CCH Portal User Manual and Getting Started Checklist

Transcription

1 CCH Portal User Manual and Getting Started Checklist

2 Legal Notice Disclaimer Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited has made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of these Release Notes. However, Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited, its staff and agents will not be liable for any errors or omissions and use of the software is subject to the customer s licence with Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited. These Release Notes should not be relied upon as a detailed specification of the system or the software. Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited may make changes to these Release Notes from time to time. Copyright These Release Notes may not be copied, altered, edited, disposed of or distributed without the prior consent of Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited. The content is confidential. Unless indicated otherwise all elements of this software product are owned by Wolters Kluwer (UK) Ltd Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited Trademark Rights Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 98, 2000, XP, MS- DOS, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Office, are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Novell and NetWare are trademarks of Novell Inc. Citrix MetaFrame is a registered trademark or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited 145 London Road, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey KT2 6SR <VERSION APRIL 2017> II

3 Contents Using this Guide 1 Why CCH Portal? 1 1. Preparation for Portal Update client records and associated contacts Review client team responsibilities Quick reference checklist to get started (FOR PRACTICE) Quick reference checklist to get started (FOR YOUR CLIENTS) 6 2. Activate and Customise Portal Activate Portal for Practice Branding and customising Portal Set employee (Practice user) permissions Activate employees (Practice user) Set Client teams for Portal Customise Templates notification templates Message templates Document folders Homepage controls Security Password complexity Client Activation ID Activation link expiry Re-sending activation link Activate and reset portal account options Require client to view documents before approval Practice notification for new messages Enforce Terms and Conditions acceptance prior to accessing Portal Activate Clients Prepare Your Clients Activate Individuals Clients and Associated contacts Activate Organisational Clients and Associated contacts Activating Clients Client Bulk Activation Client portal indicator Client activation report Client message centre view Suspend / Disable and Delete a Client Portal Message notification if Portal Message Service is not running Messaging Sending message Client user segregation 49 III <VERSION APRIL 2017>

4 7.3 Saving Messages as Draft Forwarding Message Deleting Messages Using message templates with mail merge fields Sending bulk messages Print Portal message conversations for filing New message popup notification Outlook Style Task Bar icon for unread Portal Messages Out of Office rules Time Zone Compatibility Documents Send message with document attachment Document housekeeping CCH Document Management Integration Document Activity and Approval Report Document Approvals Send documents for approval Multiple approval for documents Internal review of documents and messages Send Personal Tax Payments reminder to Portal Send message with document attachment Customise the message template Generate payment reminder merge to Portal message Sending to a single client Sending to multiple clients Portal Reports Client Activation Report Document Approval Status Report Suspended/Deleted Portal Clients Report CCH Reporting fields Client Activation Client Activation ID Password set up and password reset Log on to Client Portal Client Tutorials Client Personalisation Multiple portal access Cookie Bar Notification Client Messages and Notifications Displaying messages Sending messages Background sending of large files from client to practice Notifications Client Documents and Folders Viewing Documents 109 <VERSION APRIL 2017> IV

5 16. Client Approving and Rejecting Documents 112 V <VERSION APRIL 2017>

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7 Using this Guide This guide is designed to provide guidance on how to prepare for the introduction of a client portal to your practice, and describes the steps you need to undertake to get up and running with CCH Portal. It assumes that you are familiar with the Microsoft Windows environment, and can perform basic tasks within CCH Central. The guide does not include installation notes which are provided separately, and it assumes CCH Portal has been successfully installed. Why CCH Portal? CCH Portal is a simple way of sharing files with your clients over the internet. There are many public file-sharing websites but, just like , there are concerns about security and they are not appropriate for practices that want to exchange sensitive information with their clients. In addition to that, simply sharing documents isn t quite enough. Most of the time when you are sending documents to clients, you are seeking their approval (or rejection) for the documents; and will need to see the status of all outstanding approval requests in real-time. CCH Portal is an easy to use electronic document exchange and communication application, designed to help you to work more closely with your clients. It provides a secure facility for personalised communications, document exchange and collaboration in the Cloud with your clients, while maintaining detailed records of those transactions in CCH Central with all your other client data. CCH Portal addresses the 3 key fundamentals a practice focuses on: Client care Quality control and risk management Profitability driven from practice efficiency CCH provides these via 6 value-added benefits to your practice and your client relationships: 1. Treats your clients as individuals CCH Portal handles personalised communications. Your clients will deal with your practice in a number of roles. For example, they might be the director of several different businesses and may also be a trustee, they might be a taxpayer in their own right but also the spouse or parent of another of your clients, and so on. Your client portal should allow you to communicate with that individual in each of these contexts, keeping the roles separate but without the complication and inconvenience of multiple logons. CCH Portal provides just one logon for every contact with a home page to easily switch relationships. 1 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

8 If there are a number of individuals involved with the same client (such as the directors, the company bookkeeper or the payroll clerk), you can send messages and documents either to ALL of them, or only a subset of that group, by simply selecting the recipients from a drop down list. With CCH Portal, you can be assured that only the recipients selected will receive the private message, private documents, and even individual approval requests. 2. Integrates fully into your day-to-day work It s important for your client portal to be integrated fully into your day-to-day work. CCH Portal allows you to, for example, publish a tax return to the client portal. Publishing a document to Portal is as simple as printing it, especially when you use the standard message templates. Once published to Portal, you can check the status of files, for example, to find out whether a document has been approved, without having to leave CCH Central that you use to do your everyday work. CCH Portal sends you a message saying that the document has been approved or rejected, without you having to look for that information. 3. Works alongside your existing processes CCH Portal respects your practice s standards and procedures. With CCH Portal you can easily do the following: Create a new message then save it as a draft to finish later Send a message to a colleague for review Review someone else s message inbox (an improvement on !) and forward messages for action See all portal communications in a single location on the client file 4. Provides a single, secure environment for communication CCH Portal handles files and messages in a single, secure environment. With increasing concerns about the security of , your communications with your clients can take place within CCH Portal s secure environment. A record of all those conversations are automatically incorporated into the client s file on Central, so anyone with appropriate access in the client team has full visibility of what is happening, so improving client service. CCH Portal provides clear, personalised contextual messaging for your clients. Your client always knows what message relates to which document, without having to seek out the file. Replies are linked to the original message, and from a practice perspective, you have full visibility of the conversation with the client over the portal, together with links to relevant documents, all from the client file in the software. 5. Works for you and your clients 24/7 Most of your clients lead a busy life, and handle their financial matters outside of the working day. CCH Portal works for you and your clients 24/7. Documents and messages are not automatically removed or archived to save storage space. Everything is available for your clients to view 24/7 for as long as you keep them there. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 2

9 6. Helps you present a professional image CCH Portal is hosted on a generic non-branded domain called clientspace.co.uk but with a subdomain prefix of your choice to reflect your practice s branding, for example, ABClimited.clientspace.co.uk The look and feel can also be customised using CSS (cascading style sheets) in a way that it feels like it is part of your firm s overall online presence. This is very easy to do using your practice s own web design resources or CCH Software can provide this for you. For further information, please take a look at this short video which explains why we have decided to use a secure portal to work more closely with our clients. This second short video shows you some of the key areas of our client portal. 3 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

10 1. Preparation for Portal 1.1 Update client records and associated contacts Certain data on the client portal will be populated from your Central database. Consider reviewing the following in advance of launching your portal to ensure they are correctly spelled and presented: Contact details (salutation, title, first name and last name) of any individuals likely to use the portal including individual clients and other likely associated portal users (see 6.1 below) Organisation names of clients (eg. names of companies, trusts, partnerships etc.) and other likely associated portal users (see 6.1 below) Employee details for those likely to be communicating with your clients over portal including employee names (first name and last name) and employee photos if you plan to personalise the communications Within each client record there is an Associated tab in which you can record any individuals and organisations associated with that client. Any individuals included in that list who have an address are available to be selected as Associated Portal Users. You may wish to discuss with your organisational clients which individuals might wish to have access to the portal. Once agreed, you should ensure the associated contact record for that client in Central includes the names and addresses for those individuals. If an individual has multiple relationships with the practice, maybe as director of several companies, and also in connection with their personal affairs, they can be provided with a single login which enables them to access all of those client portals. 1.2 Review client team responsibilities Within the client record, there is a Responsibility tab which can be used to record the various members of the client team. In the Maintenance area you will be able to set, both practice-wide and at client level, which of the employees listed in this Responsibility tab have access to the client s portal. Employees so selected will be used to populate a drop down list which your client will see when deciding to whom in the practice to send a message and/or document from their client portal. You may therefore wish to review the employees listed on the client Responsibility tab to check they are up to date. By default, the client partner will always be included in the list which your clients will be able to select from Engagement terms Working with your clients over a portal is likely to require a review of your engagement terms to ensure there is an appropriate understanding between you over this new form of communication and document sharing. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 4

11 1.2.2 Review Internal Processes Consider what changes you might need to make to your current internal processes to ensure the communications and service delivery continue to meet your practice s high standards in quality and presentation. 1.3 Quick reference checklist to get started (FOR PRACTICE) Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Step 7 Step 8 Step 9 Review Central records Prepare Clients Activate Portal for Your Practice Customise Portal Login Page Activate Practice Employee as Portal User Set Portal User Permissions Set Practice Level Client Team for Portal Review and Customise Templates Review and Customise Message Templates Review and update your client data, contact details, associated contacts, client team / employee data (names, details, photos), responsibilities Review your engagement terms with your client Ensure they have internet access Update security paper Maintenance > Portal > Activation Create the practice s Portal in the Cloud by typing your practice name. Maintenance > Portal > Portal Customisation A facility for you to customise the look and feel of the portal site your clients will access. You can customise your Practice Name, Logo, Banner Colour and Footer. You need to activate all employees in your Practice that you wish to give access to client portal. Until an employee has been activated for portal use, they will not have any access to the practice s portal facilities, regardless of what permissions have been set at security group level. Maintenance >Security > Task Permissions As with all the CCH suite, there are user permissions to set for your practice portal users to meet your internal requirements Maintenance > Portal > Client Team Defaults This enables you to define at practice level the default client team members who will be visible to your clients when they send a message from their portal. Maintenance > Portal > Templates These templates will generate automated notification s to your clients to alert them to access their portal. Maintenance > Portal > Message Templates Review and customise all default templates that Section 1.1 Section 1.2 Section 2.1 Section 2.2 Section 2.4 Section 2.3 Section 2.5 Section 3.1 Section <VERSION APRIL 2017>

