# BlueHill Customer Portal: user guide

> Source: https://support.usebluehill.com/customer-portal-overview  |  Updated: 2026-10-27T13:54:45Z

## What the customer portal is

The customer portal is the signed-in part of your help center. Customers you invite, or who sign themselves up, use it to open support tickets, follow the conversation on the tickets their company has raised, and complete the onboarding tasks you publish to them. It lives at the same address as your help center, carries the same name, logo and colour, and uses the same sign-in as the help center's **Ask AI** chat.

Your team never works inside the portal. You invite people and manage their access from the main app, and the tickets they open arrive in your Support inbox like any other ticket, marked with the channel *Portal*.

## Key terms

| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Portal user** | A customer contact with a portal account. Every portal user is listed on **Support → Portal users**. |
| **Linked customer** | The customer record a portal user belongs to. A *linked* user sees every ticket of that customer; an *unlinked* user sees only the requests they submitted themselves. |
| **Access** | What a portal user can open: **Full portal**, **Support tickets** only, **Onboarding & tasks** only, or **No access**. |
| **Invite** | An emailed link that lets someone create their portal account. Invites expire after 7 days and can be resent or revoked. |
| **Self sign-up** | An optional **Sign up** button on your help center that lets visitors create their own portal account, limited to the email domains you allow. |
| **Sign-in code** | The six-digit code, and matching magic link, emailed to a portal user each time they sign in. There are no portal passwords for you to manage. |
| **Help center** (or **site**) | Your public help website. The portal shares its address and branding. Each support brand can have its own site, and each site has its own self sign-up policy. |
| **Home** | The portal's onboarding dashboard: the tasks you have published to the customer, grouped by project. Shown only to linked users with onboarding access. |
| **Published task** | A board task with **Published to Portal** switched on. Only published tasks appear in the portal. |
| **Channel: Portal** | The marker on a ticket that was opened in the portal or through the help center's contact form. |
| **Custom domain** | Your own address for the help center and portal, such as *help.yourcompany.com*. |

## Where to find the portal

On your side, in the main app:

- **Support → Portal users** lists every portal account and pending invite. This is where you link customers, set access and deactivate accounts.
- **Customers → *a customer* → Contacts** has a **Portal** column with an **Invite** button next to each contact.
- **Customers → *a customer* → Support → Portal access** shows that customer's portal users and invitations.
- **Support → Support settings → Help center** holds self sign-up, branding and custom domains for each site.
- The BlueHill mobile app has **Settings → Portal users** with the same directory, invites and self sign-up settings.

On your customers' side:

- *portal.usebluehill.com* is the portal's address until you add a custom domain. Your help center is at *portal.usebluehill.com/help/* followed by your workspace's address, for example */help/acme-inc* for the demo workspace. On a custom domain the help center is the home page.
- Signed-in customers see **Tickets**, and **Home** when they have onboarding access, in the help center header.

## Guides

1. [The customer portal at a glance](./customer-portal-customer-portal-overview). The two sides of the portal, who can sign in, what customers can and cannot do.
2. [The Portal users page](./customer-portal-portal-users-page). The directory of portal accounts, pending invites and the columns it shows.
3. [Invite customers to the portal](./customer-portal-invite-portal-users). The three places you can send an invitation from, what the email says and how the invitee joins.
4. [Link customers, set access and deactivate](./customer-portal-manage-portal-users). What a linked user sees, the four access levels and switching an account off.
5. [Let customers sign up themselves](./customer-portal-self-sign-up). The self sign-up switch, allowed email domains, automatic linking and what new sign-ups can open.
6. [How customers sign in and manage their profile](./customer-portal-sign-in-and-profile). The sign-in code, choosing a workspace, the user menu and the My Profile page.
7. [Tickets in the portal](./customer-portal-tickets-in-the-portal). The Support tickets page, the New support ticket form, the conversation view and replies.
8. [Onboarding tasks in the portal](./customer-portal-onboarding-tasks-in-the-portal). The Home dashboard, how customers complete tasks and what you publish from a board.
9. [Branding, addresses and brands](./customer-portal-branding-and-domains). Where the portal's name, logo and colour come from, custom domains and brand sites.
10. [Portal tickets in your inbox](./customer-portal-portal-tickets-for-agents). How portal tickets look to agents, who is notified and what the customer sees of your replies.
11. [FAQ and troubleshooting](./customer-portal-faq-and-troubleshooting). Quick answers to the questions we hear most.

## How these guides are written

- **Bold text** is a label you will see on screen, such as a button, a tab or a field.
- A path with arrows, such as **Support → Portal users**, means open the first item, then the next.
- *Italic text* is a value you might pick or an example, such as an email domain.
- Screenshots were taken in a demo workspace called Acme Inc. Your customers, contacts and portal users will differ.