Customer Access
The Customer Access page controls what your customers can see and do when they log in to the customer portal — the self-service site where customers view upcoming visits, pay invoices, and manage their account. Use it to turn portal capabilities on or off, and to fine-tune how much visit detail customers see, when they're reminded about agreements, and what happens when they ask to reschedule.
Who Can Access This
| Role | Access Level |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Full access (view and edit) |
| Office Manager | View only |
| Sales | View only |
| HR Admin | View only |
| Payroll Admin | View only |
If your role can view this page but the switches and fields are grayed out, you don't have the "Update Pulse Features" permission. Ask an administrator to make changes, or to grant you edit access.
Where to Find It
- Open the left navigation and go to Settings.
- Select Customer Experience in the settings menu.
- Click Customer Access.
The page has two parts: a list of on/off switches grouped by portal area, and a Customer Portal card with more detailed behavior settings underneath.
Portal Feature Switches
Each switch turns a portal capability on or off for every customer. If a group has no switches available for your company, that section is hidden.
| Group | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Portal Access | The customer portal itself. Turning it off doesn't just hide features — it blocks customers from logging in or opening any portal page at all. |
| Booking & Scheduling | Online booking, reschedule requests, and canceling an upcoming visit. Customers can reschedule or cancel from the upcoming-visits calendar on the portal dashboard, not just from a single visit's detail page. |
| Payments & Billing | Online payments, balance display, invoice history, and payment history |
| Visits & Documents | Service history and documents customers can view or download |
| Dashboard & Profile | The portal's main dashboard and the customer's profile/account page |
| Contacts & Notifications | Managing contact methods from the portal, plus Customers Can Edit Notifications (off by default), which lets customers change their own notification preferences. With it on, each contact on the portal's Contacts page lists the notifications it receives, and tapping a contact lets the customer turn each one on or off |
| Calendar Subscription | Letting customers subscribe to their cleaning schedule as a calendar feed (iCal) they can add to Google Calendar, Outlook, or their phone's calendar app |
To change a switch, click it. The change saves immediately — there is no separate save button.
Some switches are hidden until MaidCentral finishes rolling out that capability. If a group you expect to see is missing entirely, the underlying capability isn't available for your company yet.
Customer Portal Behavior Settings
Below the switches, the Customer Portal card controls the finer details of what customers see and how the reschedule flow behaves. Every field here saves as soon as you change it (numeric fields save when you click away or press Enter).
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Upcoming detail window (days) | How many days in advance a customer can see the assigned team and exact arrival time for an upcoming visit. Set to blank or 0 for no limit, so customers always see full details as soon as a visit is scheduled. |
| Show time on site | Shows customers the visit's expected length and a live countdown while a technician is clocked in. Turn this off if early or missed clock-ins have led to billing disputes with customers. |
| Remind about agreement | Shows a banner in the portal reminding the customer to accept an outstanding service agreement. |
| Agreement required | Keeps that reminder banner on the screen until the customer accepts — the customer can still use the rest of the portal, just not dismiss the banner. This only applies when Remind about agreement is also on. |
| Reschedule instructions | Text shown to customers in the portal's reschedule flow, such as a phone number to call. Leave blank to show nothing. |
| Auto-invite on all creation paths | When on, new customers automatically get a portal account invite no matter how they were added (manual entry, converting a lead, and so on). When off, invites only go out for customers who book through the online booking flow, so your office isn't surprised by portal invites going to customers it created manually. |
What customers see in their calendar
When Calendar Subscription is on, the customer's Visits page in the portal shows a Subscribe to calendar button and a Download schedule (.ics) button.
- Subscribe to calendar opens a private link the customer adds to Google, Apple, or Outlook Calendar. Their visits then appear and update on their own.
- Download schedule (.ics) saves a one-time copy of their upcoming visits.
The calendar shows the same upcoming visits as the Visits page, up to 90 days ahead:
- If Show Arrival Window is on, each visit shows its arrival window. If it is off, the visit shows the date only, with no time.
- Cancelled and skipped visits are left out. A visit the customer cancels in the portal counts as skipped, so it drops off their calendar the next time their calendar app refreshes.
- The Upcoming detail window (days) and Show time on site settings above apply here too.
The portal reminds customers to keep the subscription link private, because anyone who has it can see their visit schedule.
Where the reschedule fee is set
There is no reschedule fee setting on this page. When a customer reschedules or cancels a visit in the portal, the fee comes from the scope of that visit's service: its Skip Window (Hours) and Skip Fee on the scope's Pricing & Fees card. If the customer makes the change with less notice than the Skip Window, the portal shows the fee calculated from the scope's Skip Fee, and the customer must accept it before confirming. Depending on the Skip Fee's Calculation Type, that fee is either a flat amount or a percentage of the visit's price. Outside the window, or when the scope's Skip Fee is zero, no fee is shown or charged. See Quoting and Scope Configuration.
Reschedules your office makes from the Schedule don't charge a fee.
Can I block booking until the customer accepts an agreement?
No. There is no setting that blocks booking until an agreement is accepted. The customer is prompted to accept it when they sign in to the portal.
Tips and Best Practices
- Turn on Remind about agreement before making it required. Give customers a chance to see the reminder banner for a while before switching on Agreement required, so the change doesn't feel abrupt.
- Use Upcoming detail window carefully. A short window (like 1–2 days) can reduce no-shows caused by customers over-planning around a team, but also gives customers less lead time to prepare.
- Review Show time on site if you get billing disputes. Turning this off removes a common source of "but the app said..." conversations tied to clock-in timing.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Solution |
|---|---|
| "We couldn't load the customer portal settings" | This is usually a temporary connection issue. Click retry, or refresh the page. |
| "No portal settings available" | Your company's customer portal feature may not be configured yet. Check the Pulse Features tab under Settings > Integrations & System, or contact support. |
| Switches are visible but grayed out | Your role has view-only access. An administrator needs to make the change, or grant you the "Update Pulse Features" permission. |
| A toggle group is missing entirely | That capability isn't enabled for your company yet, or is still being rolled out. |
Related Articles
- Integrations, System, and Access Control - The full Pulse Features catalog, including customer portal toggles alongside every other feature control
- Roles & Permissions - Review and adjust which roles can update Pulse Features
- Quoting and Scope Configuration - Set the Skip Window and Skip Fee that the portal charges for late reschedules and cancellations