12 Step 10 Review and Customise Document Folders are available to you. These will be used in sending secure messages to your client. Maintenance > Portal > Document Folders The document folders on the client portal are where documents and files are uploaded to for action. You may wish to add to them to meet practice need. Section 3.3 Step 11 Step 12 Step 13 Set Password Rules and Complexity Provide your client with an Activation ID Clients and Associated Contacts Maintenance > Portal > Security You can decide what level of complexity client access passwords should be in order to balance security with usability Activation ID This has been set by default as the client code. Your client will need this to activate their portal access. The activation ID is the same for all users within the same Client. Client Record > Associated tab For individual clients with no address, an associated contact with an address can be activated on portal Section 4.1 Section 4.2 Section 6.1 Step 14 Activate Portal for Individual Clients For organisational clients, at least 1 associated contact with an address must be available in order to activate portal Client Record > Message Centre > Enable Access to Portal Section 6 Activating a client on portal will send them an automated message with a link to activate their portal. This link will take your client to the activation page where they will be asked to enter their activation ID. To complete this process, they will also be asked to create a password. Next time when your client returns to Portal, they will be able to login using this password. Your client s username is their address. 1.4 Quick reference checklist to get started (FOR YOUR CLIENTS) Step Provide revised terms and conditions to the This is configured in Maintenance > <VERSION APRIL 2017> 6

13 1 client Portal > Terms and Conditions Step 2 Step 3 Check client has a valid address Send the client the Activation ID to use This has to be the field in CCH Central > Client record > Addresses tab > in the dropdown list The activation ID is the same for all users within the same Client Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Step 7 Confirm to the client that portal username is the client user s own address Inform client of the minimum password requirements Advise client that repeated attempts to login with incorrect password will lock the client portal for 15 mins Activate Portal in CCH Central This is configured in Maintenance > Portal > Security The number of attempts can be configured in Maintenance > Portal > Security This sends Activation to your client with activation link Step 8 Step 8 Step 9 Step 10 Step 11 Check regularly until Resend Activation in Client record > Message Centre tab is greyed out Establish why client has not activated portal Resend Activation ID is necessary Start using Portal for communications with the client Make staff aware that portal should be used for communications with the client This means that client has activated. This can be done in CCH Central within Client record > Message Centre tab > Associated Contacts window > Resend Activation hyperlink Security You may wish to edit and brand the security paper to send to any clients who might be interested. 7 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

14 2. Activate and Customise Portal 2.1 Activate Portal for Practice To activate your practice Portal, select Maintenance > Portal > Activation, and type your practice name in the box called Portal Name and click Activate. This process cannot be reversed. This process only needs to be undertaken once on your Central database. In the unusual event you have more than one Central database, please contact CCH for advice on how to proceed. Practice Activation creates the secure portal website which your clients and associated portal users will access. The domain name of the website will appear as follows: We recommend practices use the same domain name as their main website for consistency. In keeping with domain name conventions, spaces and special characters are not permitted. To find your practice portal domain URL, you can re-visit select Maintenance > Portal > Activation and find the link to your portal. 2.2 Branding and customising Portal Select Maintenance > Portal > Portal Customisation to customise the portal which your client will see Basic Customisation Update all four fields in the basic customisation screen: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 8

15 Practice Name is used in a number of the templates in notifications to your clients so you should include here your practice name as you would wish it to appear to them in such communications, as well as on the client portal itself. Portal footer might be used either for the practice s promotional strapline or a copyright message. Banner Colour enables you to customise the colour on the banner header on the login page and portal which the client sees. You have access to the usual colour palette by clicking the. If you want to use the custom colour palette, click Define Custom Colours and select your chosen colour, clicking Add to Custom Colours when you have the required colour. For lighter shades use the hue slider. Hue slider Note To be consistent with the new mobile responsive design s default colour scheme, we have changed the default banner colour from black to blue. (However if you have previously changed the banner colour in Portal customisation screen, your selection will be kept). Practice Logo enables you to upload your practice logo from a.jpg file. Click Browse and select the relevant logo file. Click OK to save changes and exit. You can return to the branding area to make amendments at any time Advanced Customisation Full Cascading Style Sheet ( CSS ) customisation is available from the Portal Customisation 9 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

16 screen in Maintenance > Portal > Portal Customisation by clicking on the Advanced button. The CSS is auto-populated with the data entered on the basic branding screen but can be overridden from the advanced screen. CSS can be imported via the Browse button, while Reset will enable you to revert to the basic settings. Here are a few examples on how you can edit the CSS to make changes to the appearance of your portal site: To change the font colour of the text in the top right corner of the login and message centre pages; select Insert then select Practice name colour : Where it says [insert color] type in your chosen colour replacing the entire [insert color] (including the square brackets): <VERSION APRIL 2017> 10

17 To activate the customised CSS, click Overwrite basic settings and OK: To review the site, select Maintenance > Portal > Activation and click on the hyperlink to your client portal. Note As part of ongoing development, CCH Software will be making changes in order to deliver greater usability and functionality to your clients across a range of devices. Such changes may not be expressly notified to you. If your practice has chosen to modify the branding of your client portal by amending the CSS (via the Advanced option under the Portal Customisation section) it is your responsibility to ensure ongoing compatibility of your client portal with changes made in any quarterly release of the software. Each time the Portal Customisation is entered to make customisations to the CSS, a message box appears informing that future enhancements may affect your changes. 11 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

18 2.2.3 How-to client portal video A short, unbranded video has been created to explain some basic steps on how to use the client portal. At present this covers only the classic view of Portal and not the Mobile Responsive version. If you would like to embed this into your client portal activation and login pages to help your clients, tick the appropriate boxes in Maintenance > Portal > Portal customisation. You can view and download this video and other helpful information on getting started with CCH Portal at Auto-sending a welcome message You can edit the Welcome message template in Maintenance > Portal > Message Templates however, this template cannot be deleted as it s a system message template. You can send a standard welcome message to all clients upon activating their portal account. This can be sent immediately as soon as the portal account has been created, without further input from someone in the practice. Alternatively, it can be created and saved as a draft, to be personalised by someone in the practice before sending. Both options are set from Maintenance > Portal > Portal Customisation: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 12

19 The default setting above will not automatically create a welcome message on activation. To create a draft welcome message, tick the box Prompt to send welcome message on activation. This will use the Welcome message template to create a draft welcome message for you to personalise and send to your clients as appropriate. To send the message automatically, without creating a draft for further editing and personalisation, untick the Save welcome message as draft option Reminder for documents pending approval In order to reduce the amount of time spent chasing client for approvals we have implemented an notification that reminds the clients every few days if they have an outstanding approval. The frequency and amount of times this notification is sent can be fully configured by the practice. This option can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Portal Customisation: Clicking on the checkbox above will show 2 configuration options where you can set up the frequency of the reminder s and how many times they will be sent if a document requires approval. By default, the reminder will be sent every 3 days after the approval has been requested and no more than twice. 2.3 Set employee (Practice user) permissions User permissions can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions Select Portal from the Product drop down then, for each security group you have created within the practice, review and allow permissions as appropriate by ticking the relevant box. Select OK to save changes. 13 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

20 2.4 Activate employees (Practice user) Once you have set up the user permissions for your practice, you will need to activate your employees as portal users to give them actual access to communicate with the client portal. This can be done either one at a time, or by batch, using the search and sort facility in the Employees area. In order to select the employee(s) you wish to activate, enter a tick in the box at the left hand end of the search list then click on the Activate button Employee profile pictures Practice users (employees) can add profile photos in Employees > [Employee] > Personal> Right click on photo area > Add Photo. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 14

21 Practice users (employees) can add a profile picture which will be visible to your Clients when they are messaging with the Practice users. This profile photo can be added before or after employee activation at any time and the changes will be reflected to the client portal pages. To upload photos of your employees into their Central record, open each individual s employee record, select the Personal tab, and right click to Add Photo. 2.5 Set Client teams for Portal Employees can be added to the Portal Client Team on an individual basis via the Message Centre > Client Team. Alternatively, they can be added on a practice-wide basis, according to their Assignment Team Responsibility type via Maintenance > Portal > Client Team Defaults Setting client team at practice level Set responsibility types within each client team from Maintenance > Portal > Client team defaults. These settings replicate those that are set in Maintenance > Internal > Responsibility Types. It is possible to define, at practice level, the responsibility types within each client team which will be communicated with the client over their portal. If you would like an employee from a particular responsibility type to be visible to a client on the portal (for instance the Assignment Manager, where they are present on the client record), ensure there is a tick in the box on Maintenance > Portal > Client Team defaults against that responsibility type. If you do not want a particular responsibility type to appear, ensure that type is unticked. Click OK to save the settings. Where in the client record there is an employee listed against a responsibility type selected in Client Team defaults, then that employee s name will appear in the drop down list available to individuals accessing the client portal when they are preparing to send a message or document to the practice. Please note the client partner is automatically included in the default client team at practice level and their name will also appear in the drop down list. 15 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

