How to set up the portal#

Audience: admin — provisioning portal users and deciding exposure is your decision, per client.

The Client Portal lets your customers submit support requests, view their invoices, read client-facing help articles, and book appointment slots without emailing your dispatchers. You control access from Settings → Portal in two steps: choose which ticket boards are visible to clients, then create portal accounts for each client's contacts.

Prerequisites#

• Admin access to Settings → Portal (under Delivery).
• A client company created in Marula. Portal settings and users are isolated per client company, so a user you create for Acme Corp can never see tickets or invoices belonging to another client.
• At least one ticket board you want clients to submit requests into (usually your Service Desk board).

1. Expose the ticket boards clients should see#

Open Settings → Portal and look at Board Exposure Controls.

Every board has an explicit Exposed to client / Hidden toggle. Internal boards (like Infrastructure Maintenance or Internal Projects) stay hidden by default. Flip the toggle to Exposed to client on the board where client requests should land.

2. Provision portal accounts for client contacts#

In the Portal Users Directory on the same page, you can see every portal login along with their email, display name, contact role, and status.

Click Provision portal user to create an account for a client contact. From each row's action menu, your service desk can also Disable the account, reset password, send a sign-in link, or Delete the user.

"Your service desk provisions accounts and can reset this password."

For security, there is no public self-registration form on the portal, and the internal staff password-reset form never resets client portal accounts.

3. Share the portal URL and sign-in instructions#

The client portal has its own dedicated sign-in screen ("Marula — client portal sign-in") and navigation bar (Requests, Invoices, Knowledge, and Schedule). Send your client contact:

• Your portal URL
• Their provisioned email address and initial password (or magic sign-in link)
• A link to How to use the portal (client-side tasks) or the Portal onboarding tutorial

4. What portal accounts can never access#

• No access to internal staff tools or other clients: Portal sessions are blocked at the routing and database layers from internal notes, staff settings, the password vault, unified staff search, and other clients' records.
• Scoped Knowledge Base search: When a client searches in the portal, Marula queries only articles that are both published and marked client-facing. See Portal isolation for the full security design.

What you learned#

• Expose the board first, then provision the client contact under Settings → Portal.
• Your service desk controls portal account creation and password resets per client organization.