What Can't I Do in the Customer Portal?
The Customer portal lets you log and follow your calls, see the engineer visits booked at your site and check your account, but some things people expect from it are not there. Each question below is one that people ask and whose honest answer is no, or "not in the portal", followed by what to do instead. Most often the answer is to contact your service provider, who can do it for you.
This is different from a page or button that exists but is missing from your own sign-in, because your service provider has not included it; that is answered in Why Can't I See a Call or a Button?
Can I change my name, my sign-in email address or my password in the Customer portal?
No, not from inside the Customer portal: it has no profile, settings or change-password page, and its menu holds only Home, Account, Account history, Calls and Visits. Your service provider can change your name, your sign-in email address and your password for you.
- Your name — the name beside Sign out at the bottom of the Customer portal menu is the one typed in Your name when your password was first set, or the one your service provider entered. Ask them to correct it. For a single call, you can type a different name in Who to ask for on the Log a call form.
- Your sign-in email address — your service provider set it up and can change it. Afterwards, you sign in with the new address and your existing password.
- Your password — ask your service provider to set a new one, or sign out and use Forgot password on the Customer portal sign-in page. Forgot password switches your sign-in off until your service provider switches it back on, so you will need to contact them either way. The only rule for a new password is at least eight characters: it does not need a capital letter, a number or a symbol. The rule is checked only when a password is set, never at sign-in, so an older password shorter than eight characters still lets you in.
When your service provider changes your sign-in, the Customer portal may sign you out; sign in again to carry on.
Can I sign in with a Microsoft or Google account, or turn on two-step verification?
No. The Customer portal sign-in page, headed Sign in to see your calls, asks only for your Email address and Password. There is no button to sign in with another account, such as a Microsoft or Google account, and there is no way to add an authenticator app or a code sent to your phone to your Customer portal sign-in.
What keeps your Customer portal sign-in safe is your password and how you use it:
- Choose a password of at least eight characters that you do not use anywhere else. Length is the only rule the Customer portal checks, so a longer password is the safer one.
- Select Sign out at the bottom of the Customer portal menu when you finish on a shared computer, because closing the browser does not sign you out. On a phone, Sign out is not in the row of buttons along the bottom; turn the phone sideways to see the full menu where the screen is wide enough.
- Tell your service provider straight away if you think somebody else knows your password. They can set a new one, and any browser that was signed in with the old one is signed out. There is no list of the browsers where you are signed in and no button to sign out everywhere, so asking your service provider for a new password is the way to do that.
The Customer portal also makes you wait a little longer after each wrong password for the same email address, which makes guessing a password slow.
Can I give a colleague their own Customer portal sign-in, or take one away?
No. Only your service provider can create a Customer portal sign-in, decide which accounts it reaches and what it may do, or switch it off. There is no page in the Customer portal for managing other people's sign-ins, and nobody can sign up on their own: Set your password on the sign-in page works only for an email address your service provider has already set up.
To add a colleague, send your service provider their name and email address, the accounts they should see, and whether they should be able to log calls, change calls, see engineer visits, see your balance and see your account history. Once your service provider has set it up, your colleague opens the Customer portal and uses Set your password, unless they were given a password.
To remove someone who has left, ask your service provider to switch their sign-in off.
A sign-in that sees your invoices but not your calls, for your accountant say, is only partly possible. Your service provider can let a sign-in see the account history and the balance while not logging calls, changing calls or seeing visits. But Calls is in the menu of every sign-in, and cannot be taken out of it; the only way to leave that list empty is your service provider's choice of which calls the sign-in shows. Ask them whether they can set it up that way.
Giving each person their own sign-in, rather than sharing one, also means the right name goes on each call: the Customer portal fills in Who to ask for with the signed-in person's name and stamps it on every Note they add to a call's details.
Can my sign-in log calls for one of our accounts and not another, or have different permissions on each?
No. What a Customer portal sign-in may do is set once for the whole sign-in and is the same on every account it reaches: logging calls, changing calls, seeing engineer visits, seeing the balance and seeing the account history, and also which kinds of call and which call statuses it shows. So a sign-in that may log calls may log them on every account it reaches, and one that may not, cannot log them on any. Your service provider cannot turn Log a call on for one shop, site or branch and off for another on the same sign-in.