22 At least one Central employee must be a member of the Portal client team. If a Central user attempts to remove the only member of a client's Portal client team, a warning message is shown, preventing the only member being removed - enforcing the requirement that the client has at least one contact to send a Portal message to. If you try to replace the single portal user of the client team with an employee that is not a portal user, you will be asked whether you want to activate on portal the selected employee or not: Note To be able to activate employees on portal you will need to be part of a Security Group that has the Activate employee(s) for Portal permission set to allow in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Otherwise, you will get the following message when try to replace the single portal user of the client team with an employee that is not a portal user Note When you select a new partner for a client, the End Date is automatically added for the previous partner. If the new selected partner is not a portal user and you do not want to activate them on portal, you will have to manually remove the End Date of the previous partner. Also, when the user attempts to change the only portal user of the team in Responsibility > Team with an employee that is a portal user but its responsibility is not selected in Client Team <VERSION APRIL 2017> 16

23 Defaults, the new employee will not be selected as a portal user in Message Centre > Client Team. The To field will be empty on portal. Employees with more than one Responsibility Type If an employee is listed under more than Responsibility Type for a client but only one of those Types had been set as active within the Client Team defaults for Portal, they will still be added to the Client Team. Employees that are members of an Assignment Team The Assignment Team is located within the client record - Assignments > [Assignment Name] > Main. Employees that are members of an Assignment Team of client's Assignments can be added to the Portal Client Team. Clients are restricted to sending Portal messages to members of the Portal Client Team only Setting client team at client level For special client assignments, or where the client relationship is managed differently from the practice norm, it is also possible to set the client team for portal purposes at client level. Once a client has portal access enabled, the Client Team is enabled in the client Message Centre. 17 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

24 If you click the Client Team option, you will be presented with a client team portal user screen which is populated from the complete list of employees included in the responsibility tab on the client record. From here you can tick and untick individuals who you wish the client to be able to communicate with directly from their portal. Any such changes will impact only this client. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 18

25 3. Customise Templates 3.1 notification templates For each automated there is an template which can be found in Maintenance > Portal > templates. When a message or document is placed on the client portal (Publish to Portal), an automated notification is sent to any portal users linked to that client, so they know to access the portal to review the communications sent. (See section 1.1 for further explanation on associated portal users). There are currently 8 such templates as follows: Portal activation: notification to an individual asking them to complete the activation process Message notification: general notification that a new message awaits them on the portal Reset password: notification of a temporary password when a user has clicked Forgot my password Notification that portal access has been re-enabled: where access has been suspended by the practice Portal activation for an associated portal user : notification asking them to complete the activation process Notification to an existing portal user that they now have access to an additional client portal (e.g. a director who has portal access in respect of his personal affairs gains access to his company s portal in addition) Notification of new access rights: When an existing user is given new access rights Disabled Portal user: When a portal user has been disabled To review any of the templates, double click anywhere on the relevant template line. This opens up a text editor which enables you to edit the Subject, which will appear in the subject line of the , as well as the body of the text. In the blue area on the left, you will see a number of merge fields which are available to drop into the text to automate client names, links to the portal login area and so on. 19 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

26 To add such a field, single click in the location where you wish to place the merge field, then click on the relevant merge field button click to add the field into the main text, reverse click to add it into the Subject. The merge fields are defined as follows: Activation Link First Name Last Name Organisation Name Portal Homepage Link Practice Name Salutation Temporary Password Title Provides a hyperlink to the new portal user to click on to start the secure activation process Enters the first name included in the Amend Contact Name area which can be accessed by clicking the next to the contact name in their Central record Enters the last name included in the Amend Contact Name area which can be accessed by clicking the next to the contact name in their Central record Enters the name of the organisation as it is written in the Main field in the Amend Client Name area which can be accessed by clicking the next to the client name in their Central record Provides a hyperlink to the login page of your firm s client portal Inserts your practice name in line with the Practice Name entered in the Portal Customisation area Enters the contents of the Salutation field from the Main tab in the contact s Central record Including this field in a message will automatically add in a computer generated password to deliver to a portal user who has clicked the forgotten password option on the login page Enters the title included in the Amend Contact Name area which can be accessed by clicking the next to the contact name in their Central record <VERSION APRIL 2017> 20

27 You can also edit the text font, size and colour from this area to suit your Practice branding Additional templates We have included 3 additional templates to enable a more urgent message to be sent where compliance documents require a client s attention. Where the practice has configured CCH Portal to use these additional templates, they will respectively replace the generic template if you publish tax returns or accounts directly from CCH Personal Tax, CCH Accounts Production or CCH Corporation Tax. When a document is published to Portal from say CCH Personal Tax, an notification will be sent to your client using the PersonalTaxReturnNotification template: As with all templates, the wording can be edited to suit the practice s usual style. To take advantage of this functionality, a new configuration key called Portal_UseSpecific Templates must be added with a value of True in Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration Reminder for documents pending approval We have now included an additional template to send an notification that reminds the clients every few days if they have an outstanding approval. As with all templates, the wording can be edited to suit the practice s usual style. Note for employees to be able to customise the templates they will need to be in a Security Group that has the Edit templates permission in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. If the documents have not been approved or rejected, an notification will be sent to your clients using the ReminderPendingApprovalNotification template: 21 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

28 To enable this functionality, the Send reminder s for documents pending approval option needs to be selected under Maintenance > Portal Customisation Practice notification Some practices have stated missing portal messages because they were not at their desk when the notification arrived. To increase the visibility, we have now implemented an notification that will be sent to the employee when they receive a portal message or when a document is approved/rejected by a client from Client Portal. This can be set to ON or OFF for a practice as a whole. We have included two additional templates to facilitate this. When a message is sent from Client Portal and the practice has a valid address, an notification will be sent to the practice using the PracticePortalNotification template. When a document is approved/rejected by a client from Client Portal, an notification will be sent to the practice using the PracticePortalApprovalNotification template. 3.2 Message templates Portal message templates can be created and edited in Maintenance > Portal > Message templates. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 22

29 Portal allows Practice to communicate with its Clients securely and the Portal messaging system is the key to this communication. Some message templates have been set up to record accounting dates, indicated by square brackets. While some may be dynamically linked from the compliance software, you can add square brackets into any templates where you wish additional data to be inserted. The software will sense check for remaining square brackets and alert to you amend the message before sending it. All message templates can be customised to your Practice s needs. System message templates cannot be deleted such as a Welcome Message template. There are currently 7 message templates as follows: Accounts: Accounts for the year ended [insert year] Accounts and Corporation Tax Return: Accounts and Corporation tax for the year ended [insert year] Accounts and Personal Tax Return: Accounts and tax for the year ended [insert year] Corporation Tax Return: Corporation tax for the year ended [insert year] Personal Tax July 2014 Payment Reminder: Personal Tax July 2014 Payment Reminder Personal Tax Return: Personal tax return for the year ended [insert year] Welcome: Welcome to the [[Practice Name]] client portal Ability to associate document types with message templates A new column has been added to the Message Templates screen allowing the practices to associate a document type with a message template. This is used within the Publish Document To Portal activity in CCH Workflow. To select the Attachment Document Type for a new created message template, expand the drop down list within the Message Templates screen. For an existing message template, open the message template and within the Edit Portal Message Template window select an Attachment Document Type. 23 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

30 The Attachment Document Type list will be populated according to the settings in Maintenance > Document Management > Document Types. A document type can be associated with a single message template. 3.3 Document folders Standard folders within CCH Portal When either you or your client uploads documents to the client portal, they can be located in a specific Documents area in Central which is grouped into document folders. When CCH Portal is installed and activated, the following default folders are created automatically: Accounts Correspondence Tax Shared The Shared folder is a temporary folder area to which you can upload files and documents you do not wish to remain on the portal long term. This is also the area where documents and files uploaded by clients and associated portal users will be saved. You can then decide whether to move that document or file to a different folder on the portal for your client to continue to access or to save it in your practice document management or other filing area and remove it from the portal. When documents are published directly from CCH Accounts Production they will automatically be saved to the relevant year in the Accounts folder. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 24

31 Likewise publishing to portal from CCH Personal Tax or CCH Corporation Tax will be saved in the Tax folder. Where the relevant year does not yet exist on the portal, the appropriate year will be added automatically. You will also be able to save other documents or files to any of these folders from the client record. Aside from the Shared folder, no other folders will appear on the client portal until documents are added to them. This means a tax client will not see an Accounts folder unless a document or file is expressly delivered to that folder. Folders on Portal appear in alphabetical order, irrespective of the order in which they are added. This is the same when attaching documents in Central Creating additional folders To create additional folders, or to review the existing folder structure, select Maintenance > Portal > Document folders. Document folders for Portal files can be configured in Maintenance > Portal > Document Folders Portal is shipped with system folders which are Accounts, Correspondence, Tax and Shared. Non-year sub-folders can also be created under these system folders. New main folders can also be created by the practice, with further sub-folders under them if required. As a default, 4 tiers of subfolders can be created, for example, Permanent > Assets > Property > 10 High Street The number of tiers that can be created is configured by the Practice within Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration > Portal_DocumentFolderMaxLayers There is no limit to how many layers of subfolders that can be created this way. Folder and subfolder names can include letters, numbers, spaces, forward slash /, hyphen - but no other special characters. Folder names can be a maximum of 100 characters. Folder names cannot begin with a forward slash or a hyphen. 25 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

32 Folders and subfolders are Practice configured and are viewable by the client in the client Portal, when there are documents posted to those folders. Client Portal users cannot make changes to the folder structure created by the Practice Ability to define a default message attachment folder location A new column is available in Document Folders window allowing the practice to select the default document folder. By default, the Shared folder is ticked, but you can change it by selecting the Default check box for another document folder and clicking on OK. Note For users to be able to change the default document folder, they will need to be in a Security Group which has the Edit document folder permission set to allow in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. For example, if Correspondence\2015 is selected as default document folder, then this folder will be displayed by default in the Attach files window, with the option to change this: Note As before, the documents attached to the messages sent to you by your clients will be stored in the Shared folder. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 26

33 3.4 Homepage controls Setting up your home page control There is a home page control to enable you to see what messages have been sent to you by your clients over the portal. To set this up, click Home in Central then select a View screen in which you wish the home page control to reside. Select Customise option. Select Portal > Messages and drag and drop the Messages icon onto the main view area. Resize as necessary. Messages Homepage control positioning You can re-position the Messages homepage control by click-and-dragging the compass icon when in Home > Task Bar > Customise homepage mode: 27 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

