In case, the trial account is not upgraded to Enterprise or Ultimate paid edition the following actions will be taken:
- If you subscribe to Standard or Professional paid editions then the portal created in the trial edition will be retained.
- If you subscribe to Free edition then the portal details will be deleted after 30 days.
Setting up portal
Setting up a portal involves the following four steps:
By default, your company's name will be taken as the portal name and it will be used to generate a URL, that your customers will use to access the portal. You can change the portal name while creating the portal. You can edit the portal URL if needed.
Also, if the portal name is already in use, Zoho CRM will prompt you to change it.
To create a portal
-
Go to
Setup
>
Channels
>
Portals
.
- In the Portals page, click Get Started Now.
Your company's name will appear as the default portal name.
- Edit the Portal name, if required.

- Click Configure Now.
The customer portal URL will be generated and the portal name will be available.
- Click Next to continue.
Next, define the portal user type, portal tab configuration, and field permissions.
- You will not be able to edit the portal name once it is created.
- Once a portal is configured you will not be able to delete it.
Note
-
When you create a portal, a default portal called
Client Portal
will be created that cannot be deleted. You can add up to 10,000 users without payment. To add more users you need to purchase. You can only add clients or customers to this portal, you will not be able to add users from the same domain, i.e., your employees or partners.
Editing a portal URL
You can edit the portal name once it is created. The admin must notify the portal users about the URL change so they continue unhindered portal access.
Note that, the new URL must be shared with the portal users manually to avoid portal access issues. There will be NO automatic notification sent to the portal users regarding change of access URL.
Defining Portal user type
User type is a label for the users who will be accessing the CRM modules via portal. Permissions can be defined for the user types that will enable or restrict access to the data in the CRM account. Some examples of portal user types are: vendors, clients, consultants, customers, partners, or resellers.
Please note that the first portal user type must be a customer only. Therefore, you cannot add a user from the same domain like your employees in the first portal user type.
To define a portal user type
- Under Portal User Type enter a name e.g., parents, partners or service agents etc.
- Click Next.

Configuring the portal tab
In this step, you will choose the modules and the specific layouts that the portal user will be able to access and define permissions to either create, edit, view, or delete records. For example, you run a car company and want your clients to enter some information. You can configure a portal exclusively for these clients and give them access to the Leads module. The clients can enter their details in the portal to be added to their CRM record. Configuring the portal tab includes the following steps:
- Choose the module: You can choose to give the customers access to the Leads, Contacts, Vendors or custom modules. The customers will be able to view their own details in the module and based on their permissions, they may be able to add and edit records.
- Select the related modules: The modules that have a lead or contact lookup are listed under the related modules. You can choose the list of related modules that you want the customers to be able to access. Here, only the records that are associated with the module (Leads, Contacts, Vendors, or custom modules) through the lookup field can be viewed.
- Select the layouts of the related modules: You can choose more than one layout for each related module for the portal users to access.
- Define the module record permission: You can set the permission level for each record in a module. For example, you can allow the clients to view or edit their license number or mailing address, or give a vendor read-only permission to purchase orders.
- Select list view: If you have created a canvas view for any CRM module, you can choose either List view or Canvas view to display a record. List view will be selected by default for all modules.
Note that the custom buttons or custom links will not be displayed for the portal users if they are added to the Canvas or List view.
- Filter By: Select the records that the portal user will view by using the lookup filter. For example, if you have added two lookup fields in the Deals module, you can choose a lookup based on the records that you want the portal user to view. However, the lookup filter will only be available to the existing portal users if they edit the portal configurations.
- Select Public Modules: Any module that you have marked as Public read only or Public read/write/delete (through data sharing settings) will be accessible to the portal users. These modules will be listed under the Public Modules category in Portal and the users (portal) will only have View permission for all the records that are present in the module. When a module is selected from the public modules category it will be removed from the related modules list.
Note: The Products module must be shared with the portal users to allow them to associate products with the records present in the Inventory modules.
- Select Web Tabs: As an organization, you may have a few customers who access your crm with the help of portals. In addition to viewing the modules and its related records, they can get access to the web tabs as well. Consider an apparel store that has a webpage www.zylkerapparels.com/announcements, to post important business updates such as sponsorships, tie-ups, new acquisitions, etc. for internal users and stakeholders. They can share this web tab with the stakeholders via portal to provide quick access and easy navigation from within CRM. All the web tabs that you create in Zoho CRM will appear under portal configuration.
Specifying field permission
The related modules that you selected in the previous step (Portal Tab Configuration) will be listed under the Field Permission section. You can select the fields that you want the portal users to access. You can also mark the fields that you do not want the customer to edit as Read Only. The mandatory fields inside CRM will also be marked as mandatory in the portal. You can also share subforms with the portal users.
Note: The portal users can view the price of a product only if they have view permission for the "Unit price" field in the Products module.
To specify field permissions
- In the Field Permissions page, select the check boxes for the fields that need to be available for the portal users.
- Click the Read Only checkbox, if required.
- Click Save and Next to move to the next layout or module to define field permissions.
- Repeat the above steps for all the modules and layouts.
You can select a subform too.
- Click Finish to save all the details.
View portal preview
Once the portal configuration is complete, you can preview the portal to see how the customers will see the records.
To view the portal preview
- Go to Setup > Channels > Portals.
- In the Customer Portal Configuration page, click Preview.
- Select the Portal User Type from the drop-down list to view the preview.
Note
You can view the portal summary after the portal configuration is completed. You can edit the
Field Permission and
Portal Tab Configuration in the portal configuration details. You can also add a new portal user type, if required.