The only way to have different permissions for different accounts is separate sign-ins, each with its own email address, because two sign-ins cannot share an address. For example, one sign-in linked to the shop where you may log calls, and another, with a different email address, linked to the shop where you may only look. Your service provider creates both; tell them which accounts each should reach and what each may do.
If it is simpler, one sign-in that reaches every account with the same permissions may be enough: switch between accounts with the account name at the top of the menu, marked Account · press to switch, and check the account's name on the Log a call form before you select Log the call.
Can I update my company's address, phone number or other account details in the Customer portal?
No. The Account information card on the Account page of the Customer portal is read-only, and the card itself says Something out of date? Tell the office; these are kept by them. Your service provider keeps your account's address, phone number, Accounts e-mail, payment terms, where invoices go and the other details, and they can correct them for you.
The same applies to the pin on the Where we come to map on the Account page, which marks where engineers are sent: you cannot move it in the Customer portal, so tell your service provider where it should be. The Customer portal also never shows the notes your service provider keeps about your account for their own use; ask them if you need to know something they hold.
For one call, you can still give different contact details. On the Log a call form, type the right person in Who to ask for, and a phone number and email address in Phone and E-mail. Those details belong to that one call only; they do not change your account, and they cannot be changed afterwards on the Edit call page, so check them before you select Log the call.
Can I see all my sites together, or change several calls at once?
No. The Customer portal always shows one account at a time, so there is no combined list of calls, visits or invoices across all your accounts or sites. To look at another account, select the account name at the top of the Customer portal menu, marked Account · press to switch, and choose it on the Choose an account page. On a phone the account name is not in the menu along the bottom; turn the phone sideways, or open the Customer portal's address again, which takes you to Choose an account while you are signed in.
Everything is also done one call at a time. A call you log goes on the account you are looking at, and you change a call from its own page with Edit. There is no way to log the same call for several sites in one go, or to change several calls on the Calls list together.
For a problem that affects several sites, switch to each account and log a call there, or ask your service provider how they would like it reported. If you need a summary across all your accounts, such as every open call at every site, ask your service provider for one.
Can I choose the engineer, the date or how urgent my call is?
No. The Log a call form in the Customer portal has no place to pick an engineer, a day, a time or a priority, and neither does the Edit call page. You describe the problem, and your service provider decides who comes and when. Once they have booked the engineer, the visit appears on the call's Visits card and on the Visits page, if your sign-in includes visits.
If timing matters, say so in your own words in Anything else we should know on the Log a call form: for example, that the fault is urgent, that the site is closed on certain days, or who has the keys. Your service provider reads everything you write there.
For something that cannot wait, such as a safety problem, phone your service provider as well, quoting the call number, because nobody is booked at the moment you select Log the call.
Once a visit is booked, you cannot move it in the Customer portal either; ask your service provider to rebook it.
Can I book regular servicing or a repeat visit in the Customer portal?
No. Each call you log in the Customer portal is one request, and the Log a call form has no option to repeat it, to set up a maintenance schedule or to ask for a follow-up visit on a chosen date. Planned and repeat visits are arranged by your service provider.
To ask for regular servicing, contact your service provider, or, if your sign-in may log calls, log a call and say in Anything else we should know what you would like done and how often. Your service provider then books the visits themselves.
Each visit they book on a call your sign-in may see appears on the Visits page of the Customer portal under Coming up, and on that call's Visits card. The lists show fewer: Coming up itself shows only the next fifty visits, with no next page, so with many visits booked ahead it ends a few weeks or months away and the later ones appear as earlier ones pass; the Visits booked figure on Home counts all of them. Coming to your site on Home shows only the next four visits, and the Next visit column of your Calls list shows only the soonest visit on each call, so a later repeat visit that is missing from them is not a missing booking. If your sign-in does not include visits, you will not see them anywhere in the Customer portal; ask your service provider when they are coming instead.
Can I attach a file or a photo to a call in the Customer portal?
Only a picture, and only by pasting it: the Customer portal has no attach or upload button. On a computer, copy the picture itself, select inside the Anything else we should know box on the Log a call form, and press Ctrl and V together (Ctrl+V). The picture is saved with the call, and your service provider sees it in the call's details. Type a few words with it saying what it shows. The same works in the Details document on the Edit call page, if your sign-in may change calls.
If a message says your browser is blocking this site from reading the clipboard, allow the clipboard for the Customer portal's address in your browser's settings and paste again. Pasting a picture may not be possible on a phone.