34 3.4.2 Working with your home page control New messages sent to you will appear in your home page control in bold until you click on them. Once you have dealt with the contents of the message you can right click on the message and select Delete. This does not delete the message from Central or the portal, just from the home page. Should you wish to refer back to the message, go to the client message centre to select it. The home page message list can be sorted in line with Central convention by dragging any of the column headings up to the head of the page to group by that column. This enables you to sort by client, date or subject easily. The Portal Messages Homepage control grid changes (e.g. reordering, resizing, sorting, grouping columns) are saved at the user level. Each message in the home page control will incorporate the client code which is hyperlinked to the client record in Central. Click on the blue client code field to access the client record in detail. You can reply to any messages (including adding further comment to messages you have sent) by clicking the blue reply button in the top right hand corner of the messages home page control Viewing another s home page control With the appropriate permissions set, you can view another colleague s portal home page control by clicking the ellipsis next to the name at the foot of the home page control and selecting the alternate employee Message Tracker Message Tracker is located via Home > Task Bar > Customise > Portal Message Diagnostics. Message Tracker is a portal message diagnostics homepage control, which helps you see the status of all messages sent and received via Portal. These are indicated via a traffic lights system as follows: Green: All published system messages that have been successfully received and sent to Portal Blue: Messages that are yet to receive a reply from Portal Grey: In the event that the Portal message service is not running, the message tracker records any unsent messages with a grey circle. When there are messages in the list which are grey, this is an indication that the portal message service may need to be restarted. After the portal message service has been restarted, these messages should turn to green circles. Red: An exception has occurred while sending the notification/message, either on CCh Central or client Portal and the message has not been sent. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 28

35 3.4.5 Message Centre The homepage control can be added from Home > Task Bar > Customise > Messages In every Client record, there is a tab called Message Centre. This is for portal activity. Before a client has been activated to use portal, the Message Centre will only display a link to activate the client portal (see section 6) Once a client is activated for Portal from Central, the Message Centre will show a holding page with a message indicating that an activation has been sent to the client or their associated contacts. Only when these activation s have been successfully despatched will the normal Message Centre be shown to enable the practice user to send messages. In the unlikely event that the activation fails, the screen will revert back to the original activation window, so that the user can activate the client again. Please contact CCH Software Support for further assistance if the holding page remains static and only shows the activation message. After the client s activation, the Message Centre will display the messages in conversation style in chronological order, with the most recent at the top. Text in the message body in the Message Centre can be copied to clipboard for use in other applications. 29 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

36 4. Security 4.1 Password complexity The password algorithm can be set in Maintenance > Portal > Security. The default password complexity requires that portal users create password of at least 6 characters in length and with at least one number. CCH Portal enables you to decide how complex passwords should be for non-practice users accessing the client portal. This enables you to set a minimum password length (we recommend at least 6 or more characters) and the minimum number of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters (listed in the right hand box). Use the up and down arrows on each selection to increase or decrease the numbers and click OK to save changes. The security settings can be altered by the practice at any time, with any such changes impacting any new passwords set. The more complex a password is in terms of length and different character types the more secure the password will be. However, you will need to balance complexity with the need for your clients to be able to remember the password. In the event that a portal user forgets their password, they can click on the Forgot Password link on the portal login page. This will send them a temporary password by , which will have to be changed on first visit. Portal users can double click on the temporary password, to highlight and copy it for logging in. No portal user passwords are stored within Central for security reasons. 4.2 Client Activation ID The portal activation ID is the client code in Central for the client portal you plan to activate. For an organisation, the client code will be that of the organisation, not the individual, where the organisational client s portal access is enabled before enabling access to the individual s own portal reflecting their personal affairs. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 30

37 We recommend this activation code is provided to clients separately from any other communication about the portal for security purposes. 4.3 Activation link expiry The configuration of the expiry time is located within Maintenance > Portal > Security. When you activate your Clients portal access (see section 6) your client / associated contacts will receive a Portal activation which will include a link to activate their Portal account. You can set this activation link to expire between 1 and 50 days from when an activation is issued. 4.4 Re-sending activation link The activation link sent to clients is designed to time out for security purposes. In the event that they fail to activate their account within this time period, you can resend the automated activation for clients and associated contacts activated for Portal. The option to resend the activation is located by right-clicking the relevant contact within the Associated Contacts window in the client Message Centre. To make this option more visible, we have also added it into a separate column to the Associated Contacts window. Links in previous activation s become void when one is resent. Also, the Status column has been added to the Associated Contacts window so you can see, at a glance, the status of the contacts that have been selected as portal users for a client: Pending the contact has not setup his portal account. Activated the contact has activated his portal account. Suspended the client portal account has been suspended. 31 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

38 4.5 Activate and reset portal account options Option for clients to answer security questions to reset passwords To improve the forget password process and allow clients to self-serve, we have introduced the option to use the security question to reset the password. This option can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security menu. This functionality is switched on by default, but it can be switched off easily by deselecting the option in Security screen. Send Activation ID via SMS To improve the Portal on-boarding process for your clients, we have introduced the option to send an SMS text message with the Activation ID to clients who have a primary mobile phone number set in Central. This option can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security menu. This functionality is switched off by default, but it can be switched on easily by selecting the option in Security screen. 4.6 Require client to view documents before approval The option to require that the clients view documents before approving them can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security. When Enforce document view before approval option is ticked, all clients will be prevented from approving or rejecting any documents unless they at first click each relevant document to download it. Please note they will be able to cancel the download process and proceed to approval without actually opening the document. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 32

39 4.7 Practice notification for new messages The option to send an notification to the practice when a client sends a message or approves/rejects a document from Client Portal can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security. To enable this functionality, the Send notification when a client sends a message or approves/rejects a document option needs to be selected within Maintenance > Portal > Security window: 33 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

40 5. Enforce Terms and Conditions acceptance prior to accessing Portal The option to Enforce Terms and Conditions acceptance prior to accessing Portal can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Terms and Conditions. It s a way to allow you to establish an agreement with your clients. Your clients must agree with your Terms and Conditions in order to be able to access their account. A new template can be created by choosing Add Terms and Conditions button from available actions. This will open the Add Terms and Conditions editor window. You can format your document within this window by using the available formatting options, or you can just paste an existing document into this window if you have already one, the source formatting being kept. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 34

41 To activate Terms and Conditions for your users, you will need to both set the version required as current and enable the enforce Terms and Conditions option. By doing this, all Portal users will be required to accept the version of Terms and Conditions prior to gaining access to the Portal. If they choose to Decline they will be redirected to the Login page. The current Terms and Conditions may be accessed from the user drop down menu through the desktop or tablet view. 35 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

42 If your Terms and Conditions have changed, you can create a new version and set it as current. All Portal users will then be required to accept this latest version of Terms and Conditions prior to gaining access to the Portal. The current version and the previous ones cannot be edited or deleted. The versions that were never used can be deleted by pressing the Delete button on your keyboard or by right-clicking on the row and choose Delete. A task permission is available in the Product dropdown menu within Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions to control Central users' ability to do something on the Terms and Conditions Tab. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 36

43 6. Activate Clients 6.1 Prepare Your Clients Check addresses and internet access Add/edit the primary address in the client record via Addresses > Phone and other details. As you would expect for any cloud-based software, your client will need to have internet access to work with you over a client portal. They will also need an up to date internet browser (we support Internet Explorer 11, together with recent versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari). Your client s address will form their username for portal, and they will be notified to that address of any new messages or documents awaiting their attention on the portal. It is therefore most important that the primary address you have on record in CCH Central for them is correct. Organisations can have the same addresses as their associated contacts It is possible for Central clients (organisations only) to have the same address as their associated contacts, since the organisation's primary address has no bearing on Portal - unique addresses are only required for the login credentials for individuals. When you have a non-client contact as an associated portal user, in the event their address changes, the change will reflect in portal (and hence their portal username) when updated in the Addresses tab in CCH Central. Please note the following when activating new client portals: An individual client s primary address in Central is used as their Portal username An organisational client s primary address in Central is ignored for the purposes of Portal access (i.e. a Portal user has to be a human!) An organisational client s associated contacts addresses are used as their Portal usernames Where an individual is a portal user as an associated contact of an organisational client, and also in their own right (eg as a personal tax client), the same address, detailed in their contact record, is used for both relationships. That individual will be log into Portal with that unique address and access all relationships with the practice from a drop down list in the top right-hand corner of the screen Agree with any organisational clients who might require access Where you have relationships with a number of individuals in an organisation, each of them can have personal access to the portal for that organisation. You may therefore wish to agree with them from the outset who might wish to have this access. Once agreed, you should check all the individuals are included in the organisational client record as associated contacts with valid addresses, or update the Central record accordingly. 37 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

44 When messages and documents are sent to a client via Portal, they are sent to one or more of the associated contacts, therefore, not all messages and documents on the portal are available to view by all associated contacts of a client. 6.2 Activate Individuals Clients and Associated contacts To activate an individual client, go to Client record in CCH Central and navigate to the Message Centre tab. Before a client has been activated to use portal, the Message Centre will only display a link to activate the client portal. Click on this link to activate client portal. Once a client is activated for Portal from Central, the Message Centre will show a holding page with a message indicating that an activation has been sent to the client or their associated contacts. Only when these activation s have been successfully despatched will the normal Message Centre be shown to enable the practice user to send messages. Individuals, supporting clients where spouses, parents, carers or professional advisers wish to collaborate with you over the portal, can activate associated contacts to collaborate with you over a client s portal for organisations. As with organisations, you can add and remove associated contacts via the Associated Contacts window in the client s message centre. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 38

