
go right there okay here's my incognito tabs
is a incognito tablet not logged in so this
is a link that every client of yours can use
to log in so it will pull those same colors
that you set up in the plug-in and so you
see adding customize the blue or the red so
here's a link you could put this to a menu
item client login or something like that if
you wanted to you could see doesn't have that
same WordPress field which is was a concern
of mine so I was happy to find this out right
so you can give this have this link be on
your website but with the plug and you can
actually take it a little further so here
is just switch tabs and you can see the logo
appeared so what this is is if you give your
client the link to the project if they tried
to go to that link they're going to see a
custom login with their logo and you can see
the URL right here is the name of the project
umbrella Corp. website right there and you
can see this right here I love this I love
this it's a custom branded login just for
your client obviously wouldn't put this link
in menu navigation you would use the generic
one right here which is the URL/client portal
login but I like that they took this extra
step so that was something I really liked
about it okay says go through this here so
I just added the custom logo I then play around
with this much I pop my phone number and email
but if I had in the ClientPortal settings
I would have had to do that again here's where
I have my saddest discovery phase design phase
my dates my Marcus completes I didn't mess
in my call to action and now here are the
phases so you can add as many of these as
you want so I click on manage phases right
here it's going to expand them all out like
this and give me the option to add and reorder
phases and remove phases so by default the
can't comes of the discovery website and assets
that's fine about right here I can add a new
phase if I wanted to and then I can reorder
these if I wanted to see you have that granular
control over this and also right here was
some options to make your project public or
not this would mean there's no login or there's
no password protection on it so it's just
public on your website and that's how they
did their support they just essentially made
this a public project and so that was that
right here and then here's where you would
link a project to an account so only the person
with this account when they login can actually
access this project pretty cool okay so let
me click on save and show modules okay so
here we go scroll down again and here we have
those three phases you can expand it like
this here's another option for changing the
name and then this is how you add and edit
the various boxes you can see I have right
here the getting started so if I click right
here you can see I name the getting started
and I put some text in their slot machine
the anatomy of that real quick she can see
what options you have just expand the existing
one you give it a name you give it the little
description now the description you're not
gonna want to put too many words as you do
not want this to take up too many lines when
you look at their example here you can see
how each one they make sure that just for
it to be visually aesthetically pleasing you
see how it only takes up two lines on each
one sealed want to do something similar there
okay so you put your description and you have
your choice of icon and there is every icon
under the sun right there is an option and
this is where you would choose those three
types of what you can have happen when someone
clicks on this box you can have a go to URL
you can have a go to uploaded files so URL
would be if you want to link to a Google doc
a trail aboard a proposal that might be a
new C or better proposals or something like
that upload files this would be if you wanted
to upload bills invoices receipts or something
along those lines and then content page would
be to a be a page on the website that only
this client can see so I first did the content
page and right here you could it'll give you
the option to create a new content page and
you can click on edit to edit that particular
content page so when I click on this it's
going to go to a content page and input any
content in it but you have a navigation here
on the side and you have the content there
just really nice the way that it looks and
also let me show you there's also this logout
button here on the top right that's available
to you so or to your clients okay so that
is that so you can easily click right here
to add another module and you can put whatever
information you wanted in there so if it's
URL just pop the URL if it's upload files
right here you can just upload multiple files
and you can see that example what the user
experience would be right here on their website
it would just look beautiful and seamless
like this I really like the way they implemented
that where there's this nice pop up that comes
up so you can also see in their example some
interesting things that they did they put
in a website questionnaire and this is interesting
so what they did is they made this a content
page when you click on it takes you to the
content page and there's a form here I really
like this I thought it was a great way of
using it to have a form here so you kid when
you get your client all set up in and ready
to go you have them come in here and fill
this out so you know what the heck you're
going to be doing on their project if you
have a discovery phase and definitely everybody
should have a discovery phase and then you
have other options here you can have the status
active completed inactive so they all look
a little different so for looking on their
example right here you can see this is completed
this is not completed in these two right here
these are in active I really like how they
do that so you would in this example here
you have a style guide will you haven't even
done that yet you don't even want it to be
something they can click on but it's cool
that they can see it and know that that's
coming up soon so you have that granular control
over it like that and that's pretty much the
tool right here so I have a couple of pros
and cons I just showed you not actually use
but I wrote a couple pros and cons out his
exit kinda hard to find some cons but the
pros that it's as simple and lightweight it's
not in a low debt load down our slow down
and low down your WordPress website you can
add it to your main website not worry about
is you don't have to set up some other subdomain
or something like that for this it's perfect
to add to your website to provide a seamless
experience for your clients you can create
custom content pages I like that custom branded
login I showed you that I love that was cool
and you can use it use the project templates
reminds me of one thing I forgot to show you
the process of creating the actual client
login account to do that in a sec as I wrap
this up the cons there's no automation so
this is all high touch stuff so there's no
Xavier integration or automation or anything
like that so these but it's a totally fine
because these are projects that you're actually
managing or having someone in your staff manage
and so it's really reasonable that you have
to go in there and upload the invoice and
stuff like that so that's one negative the
other negative or not, on earth it may be
just the scholar thing to improve is that
there's no like hooks to slip in any kind
of upsell so this isn't like a sales tool
I will get everything that you know if you
have your client login it should also act
as a sales tool so have there be some visual
way of drawing your customer that's logging
in eyeballs the something that maybe they
can upgrade their care plan or maybe purchase
an upsell or something like that if there
is a way to integrate some kind of promotions
into it and there just isn't actually so be
nice if you could maybe when they login a
hook something in up here or here I suppose
you can use this call to action at the bottom
but that's assuming that the organist scroll
all the way down to the bottom so be needed
they could figure out some way to turn this
also into some form of the selling tool okay
lastly I left this out this is what you have
to do in order to start to finish it get your
client login then step one add the new project
so just I should you do that go to projects
Craig new and do it on the template whatever
you want to do then what you need to do is
go to users so you would go to users you would
create a new user like this and you're in
a fill out the information this is gonna be
your customers login or role there is a type
called client that gets added so you would
choose client and you probably don't want
to uncheck this send user notification because
it would be that default WordPress notification
I would recommend doing that so what you want
to do is fill this out get the information
and then what you need to do is take that
information and send an email to your client
saying you know congratulations for coming
on board here's your login and password to
your custom ClientPortal I would give them
the link to the actual portal project so they
can see wow there is my logos there my colors
my brands or however far you wanted to take
it for them but then you have to link the
user account to the project and that was super
easy so once you created the user account
you go here to ClientPortal click on into
the project right here and there's going to
be an option write down here where you can
choose that user so it says client account
she'll see all a list of the user accounts
that are the client role type you'll see them
all listed just select on it and now only
that user without login will be a link to
this project when they login 30 to see it
right away and that's how you do it now if
you read their support docs which I did for
this video you read the support docs it says
if you want to have multiple client logins
for a particular project you can't do that
and so yeah so when you go down here you notice
I couldn't multi-select user accounts I can
only choose one account and what they suggest
in that scenario don't set a client account
go here and use the native WordPress feature
where you can set a password on any use of
contents you would go right here you click
on edit and you would choose a password protected
enter a password and send that to them they
won't get that custom branded login and all
that kind of stuff but it'll work fine that
way if you're working with a company with
multiple
