Setting up the external portal

The external portal is the part of TrakIT for people outside your company: the staff of a customer who follow their jobs, of a transporter who handles the work orders you give them, or of a supplier who sends you bills. They sign in as External users and see only what concerns the entities they are linked to, within what their portal role allows.

This page is for the administrators who set the portal up. What External users see and do is described from their side in the other pages of this section, starting with Portal home.

The portal and its address

The portal is your TrakIT address followed by /portal, for example https://trakit.example.com/portal. It works in a web browser, on a computer or a phone.

External users sign in on the same sign-in page as everyone else. After signing in they land in the portal, unless TrakIT Support has set another start page for them or for their portal role.
Internal users cannot open the portal: TrakIT says You do not have the permission to view this page.
External users cannot use the internal pages. If they follow a link to an internal job or work order page, for example in a forwarded email or a work order’s QR code on a form, TrakIT opens the same job or work order in the portal instead. The mobile app and the separate TrakIT app are for internal users only.

Set up an external user

On Admin > User Management, select the External tab, then Create, and create the user. Give them an email address: a user without one cannot sign in. Set their Time Zone: the portal shows dates and times in it, and the user cannot change it there.
On the user’s Linked Entities tab, link them to their entities, and choose for each link whether they are Linked As Customer or Transporter. See Linked entities and relationships. You can also link users from the entity’s Linked Users tab.
On the user’s Access Control tab, choose their Portal Role. See Portal roles.
If the user should see charts on their home page, check that the charts are assigned to their role on Portal charts.
If the user should download reports, add their email address to the reports’ recipients. See Reports.

With Send Welcome Message and Password by Email (if provided) selected when you create the user, they receive their user ID and first password by email. Tell them the portal’s address, and that they can change their password from their user menu in the portal: see Change Password.

An External user with no portal role, or no linked entity, can still sign in, but their home page shows no boxes or charts.

Linked entities and relationships

An External user acts for the entities they are linked to, such as a customer, a transporter or a supplier. Each link has a relationship, chosen in Linked As, that decides which jobs and work orders the user reaches:

Linked As	The user reaches
Customer	The jobs whose customer is the entity, with their work orders, under Jobs in the portal. The Work Order Volume and Job Volume charts.
Transporter	The work orders whose transporter or return transporter is the entity, one by one and without the rest of the job, under Work Orders in the portal. The Work Orders Hauled chart.

The entity’s other records do not depend on the relationship: a link of either kind gives the user the invoices addressed to the entity and the bills the entity sends you, if their portal role allows them. So for a supplier who only sends bills, with a role that grants only Vendor Bills, the relationship you choose makes no difference.

A user can be linked to several entities, and to the same entity both ways. Each link is a row of its own on the Linked Entities tab.
Without any link, the user sees no jobs, work orders, invoices or bills.
User Level Filters and a custom work order filter set by TrakIT Support narrow what the user sees further: their jobs, work orders, invoices, bills and charts.

Portal roles

A portal role is an External role in Role management. An External user holds one portal role at most, so a user who is both a customer and a transporter needs a role that grants both. The role’s permissions are in the Portal group; each section is described in Roles and permissions.

The portal shows a menu item, and a box on the home page, only when the user’s role and links allow it:

Section and action	Menu item	Home page	Also needs
Jobs & Work Orders: Read	Jobs	Jobs box	A link as Customer.
Transporter Work Orders: Read	Work Orders	Open Work Orders box	A link as Transporter.
Invoices: Read	Invoices	Outstanding Invoices box	A link of either kind, for the box and the invoices.
Vendor Bills: Read	Bills	Bills box	A link of either kind, for the box and the bills.
Reports: List Subscribed Reports	Reports	-	Report subscriptions: see Reports.
Dashboard: View Dashboard	-	Charts	Charts assigned to the role, and a link of the kind each chart counts.
Documents	-	-	The section of the job, work order or bill the documents belong to.
Profile	-	-	-

The menu can also hold custom pages that TrakIT Support has added to the portal for your installation.

Changes to a role, or to a user’s role or links, apply to the user’s next request. The menu and the home page are updated the next time the user opens or reloads the portal.

What to grant to each kind of user

These are suggestions. Grant only what each kind of user needs.

The staff of a customer (linked as Customer):

Jobs & Work Orders: Read, View Events, View Data Fields, View Tracking Map and View Comments; Add Comment and Delete Own Comment if they may post comments.
Documents: Preview/Download, and Upload if they send you documents.
Invoices: Read and Download Invoice PDF.
Reports: List Subscribed Reports and Generate/Download, if you send them reports.
Dashboard: View Dashboard, for the charts on their home page.
Profile: View Own Profile, Update Own Profile (keeps their dark mode choice) and Customise Own Columns (lets them choose the columns of their job lists).

The staff of a transporter (linked as Transporter):

Transporter Work Orders: Read, View Events, View Data Fields and View Tracking Map.
Documents: Preview/Download, and Upload if they send you documents, such as proof of delivery.
Dashboard: View Dashboard, for the Work Orders Hauled chart.
Profile: View Own Profile and Update Own Profile.
Vendor Bills, as below, if they also send you their bills.

The staff of a supplier who sends you bills (linked either way):

Vendor Bills: Read, Create, Update, Delete, Submit Bill, View Comments and Add Comment.
Documents: Preview/Download, Upload, Delete Own Document and Rename Own Document. A bill cannot be submitted without its scanned copy, which the supplier uploads as a file.
Profile: View Own Profile and Update Own Profile.