45 It is possible to create a portal for a client where the only user is an associated contact (eg where the client is a minor and you are dealing with their parent) using the same associated contacts screen to select the appropriate individuals. 6.3 Activate Organisational Clients and Associated contacts The process of activating an organisational client is the same as that of an individual client. The only difference is for organisations, you will need not only need to activate the organisational client s portal, but also the users who will have access to it (eg the directors); the associated contacts. The users will be enabled by way of using the functionality of the Associated tab. Before setting up an organisational portal, therefore, please ensure that any anticipated users of the organisation s client portal are listed in the Associated tab, and that they have current valid addresses. 39 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

46 As before, click on the organisational client s message tab, then click Enable access to Portal. A list of associated contacts, together with their addresses will appear. Tick the individuals you wish to have access to the client portal (minimum 1) and click OK. You will be able to view who has been given portal access from the Associated Contacts window in the Message Centre. Portal access can be enabled and disabled for associated contacts from this screen by ticking and unticking the relevant Portal User box. Each portal requires at least one client portal user with whom the practice can communicate. However, all associated contacts can be deactivated on the Portal for an organisational client. Where a replacement user is to be added, activate the alternate user before removing the retiring user. USEFUL TIP Ensure you have provided your client with an activation ID prior to enabling the portal account. Activation ID is the same as the client code in CCH Central. However, activation ID is NOT the client s portal username. Portal username for clients is the address of each associated contact. 6.4 Activating Clients Select the client s Message Centre tab. If no portal has previously been set up for this client, click the blue hyperlink to enable access. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 40

47 You will be asked to confirm you wish to proceed, with a reminder of the address being used for this purpose. When you have enabled the portal access, your client will automatically receive an message including an activation link. Your client must click on this link, reach the activation page and enter their activation ID to activate their portal account. Activation ID is the same as client code in CCH Central. Please note, for an organisation, the code will be that of the organisation, not the individual, where the organisational client s portal access is enabled before enabling access to the individual s own portal reflecting their personal affairs. We recommend this activation code is provided to them separately from any other communication about the portal for security purposes. At this stage, they will be asked to set a password to be able to login securely. The activation ID will NOT be needed again after this point. Your client s username is the same as their address in their CCH Central account. As soon as your client has activated their portal account, they will be greeted with your customised Welcome Message in their Messages area, assuming you have selected to send the welcome messages to new portal accounts (see section 2.2 Branding and customising Portal). 6.5 Client Bulk Activation An option called Activate is available in the Find Clients screen allowing you to grant access to portal for multiple clients. 41 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

48 Note For employees to be able to activate clients on portal they will need to be part of a Security Group that has the Enable access to Portal permission set to allow in Maintenance > Security > Task Permission. In the Find Clients window, select the clients you wish to activate and then, from the portal section, select Activate. When the activation process is complete, the Client Activation Results screen is launched, displaying the bulk activation results. This will show, in the Status column, clients which have been successfully activated as well as those where some action is required to enable activation to be completed, which may include adding employees who are portal users to the client team, adding in valid addresses and so on. If the Status column is not visible, right click, select Show Field Chooser and drag Status onto the grid. Note If the option to send a welcome message is ticked in the Portal Customisation section, the welcome message will be auto-generated and sent to the clients who have been successfully activated. The Status field displays the status of the clients (e.g. Activated, Already activated) or the reason why the clients have not been activated. If there are multiple reasons why a client has not been activated, these will also be displayed separated by commas. To be consistent with CCH Central functionality, the Field Chooser is now available within the Client Activation Results screen. Users are able to drag items on and off the grid by right mouse clicking and selecting Show field chooser Export to Excel An Export option is available within the Client Activation Results screen, allowing you to export the bulk activation results to Excel for further review and action. Prior to export you can use the usual filtering options within CCH Central to group data appropriately for action. In the example below, the details from the grid grouped by Status column have been exported to Excel: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 42

49 6.5.2 Activate clients from Client activation results screen For clients that have not been successfully activated in portal, you can click the client name hyperlink to open the client record and make any necessary changes. Once the client records have been updated you can come back to the Client activation results screen, select the clients that you want to activate and click the Activate option. The screen will be automatically refreshed, and the Status column will be updated with the current results. Note On the Find Client screen, you may have been prompted to send a welcome message if this is your practice s default setting on activation. You will not be prompted again on the Client Activation Results screen. 6.6 Client portal indicator You can identify clients with portals from the client find screen. Please note this indicator does not reflect portals activated by your practice; the indicator appears only when client users have activated their login. 6.7 Client activation report You can generate a report of activated portal users from within Smart Reports under Client > Portal clients. 43 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

50 To create a new report, Click Create and drag the relevant fields onto the report as follows: Client Code Client Name PortalDisplayName (returns the name of each portal user against that client) Portal (returns the of that portal user) IsActivated (returns True or False against each user to indicate whether they have activated from the link in the activation ) Once created, click Save to name and save the report for future use. As with all Smart reports, you can edit the look of the report using the Edit and Edit in designer functions. 6.8 Client message centre view When portal access has been enabled the Message Centre view changes to the following: As messages are exchanged with your client, the list of messages will appear in a table on the left, which can then be previewed in the right-hand panel. This area also contains options as follows: Create message clicking here opens up a message box where you can prepare a message for your client, including uploading files for them. Click OK when your message is complete and the message will be sent to their portal, while an notification is sent to their address advising them to check their portal, incorporating a link to the login page Documents - enables you, to see what documents have been published to the client s portal in their folder structure, to move them around between folders and to download and delete them. Client Team details the client team the client will be able to send messages to from their portal. This screen also enables you at client level who the client can send a message to from their portal. Simply tick or untick the box next to the employee name to select and deselect. Associated contacts - Portal access can be enabled and disabled for associated contacts from this screen by ticking and unticking the relevant Portal User box. Each portal requires at least one client portal user with whom the practice can communicate. Suspend Portal account enables you to suspend portal access. This will suspend access to that portal for all client users, while retaining read-only access to its contents from CCH Central. The <VERSION APRIL 2017> 44

51 client s Central file is clearly marked to show the portal account has been suspended. Note that even where a portal is destroyed in the Cloud, the communications and files will remain accessible to the practice through Central. 6.9 Suspend / Disable and Delete a Client Portal The option to disable (and then delete) a portal client's account is located within the client record via Message Centre > Suspend Portal account. As a practice, you can suspend / disable a client s portal account for any reason (for instance where fees are unpaid) which disables their access to portal. The Message Centre will be clearly marked as suspended. Suspended accounts can be re-activated at any time by your Practice, by clicking on the Reactivate Portal account option, where upon an will be sent to any portal users of that account advising that the account has been reactivated. 45 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

52 The message which your client will see on trying to log in can be set in Maintenance > Portal > Security by changing the Client Suspension Login Message Where a portal user has access to more than one client portal, when they log in they will not be able to access or see suspended portals, but they will continue to be able to access portals which remain active. You can delete the client s portal account which removes the portal account permanently. When portal accounts are suspended or deleted, no messages can be sent or deleted by client or practice users for that client portal. You will still be able to view the Message Centre in Central. Even after deletion, the practice retains access to the messages and documents which were previously available on the client portal. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 46

53 If a contact is associated with an active client Portal, this contact cannot be deleted. An error message is displayed when trying to delete such contacts, with a list of clients that are associated with the selected contact. A similar error is displayed in the case of merging a contact with another contact/client where the first contact is deleted as a result. If that contact is an active Portal user, the error message will prevent it from being merged with the second contact until the Portal connection is removed Closing clients that have had a portal account It is possible to close a Central client if they have previously been activated for Portal. This can be done only after the client's portal account has been suspended or deleted. Before a client can be marked as closed in CCH Central, the client portal must be suspended or deleted. If you try to close a client without suspending the portal, an error message will be shown. If you suspend the portal, you can close the client without further action with the portal. The ability to close a Central client is located within the client record via Main > Task Bar > Client Status > Close client If you plan to delete the portal for that client, any documents held in the Shared folder must be deleted by the practice or moved to one of the folders other than shared if the practice wishes the tracker documents to be retained. This is to ensure the client file is preserved for Practice Assurance purposes even after the cloud-based portal is destroyed. If you try to close a client or delete a client portal when there are documents still held in the Shared folder, an error message will be shown. If a contact is associated with an active client Portal, this contact can no longer be deleted. An error message is displayed when trying to delete such contacts, with a list of clients that are associated with the selected contact. 47 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

54 6.9.2 Restriction on Deleting Only Portal Associated User Each portal requires at least one client portal user associated contact with whom the practice can communicate. All associated contacts can be deactivated on the Portal for an organisational client. Where a replacement user is to be added, it s recommended to activate the alternative user before retiring the existing user. Disabling an individual's personal Portal account does not prevent their access to their associated accounts Message notification if Portal Message Service is not running We have introduced a notification to the messages within the Message Centre tab to inform the practices that the Portal Message Service might not be running. In the event that the Portal message service is not running, any unsent messages will be recorded. After the portal message service has been restarted, these messages should be processed and automatically sent to the clients. A similar notification appears on the Portal Messages Homepage control and on the New message and New Reply windows. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 48

55 7. Messaging 7.1 Sending message In order to send a message to your client, click on the Message Centre tab in their record, and click the Create Message option. A popup window will appear enabling you to enter a message title, a message copy either by typing the text yourself, or selecting a readily available message template, attach documents, select reviewers and request approvals (see further sections for details). If you click OK the message is sent to the portal, and the client will be sent an automated notification. 7.2 Client user segregation Where a client portal has more than one portal user, having activated associated contacts, you can limit visibility of certain messages and associated documents to particular users. Such segregation might apply to documents which only the company directors should see or for operational communications where not all parties need to see all correspondence. From a practice view point, the To field in the new message screen has a dropdown list populated with activated associated contacts for the selected client: 49 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

56 Only those selected client contacts will see the messages, and any associated documents either in the portal Message Centre or the Documents area. If you are sending documents for client approval, you will be able to select portal users from the associated contacts list for that client and only those you selected will see that message and its attachments. When sending a new Portal message to an organisational client that has many associated contacts, the To field will expand as more recipients are added. From your client s viewpoint, when creating a new message, they will be given the option to send a message to one practice employee and all or some of the associated contacts. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 50