Other files, such as a PDF, a spreadsheet, a document or a video, cannot be added to a call in the Customer portal. Send them to your service provider another way, for example by email, and quote the call number so they can match them to your call.
Will the Customer portal save a half-typed call for me to finish later?
No. The Customer portal does not keep a draft of the Log a call form, and it does not warn you before you leave it. If you select Cancel, ← Calls or a page in the menu, press your browser's Back button, or close the page before selecting Log the call, everything you typed is lost and no call is logged.
So finish the Log a call form and select Log the call in one go. If you need time to gather the details, such as a purchase order (PO) number or a description of the fault, write them somewhere else first, for example in an email or a note on your computer, and copy them into the form when you are ready.
The same is true when you change a call: anything on the Edit call page that you have not saved with Save changes is lost if you leave the page.
While you are typing in the details box, the Undo and Redo buttons in its toolbar take back or restore your last changes, but only until you leave the form.
Can I change the contact, my reference or the status of a call, or reopen a finished one?
No. On the Edit call page of the Customer portal, reached with Edit beside a call's heading, you can change only four things: What is it about, In one line, PO number and the Details document. The page says: "The status, the visits and what was done are the office’s."
So you cannot change Your reference, Who to ask for, the contact Phone or E-mail, the call's status, its visits, What was done, or the account the call is on, for example to move a call logged under the wrong shop or site. If one of them is wrong, tell your service provider, quoting the call number, or, if your sign-in may change calls and the call is not finished, add the correction to the call's Details.
A finished call cannot be changed or reopened in the Customer portal at all: Edit is no longer shown on it, and if you reach its Edit call page anyway you see "This call is finished, so it can no longer be changed. Please ring the office if something is still wrong." If the problem has come back, contact your service provider, or log a new call and mention the old call number in Anything else we should know.
Can I cancel or delete a call, or undo a change I saved?
No. The Customer portal has no way to cancel, withdraw or delete a call, not even one you logged a minute ago by mistake. Only your service provider can cancel a call, so contact them, quote the call number and tell them it is not needed, so that nobody is sent out. Once your service provider has cancelled a call, it is finished and can no longer be changed in the portal.
The Cancel button beside Save changes on the Edit call page, and beside Log the call on the Log a call form, does not cancel the call. It only leaves the form without saving what you typed.
There is also no undo after you select Save changes, and no history of earlier versions of a call to go back to. To put something back, select Edit on the call's page again and change it back, while the call is not finished and your sign-in may change calls. If the call is finished, or the change was to the Details and you cannot remember what was there, contact your service provider.
Can I move or cancel a booked engineer visit in the Customer portal?
No. The Visits page and the Visits card on a call's page in the Customer portal only show what your service provider has booked; there is no button to move, cancel or confirm a visit. The Edit call page says so too: "The status, the visits and what was done are the office’s."
To change a visit, contact your service provider and give them the call number and the day of the visit, which are both shown on the Visits page. When they rebook it, the new day and time appear on the Visits page and on the call's Visits card, and also in Coming to your site on Home and the Next visit column of your Calls list when it is among the next visits those show.
If you only want to pass on something the engineer should know, such as a new access code or a different contact on site, and your sign-in may change calls, you can add it to the call's Details with Edit. Your service provider reads it there, but tell them directly as well if the visit is soon.
Can I track the engineer or contact them directly from the Customer portal?
No. For each visit, the Customer portal shows the engineer's name and the time your service provider booked: the start time, and the end time too where they booked the visit for a length of time. It does not show where the engineer is, an estimated arrival time, or the engineer's phone number or email address, and there is no way to send the engineer a message. Nor does it show, for a past visit, when the engineer actually arrived or left: the time stays the booked one. Ask your service provider for the real times, or read What was done on the call for what the engineer did.
The Visits card on a call's page shows the same for that call: each booked visit with the engineer's name, the day and the time. The time on the Visits page is the time your service provider booked, not a live estimate, and it changes only when your service provider rebooks the visit. If the engineer is late, or you need to reach them, contact your service provider, quoting the call number shown beside the visit.
Where a visit on the Visits page says The office is handling this one, no engineer's name is attached to the booking; your service provider is looking after it.
Can I see who is dealing with my call, when its status changed or what it will cost?
No. A call's page in the Customer portal shows its number, type, current status, its one-line description, when it was logged, your purchase order (PO) number, your reference, the contact details, the booked visits, the Details and What was done, and nothing more.
