Before you start
- A client or vendor relationship
Clients get one calm page
Send a portal invite from a person's page. They click a link in their email — no password to invent — and see their projects, invoices with pay buttons, contracts to sign, and a message thread with you. It carries your business name; Cygnetree stays in the footer.
When more than one person is the client — a couple, a household, two people signing for a business — keep each real person as one reusable record and connect them all to the project. The primary client sees the project automatically. For each additional contact, you decide separately whether their name and role may be shown and whether they can open that project in their own client portal. Additional project access is off until you turn it on, and it never grants access to another person's invoices, contracts, messages, questionnaires, or requests.
Each client profile can also choose whether routine messages, requests, scheduling updates, documents, and billing updates arrive by email or stay in the portal. The business supplies useful defaults, and a client can override each category without muting access, signature, payment, or safety-critical notices.
When you send a message, the client can answer the notification email directly or reply from the portal. Both responses land in the same Cygnetree conversation. For safety, an email response is accepted only when it comes from the email address saved for that person; forwarding a private reply address does not grant access to the thread.
Ask for clear decisions
Use a Checklist item when the client only needs to finish something. Use an Approval when you need an explicit decision about a design, plan, timeline, or other project choice. The client can approve, decline, or request changes and may add context. Cygnetree records the precise recipient, view, and decision for the workspace; it never shows the client whether your team read their response.
Approvals are coordination evidence, not a substitute for an electronic signature or payment authorization. Use a contract for binding agreement and an invoice or checkout for money.
Vendor partners see only what you allow
On any project, share access with another business working the same job — a subcontractor, a supplier, a specialist. You choose per partner: see the timeline, see details, upload/view shared files, respond to requests and approvals, or message you. They never see your client's contact information, your notes, contracts, or any money. If a project participant's name and role should be visible to vendors, mark that participant as shared; the default is internal.
Preview before you invite
Open a project and use Portal previews to check the client or vendor view for each connected person. The preview uses the same visibility rules and tenant branding as the live portal, but every action is disabled: it cannot send a notification, change a message's read state, record a client or vendor view, download a file, reply, complete a request, sign, or pay.
Use the client preview to verify shared people, messages, files, requests, questionnaires, appointments, contracts, and invoices. Use each vendor preview to verify the exact project details, timeline, people, files, requests, and messages granted by that vendor's permission set. If content appears in the wrong preview, return to the project and correct its audience or permission before you send the invitation.