57 If you are sending documents for client approval, you will only be able to select portal users who are in the To list to approve documents. Both in Central and the portal, you can see who has been sent the message and associated documents from information in the To field. 7.3 Saving Messages as Draft You can cancel the message and save it as draft, and re-open a saved message from the Message Centre, clearly marked as Draft. Once saved, drafts can be re-opened from the Message Centre in the Message List. They can be edited further, sent to Portal, or deleted. A draft message also appears in the Messages homepage control, where the user can doubleclick on the message, or right-click and select 'Edit, to edit/send the message. 51 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

58 There is a task permission which restricts whether Central users (other than the original message creator) can delete draft messages from the Message Centre. Portal task permissions are located in the Product dropdown menu within Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. 7.4 Forwarding Message It is possible to forward the message to another Practice user (employee) by right clicking against messages in that home page control. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 52

59 It is also possible to forward a portal message task to an employee who has not been activated as a portal user. They will receive the task in their tasks home page control (assuming used by your practice), but cannot read or action the message. Solutions to this are to activate all employees as portal users, with access to the Portal Message Home Page control, or ensure messages are not forwarded to employees not using the portal. 7.5 Deleting Messages When messages and conversations are deleted from Portal, local copies are retained in the Central Message Centre to preserve the integrity of the client file. When the user chooses to have them shown, deleted conversations are denoted by line strikethroughs in the Message List. They appear in their original order, with each deleted constituent message or entire conversation also depicted with a yellow border. Deleted messages can be previewed by ticking 'Show Deleted Messages' at the bottom of Message Centre. 7.6 Using message templates with mail merge fields You can create, edit, and delete templates in Maintenance > Portal > Message Templates. Templates with mail merge fields can be designed, edited, and inserted into portal messages in Central. You can create, edit, and delete templates, as well as use the six pre-populated default templates. 53 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

60 Practice users can double-click on existing template to edit the content in a new window. The merge fields on the left will insert data from your Central database dynamically. To add one of these fields into the body of your message template, click the location in the body of the text where you wish to insert the field, then click on the relevant merge field to insert it. In the Portal Create Message window, users can select 'Insert Template' to insert the required template, which will also draw through the mail merge fields. Users can continue to edit the message once the template has been inserted. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 54

61 A task permission is available in the Product dropdown menu within Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions to control Central users' ability to edit existing Message Templates. 7.7 Sending bulk messages If you want to send the same message to a number of clients, you can do this from the Find Clients screen. Use the check box next to the relevant clients names then select the Create Message option from the Portal area. Note You might find this facility useful to send a welcome message to a number of clients you have set up to use the new portal service, or maybe to deliver some interesting generic information to them such as a newsletter or other technical update. 55 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

62 You are then presented with a new Portal message screen. When more than one client is selected in the clients search list, clicking the Portal create message link displays the Portal message window as usual, with the only difference that the to field is no longer visible and the message will be sent to all associated contacts that are activated on Portal. Therefore, specific recipients cannot be selected when sending bulk Portal messages. In addition, when sending a bulk Portal message, client-specific documents will not be available to attach to the message. Bulk messages can be used, for example, for sending marketing messages, newsletters, e-bulletins and so on. Warning for Central user attempting to send bulk message to non-portal clients Practice users will be warned if they select non-portal clients (as well as Portal clients) from the Find Clients screen and attempt to send a bulk Portal message. After the warning message has <VERSION APRIL 2017> 56

63 shown, the non-portal clients are automatically removed from the recipient list in the 'New Bulk Message' window, where the message can be sent to the Portal clients only. 7.8 Print Portal message conversations for filing Portal message conversations between the Practice and the client can be printed out to be filed in client records. To print, click the Printer icon within the message, in the top left corner: Alternatively, go to Message Centre, right click on the message, and select Print Conversation: Messages can be printed directly from Client record, from the Message Centre tab; or from the Message Centre homepage control. This will open up the standard Windows print screen where the document can be printed out on paper or if there is a PDF converter available, it can be converted to PDF and saved as a file. 57 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

64 7.9 New message popup notification Provided you are logged into Central, when a new message is sent to you, a pop-up will appear in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. If you click on the pop-up you will be taken straight to that client s Message Centre tab so you can review and action the message. You can vary the time the pop up remains visible by altering the number of seconds from the default of 5 in Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration > Portal_TimeForDisplayingNotification Popup The system will check for new messages every 30 seconds and notify relevant users of any new messages. If you want to vary the frequency that this polling happens, you can change the number of seconds from the default of 30 in Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration > Portal_FrequencyOfPolling In each case click OK to exit the Configuration screen and apply the new setting Outlook Style Task Bar icon for unread Portal Messages So as to improve visibility of any new portal messages we have now created a message icon that will appear on the Central task bar image. This indicates if the logged in employee within Central <VERSION APRIL 2017> 58

65 has any unread Portal messages. This will display when a new message is sent to you or a document has been approved or rejected. When a user opens all the unread messages then the icon disappears Out of Office rules Designed to ensure your clients know when a practice employee is not available to action a portal message they are sent, this manual Out of Office functionality needs to be set by the practice user. It does not integrate to any Out of Office functions. To activate, the relevant user should click the Activate out of office option in Home page view: then enter the date of return: When activated, the task bar indicator will change to When clicked, or on logging into Central when the out of office flag is set the user will be alerted as follows: Clicking Yes will disable, while No will keep the out of office flag active. When your client creates a new message on their portal they will see the following where a practice employee is marked as out of office : 59 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

66 This will let them know that they should select a different practice employee for immediate attention. It is recommended that all clients have at least two practice employees assigned for portal communications with clients Time Zone Compatibility Time zone compatibility measures have been put in to ensure that users located in different time zones (Practice employees as well as Practice clients) can view messages and documents according to the time zone they are located in. This is determined by each user s own date and time settings. This affects various areas in the system, including CCH Central (message tracker, client messages and documents), messages for review, or saved as draft, forwarded or deleted; and also in Client Portal messages and documents. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 60

67 8. Documents 8.1 Send message with document attachment From local drive or client Document Centre In order to send a file or document to a client, create a new portal message, then click the paper clip icon next to the Attach area. This will open a browse screen to you to select your file or document from. Once you have identified the file you require, select it and click OK. You will be returned to the create message screen, where additional selections are now visible From here you can select the folder in which you wish the client to see the file or document by clicking the drop down box under Folder. If this is also a document requiring client approval, tick the Requires Approval box. Since the Shared folder is a temporary folder, you will not be able to save any document requiring approval in this area. You must select another folder from the drop down box. You can select multiple documents in the same way by holding the CTRL button on your keyboard and attach documents to your message. If you click Document Centre option in the same window, you can browse and attach documents that currently exist in client s document centre. Such documents will appear in the Document Centre with an icon that indicates that they have been published to portal. If the user does not have a Document Management license, the Document Centre button on Attach files window is greyed out so that the user cannot click on it. View the status of documents for approval You can see which files and documents have been uploaded to the portal by clicking on the Documents hyperlink in the client Message Centre. From here you can see the current approval status, whether it has been approved or rejected, who took that action and when. 61 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

68 The name of the selected folder is displayed as a heading on the right hand pane in the Documents window to clarify which folder you are viewing. The Documents summary section is allowing you to have a quick overview of which documents are Pending approval, Approved and Rejected. When draft messages are created with attachments, those attachments can be seen in the Documents area of the client Message Centre. To differentiate between attachments relating to draft messages and those sent to the client portal, these are now displayed in italics. The details of who has uploaded and the date and time are not shown until the message is actually sent. Documents attached to a message are also not listed in the portal document approvals report until the message is sent, as you would expect From other CCH components: PT, DM, PM, CT, AP Publishing from CCH Personal Tax <VERSION APRIL 2017> 62

69 In order to publish to portal from any product in the suite, the practice user must first have the appropriate task permissions. These can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Select Personal Tax from the Product drop down then expand the Portal area: and tick #PersonalTax #Portal #Publish to allow. Click OK to save changes. In Personal Tax, once you have generated the IR Mark in the Online Filing area, the Publish to Portal option becomes active. When you click this, the familiar page selection for the tax return and accompanying schedules pops up. Select the required pages you wish to publish and click Publish to Portal option. You will then be presented with the usual New Message window. The tax return will already be listed in the attached files area, with the appropriate folder and year subfolder selected. At this point you can create your message, add other documents and designate the return for approval as appropriate. 63 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

70 A copy of the document published to portal will be added to the Document Centre with a published to portal icon. To view publication details, click the Version History button in the version area of the document s properties: and you will see the date the document was published and by whom: In the event you want to send individual pages of the tax return or schedules to your client before the IR mark is generated, we recommend you create a pdf of the relevant pages and attach them in line with 8.1 above Publishing from CCH Accounts Production In order to publish to portal from any product in the suite, the practice user must first have the appropriate task permissions. These can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Select Portal from the Product drop down then expand the Publish area: and tick Publish accounts to allow. Click OK to save changes. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 64

71 You can publish accounts from CCH Accounts Production from the Financial Statements area in Financial Reporting. Click on Financial Statements; then select the Publish to Portal option from the Print/Preview area: The steps are then identical to those for CCH Personal Tax described in above Publishing from CCH Practice Management In order to publish to portal from any product in the suite, the practice user must first have the appropriate task permissions. These can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Select VPM from the Product drop down then expand the Client area: 65 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

72 and tick #Client#Publish To Portal to allow. Click OK to save changes. You can publish an invoice to Portal from the Bills screen of the client. Highlight the invoice you wish to publish and click Publish to Portal option. The steps are then identical to those for CCH Personal Tax described in above Publishing from CCH Document Management In order to publish to portal from any product in the suite, the practice user must first have the appropriate task permissions. These can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Select Document Management from the Product drop down then expand the Portal area and tick #Portal#Publish to allow. Click OK to save changes. You can publish any document from CCH Document Management by clicking the check boxes next to the documents you wish to upload, and selecting Publish to Portal option. The steps are then identical to those for CCH Personal Tax described in above. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 66

