How to Set or Reset a Customer's Password
A customer normally chooses their own Customer portal password, but the system administrator can set one for them at any time. Open the menu, choose Customer sign-ins under Administration, press Open on the customer's line, and use Set their password. Nobody in the office can see a customer's existing password; you can only replace it.
How do I set or reset a customer's password?
Open the customer's sign-in on the Customer sign-ins screen, type the new password twice under Set their password, and press Set the password. It takes effect at once.
- Open the menu and choose Customer sign-ins under Administration.
- Search for the customer in Search by name or email and press Open on their line.
- Type the new password in New password, and again in And again.
- Press Set the password.
The Customer sign-ins form then says "Their password is set, and they can sign in with it now. Anything else you have changed on this form still needs Save." Tell the customer the new password yourself; ABM Service does not send it to them.
Set the password saves only the password. If you also changed something else on the form, such as ticking Access granted, press Save as well, or that change is lost.
The password must be at least eight characters long. Otherwise the form says "A password must be at least 8 characters." If the two boxes differ, it says "The two passwords are not the same." That is the only rule: nothing asks for capitals, numbers or symbols, and customer passwords never expire. The rule applies only when a new password is set, so a customer brought over from the old web portal still signs in with the password they already had, even a shorter one.
Set their password is not on the form for a new sign-in: create the sign-in first, then open it.
What happens to the customer when I reset their password?
Setting a new password on the Customer sign-ins screen ends every session the customer has on the Customer portal: any browser they are signed in on stops working, and they sign in again with the new password. It does not switch off their access.
The note above the password boxes says which case you are in:
- "They already have one. Setting a new one here does not switch their account off, and any browser they are signed in on stops working."
- "They have never set one. You can either tell them to set their own from the sign-in page, or set one here and tell them what it is."
Once you set a password for somebody who never had one, their line on the People tab stops saying Not registered, and they can no longer use Set your password on the Customer portal's sign-in page: they sign in with the password you gave them.
Setting a password also records the date as the day the password was reset. If Access granted is unticked on that sign-in, now or later, its line on the People tab reads Inactive — password was reset on that date, the same line a customer's own Forgot password leaves.
What happens when a customer uses Forgot password?
When a customer uses Forgot password on the Customer portal's sign-in page, they choose a new password themselves, and their access is switched off until the system administrator switches it back on. The customer is warned before they do it: "Your account is switched off when you do this, so that the company can check it was really you. They will switch it back on."
This is a safety check. Anybody who knows a customer's email address could use Forgot password, so ABM Service does not let the new password work until somebody at your company has confirmed it was really the customer who asked.
When they press Forgot password, the customer is told "If that address has a sign-in, its password is changed and the account is now inactive. The company will switch it back on." They see the same sentence whether or not the address has a sign-in. Forgot password works this way on a sign-in that never had a password too: it sets the password the customer typed and switches access off, so a customer who chose Forgot password instead of Set your password also has to wait for you.
On the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen, their line then reads Inactive — password was reset on followed by the date. ABM Service does not email you or tell you any other way, so look for those lines on the People tab, or wait for the customer to ring. If they try to sign in meanwhile with their new password, they are told "Access has not been granted for that sign-in. The company has to switch it on."
To switch them back on after Forgot password, first check with the customer, by a route you trust, that they really asked. Then open the menu, choose Customer sign-ins under Administration, press Open on their line on the People tab, tick Access granted and press Save. They then sign in with the password they chose. If they did not ask, set a new password for them under Set their password with Set the password instead, tell them what it is, and only then tick Access granted and press Save: setting a password alone does not switch their access back on.
Why does a customer's sign-in look unchanged after they used Forgot password?
When a customer says the Customer portal's Forgot password told them their password was changed, but their line on the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen looks untouched, first open Customer sign-ins again from the menu under Administration. The list is read when the screen opens and is not updated while it stays open, so a reset made after you opened it does not show until you open it again.
If their line still does not read Inactive — password was reset on and a date, they probably typed a different email address. Forgot password gives the same answer whether or not the address has a sign-in, so the customer cannot tell from it. In that case nothing was changed on their sign-in: its access is as it was, and the password they had before still works. Look down the People tab for another line marked as reset that day, in case the address they typed belongs to somebody else's sign-in: that person's access was switched off and needs checking and switching back on in the same way.
How do I switch a customer back on after Forgot password?
Check with the customer that they really did reset their password, then open their sign-in on the Customer sign-ins screen, tick Access granted, and press Save. They can then sign in with the password they chose.
- Contact the customer by a route you trust, such as a phone number you already have, and confirm they asked for the new password.
- Open their sign-in from the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen.
- Tick Access granted.
- Press Save.
Their line on the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen then stops saying Inactive and shows Last signed in on the day they last signed in, or Registered, never signed in. Nothing else about the sign-in changes: their accounts, permissions and calls are as they were before the reset.
Warning: If the customer did not ask for the reset, somebody else may know their new password. Do not tick Access granted. Set a new password for them with Set the password instead, tell them what it is, and then tick Access granted and press Save.
Can a customer change their own password, email address or name?
Not from inside the Customer portal: once signed in, a customer has no page for changing their password, email address or name. A customer who wants a new password either asks you, and you set it on their sign-in on the Customer sign-ins screen (menu, then Administration) with Set the password, or uses Forgot password on the Customer portal's sign-in page, which switches their access off until you tick Access granted again and press Save.
A new email address or name is changed by you: open their sign-in from the People tab, change Email or Name, and press Save. Their password stays the same, and saving signs them out, so tell them the new address first. The one time a customer types their own name is when they first choose Set your password: what they type in Your name there replaces the Name on their sign-in.