- Who is dealing with it — the portal never shows who at your service provider logged the call, looks after it or follows it up. The only name from their side is the engineer on a booked visit, and a visit the service team is handling says The office instead.
- When the status changed — the call shows only its current status. There is no history of earlier statuses and no date the call was finished; apart from the days and times of its visits, Logged is the only date on a call.
- What it will cost — a call shows no price, charge or quote. If the work is charged, the invoice appears as a line in Account history once your service provider raises it, if your sign-in includes that page.
- Which of your colleagues logged it — not shown either. Who to ask for starts with the name of whoever logged the call in the portal, but it can have been changed.
For who is dealing with a call, its progress or its cost, contact your service provider and quote the call number. For which of your colleagues logged a call, ask round your own team: on the call, your service provider sees the same contact name that you see under Who to ask for.
Can I reply to the engineer's notes, rate a visit or sign off the work?
No. What was done on a call's page in the Customer portal is written by your service provider and is read-only, marked written by the office beside a padlock. There is no reply box under it, and it stays locked even on the Edit call page, beside the details you can change. There is no button anywhere in the Customer portal to rate a visit, leave feedback, or approve or sign off the work. Nor can you read what the engineer wrote on each visit: a visit shows only the engineer's name, its status, the date and the time, and What was done is the one write-up of the work on a call.
If you want to add something to a call, such as a question about the work or a note that the fault has come back, and your sign-in may change calls, select Edit beside the call's heading and use Note in the Details toolbar to add a dated line with your name, then select Save changes. That works only while the call is not finished.
For feedback on a visit, or anything about a finished call, contact your service provider directly and quote the call number. Adding a Note does not alert anybody, so ring your service provider as well if it is urgent.
Can I contact my service provider or find their phone number in the Customer portal?
No. The Customer portal has no contact form, chat, message box or help page, and none of its pages shows your service provider's phone number or email address. Contact them the way you normally do, by the phone number or email address you already use for them.
When you do, the Customer portal gives you what to quote:
- About a call — the call number, shown in the Call column of your Calls list and in the heading of the call's page, after the word Call.
- About a visit — the call number and the day, both shown beside the visit on the Visits page.
- About an invoice or a payment — the invoice's Reference from Account history.
- About your account — the account code, shown under the account's name at the top of the menu.
The Account page may name Your account manager, the person at your service provider who looks after your account, but it gives no phone number or email address for them. Phone and Accounts e-mail on that page are the details held for your own account, not your service provider's.
If your sign-in may change calls and the call is not finished, you can also add a line to the call with Note on the Edit call page and select Save changes. Your service provider can read it on the call, but nobody is alerted, so ring them as well if it cannot wait.
Will the Customer portal email or text me when something changes?
No. The Customer portal itself does not send emails or text messages: not when your call is logged, when an engineer is booked, when a visit changes, when a call is finished or when an invoice is added. It has no notification settings to turn on. Even Forgot password sends nothing: you choose the new password on the screen.
Instead, the Customer portal shows where things stand each time you open it, so check it when you want to know:
- Calls shows each call's current status and its next visit.
- Visits shows the visits coming up, and Home shows the next few in Coming to your site.
- What was done on a call's page shows the engineer's report once your service provider adds it.
- Account history shows new invoices, credit notes and payments, if your sign-in includes it.
Your service provider may still let you know about bookings or finished work themselves, for example by email or phone. Ask them how they do it. The Customer portal sends no calendar invitations or visit reminders either, so note the day and time from Visits in your own calendar.
Does the Customer portal update by itself when something changes, or do I refresh?
You refresh. The Customer portal does not update a page while you are looking at it: Home, Account, Account history, Calls, Visits and a call's own page each show what was true at the moment you opened them, and nothing on them checks again until you open the page once more. There is no refresh button of its own either; even the line marking the time now on the Visits page stays where it was when the page opened.
So if your service provider books an engineer, changes a call's status or adds to What was done while you have a page open, you will not see it until you:
- reload the page with your browser's reload button, or by pressing F5; or
- go to another page in the Customer portal menu and then back, for example from Visits to Home and back to Visits. Selecting the page you are already on in the menu does not fetch it again.
Opening a call from the Calls list always fetches it fresh, so a call you open shows where it stands now. Coming back to the Calls list with your browser's Back button fetches the list again too, with your search and page kept.