73 Publishing from CCH Corporation Tax In order to publish to portal from any product in the suite, the practice user must first have the appropriate task permissions. These can be found in Maintenance > Security > Task Permissions. Select Corporation Tax from the Product drop down then expand the Portal area and tick #Portal #Publish to allow publication of tax returns and computations from outside the efiling area, and #Portal#Efiling#Publish to publish from the efiling area. Click OK to save changes. It is possible to publish the tax return and computation directly from the CCH Corporation Tax module. The tax returns and computation can be published the 'Publish to Portal' option within the client record: Tax Returns > [Tax Return] > Summary > Task Bar. 8.2 Document housekeeping Practices have told us that they want to retain control over the documents and files which are uploaded to the client portal, both to keep it tidy, but also to minimise the amount of storage space used unnecessarily. To that end, we have created a Shared folder which is a temporary folder. Clients can only upload files into this area, while you can select to either place files in this area for later deletion, or in a folder structure of your choosing. With files uploaded by clients, you can easily either move them to different folder on the client portal or download them to a Windows structure or document management system. We recommend the Shared folders are cleared regularly as part of your housekeeping routines, particularly where large files such as client bookkeeping data are regularly uploaded to the portal Moving Documents between folders In the Documents area, you can move and download files on the client portal. To move a file, find it in the document tree, and drag and drop it to the new folder. 67 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

74 To download the file to local or network file storage, right click on the relevant document. You then have the option to save the file to disk (which offers the usual browse screen) or save the file to CCH Document Management (which offers the usual screen to save to DM with the option of adding descriptors as required). To delete a file, highlight the relevant line you wish to delete and press the delete key on your keyboard. You can select multiple documents by clicking on the checkboxes next to each file and you can do all the above actions as described or you can just use the option from the top menu Documents saved / deleted from Documents Centre When messages are sent to Portal from Central, any attachments allocated to the Shared folder will not be saved into the client's Document Centre. This is designed to save local space and is consistent with the designation of Shared as the temporary exchange folder. Attachments are allocated to the Shared folder in the Portal Create Message window via the Folder dropdown, after the Attach File option is chosen. When moving a file from Shared to a permanent folder within the Documents window within the Central Message Centre, the CCH Document Management Send to window now prompts the user to save a copy in CCH Document Management before the file is moved from the Shared folder. The Document Type will be populated according to the settings in the Client library in Maintenance > Document Management > Libraries and Types. Note: We recommend you select a default document type for the Client library in Maintenance > Document Management > Libraries and Types window. For example, if the Correspondence Out type is selected as the default for the Client library, then this type will be displayed in the CCH Document Management Send to window: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 68

75 8.2.3 File size limits The default maximum limit on the file size you can upload is 200 MB. You can increase this up to 2GB in Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration > Portal_MaxMbFileUploadSize. For this change to take effect, you must completely exit Central Timeout limits Document upload time is limited to 5 minutes after which the upload process will give you a timeout message. This will enable users with a slower internet connection to upload files without issues Deleting documents Your practice has full capabilities to delete messages, files and documents from the portal. CCH Central will maintain a complete audit trail of any such actions. This means that you can unpublish any message or document published to the portal in error. To delete a message and its associated attachments from the client portal, select the relevant message from the message summary list in the Message Centre in CCH Central, right click and select Delete. In order to delete any Document Folder, you must first ensure that all documents in that folder are deleted. Note that system folders, such as Accounts, Correspondence, Tax and Shared cannot be deleted. Deleting messages with documents attached When a message or conversation is deleted from Portal that has one or more attachments stored in the Shared folder on portal, you will be prompted to save local copies from the Shared folder into Document Management. Files in the Shared folder typically do not have a corresponding version stored in Document Management. 69 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

76 Documents in deleted portal accounts When a client s portal has been suspended and deleted, the contents of the portal, including the messages and documents will remain within CCH Central together with the remainder of that client s record. Deleting documents by Practice Clients Your clients can only delete those files from the portal which they have uploaded themselves but which you have yet to move out of the shared folder. The messages they have written can only be deleted by authorised practice users. 8.3 CCH Document Management Integration It is essential that you have a complete picture of your clients in order to advise them properly. In order to make a review of the client file as easy as possible, the integration between the CCH Portal Message Centre and CCH Document Management enable you to view all client communications in a single location. You will now be able to read portal messages, open associated attachments and see the current status of documents sent for approval from within the Document Centre Portal message conversations appear in Document Centre Whenever a portal message is sent to a client, a PDF copy of the message, together with links to any associated attachments will be saved in the client Document Centre. The subject of the message will appear as the filename. The PDF copy of the message will have a new type of Portal Message. Note for users to be able to see Portal messages within the Document Centre they will need to be in a Security Group which has View access for the Portal Message Document Type in Maintenance > Security > Document Security. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 70

77 Once this is set, individuals belonging to that security group will see the PDF s In Document Centre: Double clicking the PDF document will show the message conversation and list the files that were attached to the message: Because Document Centre uses versioning on documents, if a client or practice user replies to a message conversation in the client portal, the PDF of that document in the Document Centre will update to a new version maintaining the version history of that conversation. When the client sends a new message (with or without attachments) from their client portal, a PDF and any relevant attachments will also appear in the Document Centre in a similar manner Automatic linking of document attachments Any message conversation that has attachments will now be automatically linked in the Document Centre. In the above screenshot, the number 2 indicates that there are two documents linked to that message. You can view the linked documents by clicking on the number: 71 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

78 A resizable window with a preview on the right pane will be launched to show the linked documents. Documents can be unlinked by selecting the relevant document you wish to decouple and clicking on Unlink Distinguish between document statuses in Document Centre It is now possible to see the status of a document that has been sent up to a client portal from the Document Centre tab via a Portal Approval column. The Portal Approval column can be added from the Field Chooser by right clicking in the Document Centre. Once this column is added, any document that has been sent for approval to the client will display the statuses of Pending, Approved or Rejected. The status text is hyperlinked. The hyperlink will allow you to view the status of this document in more detail. This window provides details of who has approved, when they approved and who is left to approve. The approval status is only for the uploaded version of the document. If changes are made to the document in Document Centre, a new version is checked back in. This new version of the document will not have a Portal Approval state. You can view the previous version s state by clicking on the Version Number ellipses in the properties panel in Document Centre. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 72

79 8.3.4 Deleting documents from Message Centre Message conversations in the Message Centre (effectively unpublishing documents to the client portal) can be deleted by right mouse clicking and selecting Delete from the menu. While the message conversation will be deleted from the Message Centre and the client s portal, the message conversation and attachments will still be available to view in the client Document Centre but the icon will change to show it is unpublished to maintain a history in the document store. In the above example, the message conversation Accounts for the year ended March pdf was deleted and in the Document Centre the PDF and Linked Documents are marked with the unpublished icon Search functionality in Document Centre when attaching a document We have added the ability to search for a document from the Document Centre providing quicker access to stored documents. The filenames will be returned in the results matching what is typed in the Search for field. You can also use the Advanced Search function to search on a wide range of fields from the Document Centre. 8.4 Document Activity and Approval Report A number of practices told us they wanted to know when their clients had viewed documents they had uploaded to the client portal. They also wanted clearer documentation, appended to any documents sent for approval, of who had approved the documents and when, both within the practice, and available to your clients. A new activity report can now be created automatically to report this information for any PDF documents uploaded to your client portal Switching it on This functionality is switched off by default to enable you to evaluate it in your own time. It can be switched on easily by changes to the configuration keys in Maintenance > User Defined > Configuration. 73 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

80 There are 2 configuration keys: Portal_DocumentAuditTrailPractice, the value is set to 0 by default so the activity report extra page is turned off. A value of 1 will turn it on if you wish practice users to view the activity report. Portal_DocumentAuditTrailClient, the value is set to 0 by default so the activity report extra page is turned off. Setting the value to 1 will turn on the function and allow the activity report extra page to be seen by your clients in the client portal. Note There may be a slight delay of around 30 seconds for the configuration key to take effect once changed Recording Document Activity We are recording various events to support this new report. For example, when a document is sent up to the portal, we record the following information: Date the PDF was uploaded. A list of required approvers (if any). Overall status of the document (Pending, Approved or Rejected). When a client user accesses a PDF document in the client portal, the following information is recorded: Date and time the document was viewed. Any approval activity including name, date and time as well as whether the document was approved or rejected. Overall status of the document. Note These events are recorded whenever a PDF is published to portal. For example, if you also have CCH Document Management, CCH Personal Tax or any other product in the CCH Suite, the same events are recorded. When using CCH Document Management, events are recorded per version of the document. So, if a document is checked out in CCH Document Management, the history for that document is not carried over to the new version of the document Document Activity Report Page The document activity information is appended to the original PDF document and can be viewed by the client viewing the relevant PDF document in their client portal. As a practice, you can view the activity report from Documents in CCH Portal or by launching the document from CCH Document Management by double clicking on the PDF document. All users will see the same report, which updates dynamically every time there is new activity relating to the document such as a user viewing or approving it: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 74

81 The Document Activity Report page shows the logs for that version of the document. The log that reads viewed the document relates to downloading of the document by the client. NB: PDF documents sent up to the portal prior to installation of version will have incomplete information recorded in Message Centre and Document Centre. Note In CCH Document Management if you right mouse click on the PDF and choose Get local copy this will also load the activity report page. There are 2 other functions in CCH Document Management Copy Shortcut and Shortcut these links when opened will not show the document activity report page Verification of a document Your clients, or third parties to whom they forward the document, can check that the PDF is authentic by visiting the following URL: This URL will be placed at the bottom of the document activity report page. 75 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

