The client portal is the customer-facing side of Powerlily. It is where a homeowner signs in to view their proposal, follow the progress of their installation, see their live system once it is running, message your team, and refer their neighbours. This article covers how a client gets an account, what they can see, how you control the look and content of their portal, and how you share quotes, systems, and messages with them.
A "client" is a specific user role: an end customer with access only to their own quotes, systems, and messages. For how that role sits alongside your staff roles, see the related Team Members, Roles, and Permissions article.
Two ways a client gets an account
There are two paths into the portal, and a client can arrive by either.
You invite them
From the Clients area you can create a client and choose whether to send an invitation. When you invite, Powerlily emails the customer a link to access their personalized portal and set a password. You can also invite in bulk by importing a list, and you can resend an invitation to anyone who has not signed in yet. Each client carries an invitation status so you always know where they stand:
- Not Invited. The client record exists but no invitation has been sent.
- Invited, Never Logged In. An invitation went out but they have not signed in yet. You can resend it.
- Active User. They have signed in at least once.
- Self Registered. They created their own account from a proposal (below) rather than being invited.
They self-register from a signed proposal
You can let customers create their own portal account straight from their proposal once they have signed it. This is controlled by a company setting, Enable client registration, which can also be defaulted on for new quotes. When it is on, a signed proposal shows a registration prompt in its signature section. The customer enters their details, an account is created and confirmed automatically, and they are logged straight into their dashboard and linked to that quote. You get a notification that they have registered.
Self-registration is the lowest-friction path: the customer signs, registers, and is in the portal in one motion, with no invitation email required. Clients who arrive this way are flagged as Self Registered so you can tell them apart from invited ones.
What a client sees in their portal
When a client signs in they land on their own dashboard. It is scoped entirely to them: they only ever see their own quotes, their own systems, their own documents, and their own message thread with your team. They never see other customers, your pricing structure, your catalogue costs, or anything about your operations.
Depending on what you have shared and enabled, a client's portal can include their proposals, their live or planned systems and production data, documents you have attached, posts and updates, a referral link, and a message thread with your team.
Controlling what the portal looks like and shows
The portal is yours to brand and shape, from the Client Portal Settings. The main controls:
Show prices. Whether financial figures appear in the portal. Turn it off to share a proposal's design and details without the dollar figures.
Show utility. Whether the utility and rate details behind the savings are shown. The numbers themselves come from the quote's utility setup, covered in the Utilities, Rates, and Consumption article.
Section intros. Most sections of the portal and proposal (panels, inverters, batteries, equipment, savings, payback, production, impact, incentives, pricing, energy, and more) have a customizable title and introductory text. This is how you explain each part of the proposal in your own voice rather than relying on defaults.
Custom links. You can add up to two custom links to the portal, for example to your website, a financing partner, or a scheduling page.
Hello bar. An optional banner across the top of the portal for an announcement or a call to action, with its own text and link.
Footer options. Toggle your logo, the "powered by" line, and a sign-in link in the portal footer.
Referral description. The text shown to customers alongside their referral link, explaining your referral offer.
Set these once and they apply across every client's portal, so the experience is consistent and on-brand.
Sharing quotes and systems with a client
A client's portal is only as useful as what you put in it. Two things you attach directly to a client:
Quotes. Add one or more quotes to a client so they can view those proposals in the portal. A quote can also become linked to a client automatically when that client self-registers from it. You can remove a quote from a client at any time.
Systems. Add a system to a client so they can monitor it from the portal, including live production data once the system is connected and reporting. This is what turns the portal from a sales tool into an ongoing relationship after the install. Remove a system the same way if it should no longer be visible to them.
You can also attach documents directly to a client, which appear in their portal alongside their quotes and systems.
Messaging
The portal includes a two-way message thread between the client and your team. Clients can send messages and attachments from their dashboard, and your team can reply from the Clients area. It keeps customer conversations in one place, attached to the customer record, rather than scattered across email. Which staff can see and reply to a given client's messages follows the role rules: admins and team members see all clients, while agents only see clients tied to their own deals (see Team Members, Roles, and Permissions).
Referrals
Every client gets a personal referral link to share. When someone follows that link and submits their details, the referral is credited to the referring customer, which is how you turn happy customers into a lead source. The message customers see next to their link is the referral description you set in the portal settings. Referred contacts come into your pipeline as leads.
Other portal features
Reviews. You can request a review from a client, pointing them at the review platforms you configure.
Events. If you enable client events, customers can see scheduled events (such as an install date or a site visit) in their portal.
Quick reference
- To give a customer portal access: invite them from the Clients area, or let them self-register by enabling client registration so a registration prompt appears on their signed proposal.
- To hide your numbers: turn off Show prices (and Show utility) in the portal settings.
- To brand the portal: set the section titles and intros, add custom links, a hello bar, and footer options.
- To share work: add quotes and systems to the client so they appear in their portal.
- To stay in touch: use the in-portal message thread, and set a referral description so customers can refer others.
Related articles
- Team Members, Roles, and Permissions. The Client role, and how staff roles control who can see each client.
- Utilities, Rates, and Consumption. Where the rate and savings figures shown in the portal come from.
- Incentives, Rebates, and Discounts. How the pricing a client sees on a proposal is built.