Purchasing portal users
When you want to create an additional portal user aside from the default client portal, you need to purchase the portal users. You can purchase from the Portal configuration page as well as Manage Subscriptions page.
To purchase portal users from within the portal configuration page
- Go to Setup > Channels > Portals.
- Click Create User Type.
- Enter the number of Portal Users in the Add Portal Users popup.
- Click Make Payment.

To purchase portal users from manage subscription page
- Click your Profile icon and select Manage Subscription.

- Click Upgrade User / Add-Ons in the Subscription page.

- Select the number of portal users and click Proceed.

- Click Make Payment.
Working with portals
Invite users individually to a portal
Once you have created the portal, you can start inviting the customers. The email invitations will contain the portal URL details. Once the users accept the invitation, they will be prompted to set a password. In the portal, the customer must first set basic information like their preferred language, time format, time zone, and country (the CRM settings will be displayed by default). They will then be redirected to the module page that they have been given access to.

To send an invitation
- Go to a module (Leads, Contacts, Custom module) and select a record.
- In the record detail page, click the More icon and click Send Portal Invitation.


Invite users in bulk to the portal
You can send bulk invitations to leads, contacts or others from the module for which a portal is created. For example, if you create a portal for the leads module you can invite your leads to access the portal.
Bulk invitations can be sent from the
Users tab in the portal configuration page. Once clicked, a list of users who are not invited to any portal and have a valid email address will be displayed from where you can select multiple users.
To send bulk invitation to users
- Go to Setup > Channels > Portal.
- Click on a portal and go to the User tab.
- Click Invite users.

- Select users from the list of users displayed and click Send Invitation.

- In Are you sure you want to send portal invitation to the selected records, click Send invitation.
Once an invitation is a status is sent to convey the number of users that have received or not received the invitation. By clicking on the
View failed invitees, one can see the users who failed to receive an invitation and the reason for the same.
Note
- You can send an email invitation to the customers from the Record detail page. The send invite option will be available only if the email address is present.
- The invitation email will be valid for 7 days only.
- A portal user cannot be assigned as the record owner even if they create a record.
For example: Russell Brown is a CRM user who invites Sage Weiser to access portal with the permission to create contacts and deals. When Sage creates a contact through the portal, it will be added to the CRM database and Russell Brown will be the owner of the new contact.

View reason for portal invitation failure
There are several reasons for a failure in sending portal invitation to the users. Once the invitation is sent, a message will pop in your CRM account showing the number of successful or failed invitations.
By clicking on the failure reasons you can see the list of users who did not receive the invitation and the reason.
There can be following reasons for a failed invitation:
- Domain matches with the super admin's domain - The portal user belongs to the company domain. You cannot send an invitation to your employees or anyone who uses your company domain.
- Record is waiting for approval - If the record is awaiting approval from any approval process, then the invitation will not be sent as the record will be locked during this period.
- Record is waiting for review - If the record is part of the review process then a portal invitation will not be sent to the record.
- Record has not got the consent - If a user has enabled consent as part of the GDPR process, then portal invitation will not be sent.
- Email address has unsupported characters - Uppercase and lowercase letters in English (A-Z, a-z) , Digits from 0 to 9 and special characters such as @ . - _ + are supported in the email address. If the email address is not in the above format portal invitation will fail.
- Email address is anonymous - If the particular email domain is spammed, then you cannot send an invitation.
- Reached the maximum limit of user licenses for the portal - If the org has reached the maximum number of users that can be invited for a portal.
- Portal user already exists - If the user is already part of a portal user type, then you cannot send another invitation.
- No record exist - If a record is already deleted from CRM and due to any reason if an invitation is sent to the record it will be declined.
- You don't have the permission for the module - If theCRM user doesn't have the permission for a module he is sending then the invitation will be declined.
- You don't have the permission for the record - If the CRM admin doesn't have the permission for a particular module, then they will be restricted from sending invitations from that module.
- Record is in recycle bin - If the record of the user to whom the invitation is sent is moved to the recycle bin due to any reason then the portal invitation will not be sent.