The Customer portal does not tell you about changes in any other way either: it sends no emails or text messages and has no notification settings.
Can I search inside my calls' details, or search my account history?
Not fully. Search your calls, on the Calls list of the Customer portal, looks only in the call number, the one-line description (In one line) and Your reference. It does not look inside a call's Details, What was done or the PO number, and Account history has no search box at all.
The other limits, and the way round each:
- A PO number — look down the PO number column of your Calls list, with more calls on a page from the size buttons at its foot.
- A kind of call — the Calls list has no filter by type; sort by the Type column heading so calls of one kind sit together.
- Dates of your own — the Calls list has only the six date buttons, Today, This week, This month, Last 30 days, This year and All; for another period, select All, which lists every call newest first, and select the Logged heading to turn it oldest first.
- Several statuses at once — Status picks one status or Every status.
- An old invoice — Account history has no search, date filter or sorting; page with Next and watch the Date column, or ask your service provider for a copy.
If a word you remember is in the details of a call rather than its one-line description, ask your service provider to find the call for you.
Can I export my calls to Excel, print them or get a report from the Customer portal?
No. The Calls list in the Customer portal has no export or download button, so your calls cannot be saved as a spreadsheet, such as an Excel file. A call's own page has no print or download button either, and there is no reports page; the four figures at the top of Home and the Balance due card on Account are the only summaries the Customer portal shows.
The only files you can download in the Customer portal are the invoices, credit notes and other documents in the Document column of Account history, if your sign-in includes it.
If you need a list or a report of your calls or visits, for example for your own records or an audit, ask your service provider to produce one.
To keep a paper copy of one call, press Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P). Where you are when you press it decides what prints:
- Outside the documents, for example after clicking the call's heading, your browser prints the page as it is on the screen. The Customer portal has no print layout of its own, so a long Details or What was done may be cut off.
- Inside the Details or What was done box, after clicking in its text, only that document prints, in full, in a window of its own.
Can I pay an invoice or query a bill in the Customer portal?
No. The Customer portal shows your account but takes no payments: there is no pay button, no card form and no way to set up a direct debit. It has no button to query or dispute an invoice either.
What the Customer portal does show is where you stand. The Account page shows your Payment terms and, if your sign-in includes balances, the Balance due card, with what is owed split by age and your Last receipt. Account history lists every invoice, credit note and payment on the account, with a copy of each invoice to download where one is attached.
Pay the way your invoices ask you to. Once your service provider has recorded a payment, it appears in Account history for the account it was made on, and the balance changes. If your account is billed to a head office, the Balance due you see is the head office's, while Account history lists only your own account's invoices and payments, so a payment made by the head office can lower your balance without appearing in your history; ask your service provider if you need to check it. To query an invoice, contact your service provider and quote the invoice's Reference from Account history; the Account page may name Your account manager, the person there who looks after your account. There is no download of a whole statement either, only a copy of each invoice or credit note that has one attached; ask your service provider for a statement.
Can I see my service contract, my equipment or a quote in the Customer portal?
No. The Customer portal has no page for service contracts, for a list of your equipment or machines, or for quotes, and a call's page does not show what the work will cost. Its menu holds only Home, Account, Account history, Calls and Visits.
- Contracts and equipment — ask your service provider for the details of your contract, what equipment they look after for you, and when it is next due for service.
- Quotes and prices — ask your service provider for a quote before the work, if you need one. What a call costs appears once it is invoiced, as a line in Account history, with the invoice to download where one is attached.
- Which piece of equipment a call is about — the Log a call form has no equipment box, so name the machine, its location or its serial number in In one line or Anything else we should know.
Is there a Customer portal app, and does it work without the internet?
There is no separate app to install. The Customer portal is a web page that you open in the web browser on a computer, a tablet or a phone, at the address your service provider gave you. On a phone the menu runs along the bottom of the screen; turn the phone sideways to see the full menu where the screen is wide enough. To get back quickly, save the Customer portal's address as a bookmark in your browser.
The Customer portal needs an internet connection: every page fetches your latest calls, visits and account from your service provider as you open it, and nothing is kept for use offline. If the connection drops when you select Log the call or Save changes, the message "The server did not answer. Check your connection and try again." appears on the form and what you typed stays on the screen, so you can select the button again once you are back online. If you are not sure whether a call went through, ask your service provider before logging it a second time.