A supplier’s own system can also send bills through the vendor bill API, which acts as one of the supplier’s External users and needs the same permissions.

Home page charts

The portal’s home page can show charts, such as the number of work orders created each month. You set up the charts, and choose which portal roles see each one, on Portal charts. A user sees a chart when it is assigned to their role, their role has View Dashboard in the Dashboard section, and they are linked the way the chart counts: see Who sees a chart.

Reports

The Reports page of the portal lists the reports the user receives:

the active subscriptions of active advanced reports, and
the active query reports,

that have the user’s email address among their recipients. The user downloads them from there, and also receives by email each one that is sent by email. To give a user a report, add them as a recipient: you can choose the External user, who is added by their email address.

Recipients are matched by email address. If you change the user’s email address, add the new address to their reports.
External users cannot be members of user groups, so add them to each report one by one.
A report holds what its subscription’s filters or its query select. The portal does not narrow it to the user’s linked entities, so set the report up for that recipient before you add them.

The user’s role needs List Subscribed Reports and Generate/Download in the Reports section.

What External users see of your records

Besides their role and links, what External users see of a record depends on how the record and its workflow are set up:

What	External users see
Work order and job header	The fields ticked External on the workflow’s Header Fields tab. The job page shows the shipper and the receiver only when they are ticked. The job reference is always shown.
Events and data fields	Those whose External Access is Visible or Updatable, under their External Name if they have one: see event fields. The latest such event is the status they see. The event and data columns of the portal’s lists, and of Entity Tracking shared links, follow the same rule. The portal does not let them change events or data fields.
Job and work order documents	The documents whose External Access is Allow Access, unless cancelled: see the work order’s Documents tab. Documents they upload in the portal are open to external users.
Job comments	The comments posted with Visible externally: see Post a comment. The comments they post in the portal are visible externally.
Bills	The files marked Available Externally on the bill’s Files tab, and the comments posted with Visible externally on its Comments tab. When you reject a bill, its External Remarks are shown as the reason. Suppliers add, rename and delete their own files only while the bill is a draft or rejected.
Invoices	Approved invoices that are not cancelled, with their Remarks, and the invoice’s PDF once it has been generated, if their role has Download Invoice PDF. The payments received and the adjustments need View Payments & Adjustments.

The columns of the portal’s job and work order lists are set up for your installation by TrakIT Support.

Links into the portal

A link to one page of the portal has the form /portal?go= followed by the page, for example https://trakit.example.com/portal?go=invoices/1234. Unlike the address shown in the browser while the user is in the portal, this form survives the sign-in page: a user who is not signed in signs in first, and then the page opens.

`go=`	Opens
`jobs`, `jobs/{id}`	The jobs list, or the job with that job ID.
`workorders/{id}`	The work order with that ID. For a user who reaches it only as its transporter, the portal opens it as a transport work order.
`transport`, `transport/{id}`	The transporter’s work orders list, or one of them.
`invoices`, `invoices/{id}`	The invoices list, or one invoice.
`bills`, `bills/{id}`	The bills list, or one bill.
`reports`	The reports list.

Any other value opens the portal’s home page. The portal still checks that the user may see the record: if not, it says the record was not found or they do not have permission to view it.

TrakIT builds these links itself:

in the emails about a supplier’s bill: the email to the person who added the bill when its status changes, and the email to the supplier’s External users when a comment visible externally is posted on it. The bill number opens the bill;
in the QR code of an invoice, where your invoice layout prints one: it opens the invoice. Someone without a portal user who can see the invoice cannot open it this way; to share an invoice with them, use a shared link.

Old portal addresses

The pages of the earlier portal, whose addresses started with /ext/, have been replaced. Their addresses still work, for example in old emails, bookmarks and QR codes on invoices printed before, and lead to the matching page of the portal:

Old address	Opens
`ext/home`, `ext/home.aspx`, `ext/dashboards`, `ext/dashboards.aspx`, `ext/docupload.aspx`	The home page.
`ext/jobs`, `ext/extjobs.aspx`	Jobs.
`ext/invoices`, `ext/invoices.aspx`	Invoices.
`ext/bills`, `ext/bills.aspx`	Bills.
`ext/reports`, `ext/reports.aspx`	Reports.
`ext/job.aspx`, `ext/wo.aspx`, `ext/invoice.aspx`, `ext/bill.aspx`, `ext/billedit.aspx`	The job, work order, invoice or bill the link named, or its list if the link cannot be read.

The public tracking widget keeps its own address.

People without a portal user

To show something to someone who has no External user, without asking them to sign in:

issue a shared link, for example to a customer’s shipments or invoices, or to one work order;
point them to the tracking widget, a public page that finds a job’s work orders by its job reference.

The logo

The logo at the top left of the portal opens your company’s website in a new tab, as set for your installation by TrakIT Support. Without one, it opens a web search for your company’s name. To change it, contact TrakIT Support.

Who can set this up

What	Who
Create External users	Create in the User Management section.
Link users to entities	Update in the User Management section and Link/Unlink User in the Entity Management section. Removing a link from the user’s page also needs Unlink Entity.
Give a user their portal role	Assign/Remove User Roles in the User Management section.
Create portal roles and choose their permissions	System administrators, on Role management.
Set up the home page charts	System administrators, on Portal charts.
Add a user to a report’s recipients	The report’s owner and system administrators.