This article is designed to show you how to create a customer account for your B2B customers. There are two ways to do so. The first is to add a portal user, the second is to invite one or multiple customers to become users.
Note: In-house users with the appropriate permissions can create a username for any customer, or can invite multiple customers to sign up for a username. Rep users with the appropriate permissions can create a username for any customer that is assigned to them.
Note that these buttons will only appear for users who have the permission to add a portal user.
1) To add usernames individually, click the Add Portal User button. Then follow these instructions.
2) Or, to invite multiple customers at once to set up a username, click the Invite Customer or Rep Users button. Then follow these instructions.
If you clicked the Add Portal User button
1. Once in your Crik-IT portal, click on the Tools tab, then under "Maintain Other User Info" click on Add Portal User.
2. Under Relationship, select "Customer".
3. Tell Crik-IT which customer you are creating a username for by selecting the customer from the drop-down list, then click the "Next" button.
4. Fill out all the requested information. When done, click the "Create User" button.
5. Crik-IT will then automatically create two usernames for a customer. One username will be used by management, the other will be used by staff.
The staff portal is limited, as staff users cannot see costs or how much your customer currently owes you, or other sensitive information. The staff username is usually the same as the management username, but with an "S" at the end.
Your customer will then receive two emails from Crik-IT; on is a "Welcome" email, the other contains a link to set up their password. The link to set up the password will expire in 24h if unused. Here's a sample of what this email looks like:
Note: You can customize what appears in this email by going to the Tools tab, then clicking on the Change Welcome Email Templates button.
Once your customer sets up their password, they will be able to log into the portal.
Note: If a customer does not create a password within 24h, they can go to the log in page, enter in their username and click on "Forgot password". They will then receive a link to re-set their password at the email address associated with their account.
USEFUL TIP 1: We highly recommend that you walk through this process using your own email address first so that you can see how it works. That way you will be able to answer any questions that you customers may have.
Questions? Email us at support@crik-it.com.
USEFUL TIP 2: Take a moment to customize the way your customer's portal is configured by going in the Tools tab, in Maintain Permissions (in your own Crik-IT portal).
If you clicked the Invite Customer or Rep Users button
Invite your customers to become portal users.
Approve Users: After your customers accept the invitation and set up their user information, you must review and approve the user account.
Click here for a video going over how to invite customers to become Crik-IT users.
Invite Users
1. Before inviting any user, you must set up an email address as your company's "username administrator" and click on "Save email addresses". You can enter up to three email addresses here.You will not be able to send out any invitations until this step is done!
These email addresses will receive an email after the invited user has completed the process of setting up their username information; at which point, your username administrator will have to approve the new user.
2. You will see instructions (which you can hide for more visual real estate) below which you will see a list of your customers.
Note that only customers who do not already have a Crik-IT username will show in this list. If you want to set up a second username for a customer who already has a username, you will have to use the Add Portal User function discussed above.
- Now you can select the customers that you want to invite to become a portal user.
a) You can select customers individually by using the Send Invitation checkbox.
b) You can filter which customers show in the list by Customer Type, Sales Rep, or Price List. Complete the filter fields, then click the Search button to apply the filter. The Clear Search button will reset the filter and show the full list of customers who do not already have a portal username.
c) You can select all customers showing in the list at once by clicking the Select All Filtered Customers button, or unselect all customers showing in the list by clicking the Unselect All Filtered Customers button.
- You will notice that Crik-IT automatically populates the Email Address For Invitation from the default email address for each customer. If there is no email address -- or if you want to use a different email address -- you can click the Edit Invitation Email Address link, then update the email address, then make sure you save the change. NOTE: if the Email Address For Invitation is blank, the customer will NOT receive an invitation!
Wait... tell me why there are two email addresses. Ok... The first email address comes from your accounting system (QuickBooks or Sage or some other accounting system), and that is the default email address for the purpose of sending the user-invite email. But, it may be that the invitation to become a portal user should go to a different email address, so we provide you with that flexibility. For example, the email address that comes over from your accounting system may be for the accounts payable person at your customer location, but you may want the user-invite email to go to the general manager or the purchasing person. So, we allow you to change that. Note that changing the email address in the 2nd column will not change the default email address that comes over from your accounting system. It will only apply to the specific purpose of sending the user invitation.
- When you have selected all the customer you want to invite, click the Send Invitations to Customers Selected Above button.
TIP: to see a more readable version of the image below, right-click the image and select the option similar to Open in a new tab (if your browser supports this).
Once you click the Send Invitations to Customers Selected Above button, invitations will be emailed to all valid email addresses for the selected customers. Here's a sample of what your customer will see:
When your customer clicks the link in the email above, they will set up their user information in a screen that looks like this:
Once they have completed the information above and clicked the "Create User" button, two things happen:
1) The customer will no longer show in under the Customers tab of the Invite Customer or Rep Users page and will now show under the Unapproved Usernames tab of that page.
2) Your customer and your "username administrators" will receive an email like this:
Approve Username
Your customer will not be able to log in to the portal until the username has been approved. This gives your username administrator an opportunity to customize the user's permissions before the user can log into the portal. When your username administrator(s) receives the email shown above, they should review the user's permissions (in Tools -> Maintain Permissions), then go back to the Invite Customer or Rep Users page to review and approve the customer username. The usernames that need to be reviewed are found under the Unapproved Usernames tab. If all looks good, click the Approve User link.
Important: If you do not want to approve the user, make sure you go to Tools -> Delete User to delete that username. That username counts towards your user counts for billing purposes, whether approved or not.
After the Approve User link has been clicked, the username is immediately approved and the username will be removed from the Unapproved Usernames shown on the page. The customer will receive an email similar to shown below, and the customer will now be able to log into the portal.