82 By clicking on Browse, selecting the PDF and clicking on Verify, CCH Portal will return one of the following: Document is verified The PDF has been checked and has not been added to or edited from its original form. Document is not verified The PDF has been saved as a new document from within a PDF reader/writer, has been amended or altered from its original form. This ensures the integrity of the document at all times. Note The document will only be regarded as genuine where it is downloaded from CCH Portal and sent on from there. Where the document is opened in a PDF reader and Save As is used, a new document is created and this would not be classified as genuine. Likewise ing a document from CCH Document Management would also create a new version of the document which again would not be verifiable as the original document. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 76

83 9. Document Approvals 9.1 Send documents for approval When sending a new message with a document in the attachment, you can request approval from the client. This is done within the same new message popup window, in the document attachment area. In the new message popup window, click on the paper clip icon to go to the document attachment area; where you will be able to select or unselect the Requires Approval checkbox, as well as placing your attachment in the desired document folder. 9.2 Multiple approval for documents Documents may require approval by several contacts associated with the client. For organisational clients, some or all of the associated contacts can be selected to approve or reject documents. If an organisation has more than one associated portal user, the practice can select who is required to approve the document once the document has marked as 'Requires Approval'. To attach document(s) for approval, the following steps should be followed: Select the Attach button from the New Message window in the Central Message Centre. Select 'Browse' to add further files from the Approval window that subsequently opens. Tick the files that you want approved in the 'Requires approval' column. If the document(s) in question are being sent to an organisation with more than one associated contact, there will be the options to select: 77 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

84 the users required to approve to approve the document(s) (via a dropdown menu) whether all, or just one, of the selected users must approve the document(s) for it to be marked as approved (via adjacent radio buttons). The New Message window is also updated with the approval details once a document has been selected for approval. Where one or more contact rejects a document, the document as a whole will be marked with a rejected status. Within Central, practice users can review the detailed approval status of a document by selecting the approval status hyperlink within the Documents window in the Message Centre: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 78

85 As some of Practice clients can be slow to activate their client portal access, you won t be able to publish a document on portal for approval until at least one client user has activated their access. Where you are sending documents to more than one user, you will be able to see which users have yet to activate their login. If you attach files to a portal message where one or more has already been uploaded for approval to the client portal, a check is undertaken where a file is uploaded again requiring approval, and the following message will appear enabling you to verify you are intentionally uploading a file already sent to your client for approval. 79 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

86 10. Internal review of documents and messages Many practices have a policy of reviewing communications before sending to clients. Likewise, a practice employee can draft a portal communication, and then forward it to a colleague to review. Once the message has been drafted, click the review button from within the new message window: This will pop up a task window enabling the employee to select a reviewer, an action and make a comment; If an employee is selected as a reviewer who isn t a portal user, the following error message will be displayed: After an appropriate reviewer is selected, the review task filled in and after clicking OK, the user will return to the new message window, and the Send button will have changed to read Send for review. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 80

87 On clicking Send for review, the task will pass to the reviewer s portal home page control marked as In Review. It will also be visible as In review on the client message centre. The reviewer can see the comments made by the preparer by clicking on the red flag; Click on Review message to review and send the message: 81 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

88 When the message is open, you can review, make changes, and Send. This will complete the task in the reviewer s task list and home page control; send the message to the client; and retain a history of the review notes against the message. Alternatively, you can click on Mark as Completed to complete and send the message and the result will be the same. For those using Task Management in CCH Central, these tasks will also be available to view and action from there. It is now possible to send 31 July personal tax payment reminders to clients via Portal. The fields to be merged into a Portal message are generated from the same report as is used to mail your clients by post. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 82

89 11. Send Personal Tax Payments reminder to Portal It is now possible to send 31 July personal tax payment reminders to clients via Portal. The fields to be merged into a Portal message are generated from the same report as is used to mail your clients by post Send message with document attachment The 2014 July Payment Report can be found under: Reports > Personal Tax > July 2014 Payments on Account For further details on how to generate this report, please refer to the Support Page which includes the July 2014 Payments User Guide Customise the message template A message template has been created for this purpose and can be customised for Practice s own use; the template can be found under: Maintenance > Portal > Message Templates Double click on Personal Tax July 2014 Payment Reminder to open the message template To use data fields from the July payments report, click on July 2014 Payments on Account at the bottom of the left navigation, and reveal the fields available for message merge. The fields in the July payment report are available as merge fields which will be populated for selected clients in the next step: Double click on the message template to modify the content 83 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

90 In the left navigation area of the message, click on July 2014 Payments on Account to expand this option A list of merge fields available are displayed: Client Partner, Client Office, Client Name, Client Dept, Client Code, Amount due July 2014 Click on each merge field to include it in the message template Click OK to save the message template The data fields will be populated by Portal at the time of creating the Portal message: 11.3 Generate payment reminder merge to Portal message Click on the Clients icon Select New > Search from reports from the Search Type drop down list Click the Search button For further details on how to generate this report, please refer to the Support Page which includes the July 2014 Payments User Guide. Go to Category > Personal Tax and highlight the July 2014 Payment on account report, then select OK <VERSION APRIL 2017> 84

91 Where required filtering by Department, Office and / or Partner can be applied Choose which clients to include in the message merge, either all clients or a selection, by ticking the appropriate boxes. Only clients that have an activated portal account can be sent a payment reminder message. These clients are indicated with a portal icon next to them Select Portal > Create Message from the Task bar on the left 85 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

92 Click Insert Template and select Personal Tax Payment Reminder template Make changes as required in the message body, subject line and select recipients in the To dropdown field <VERSION APRIL 2017> 86

93 11.4 Sending to a single client When sending the July payments reminder message via Portal to a single client that has an activated Portal account, the message window will display the actual figures for the selected client when the message template is inserted. This message can be sent to the client straight away or saved as a draft for further review Sending to multiple clients When sending July payments reminder message via Portal to multiple clients at a time, the message window will not show the actual figures. Instead, the message will display data field names in brackets. Message templates containing data field names instead of actual figures cannot be sent (as there is information still missing). This message can be saved as draft. The draft message will be available in each client record s Message Centre, as well as all together in the Message Centre homepage control of the employee who is creating the Portal message merge. Each of these draft messages will then display the actual figures for the particular client when reviewed. This message can be sent straight away or saved as draft or sent for review as usual. 87 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

94 12. Portal Reports 12.1 Client Activation Report You can generate a report of activated portal users from within Smart Reports. The report can be found under Client > Portal clients. To create a new report, click create and drag the relevant fields onto the report as follows: Client Code Client Name PortalDisplayName (returns the name of each portal user against that client) Portal (returns the of that portal user) IsActivated (returns True or False against each user to indicate whether they have activated from the link in the activation ) Once created, click Save to name and save the report for future use. As with all Smart reports you can edit the look of the report using the Edit and Edit in designer functions Generate report to view the bulk activation results The Status field is available in the Portal Clients report so you can see the status of the clients you attempted to activate on portal. This can be accessed from Reports under Client > Portal Clients. From here you can create and run a report of the Client Code, Client Name and Status. You may need to edit an existing version of the report to include this new field. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 88

95 Note The document will only be regarded as genuine where it is downloaded from CCH Portal and sent on from there. Where the document is opened in a PDF reader and Save As is used, a new document is created and this would not be classified as genuine. Likewise ing a document from CCH Document Management would also create a new version of the document which again would not be verifiable as the original document. If you want to use this report to rerun a bulk activation routine, you can save it, then access if from the Find Clients screen under Search From reports 12.2 Document Approval Status Report This report allows Practices to have an overview of files and documents sent to clients via Portal, and their current status in terms of approval or rejection. The report is available within Reports under Client category Find the report called, as CCH Portal document approvals and double click on it To create the report for all clients and their document approval status, leave the Filter area blank 89 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

96 To create the report for a specific client only, enter the client code in the Filter area Click OK to generate the report and the report will be displayed. The report can then be printed or exported to excel as usual. You have the ability to filter the Portal Document Approval report on Status so you can run a report to see only the documents that are Approved, Pending or Rejected separately. As before this report can be run across all clients for a particular client. If you want your users to be prompted to select a particular status when running the report, edit the report to include a tick against Prompt against status. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 90

97 12.3 Suspended/Deleted Portal Clients Report Following practice requests, we have continued to enhance reporting around CCH Portal usage, providing a report on client portals that have been suspended or deleted. This can be accessed from Reports under Client > Portal suspended/deleted clients. From here you can create and run a report of the Client Code, Client name, Status (i.e. suspended or deleted) and the date that the status changed CCH Reporting fields In advance of our formal release of our new CCH Reporting engine, we have included some additional reporting fields and functionality which may help you look after your client portals more efficiently. This new cross-suite reporting engine will enable you to cross reference clients with portal activities which are listed below. Please note we will be providing more information about the power of this new reporting tool and how you can get most benefit from it in the next couple of months. A breakdown of the available fields is shown in the table below: Area Portal > Activation Field IsActivated Portal Display Name Portal Status Portal > Document Approvals Approval Status Approve Date 91 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

98 Approver Date Created Document Guid Document Name Reason Uploaded By Portal > Suspended Deleted Date Actioned Status CCH Reporting report to view the bulk activation results In order to undertake more detailed filtering of the bulk activation results, you will be able to use the new CCH Reporting. The relevant report can be found under Reporting > Portal where you have the appropriate permissions. From here you can edit or run the CCH Portal client activation report to see the completed report of the clients you attempted to activate on portal. By default, the report contains the following fields: Client Code Name Partner Manager Status (where activation has been attempted) <VERSION APRIL 2017> 92

99 From here it is then possible to use the filtering to isolate particular areas where action is needed. In the example below, applying the filter will list all the clients for which the field Status includes the value No valid associated contacts or No Portal activated client team employees. Note If you want your users to be prompted to select a particular status when running the report, you can edit the report, right-click on Status field in Available Fields section and select Prompt option. The results from this report can be used in the Find Clients screen by using Search From reports to proceed again with bulk activation with those clients which required action. 93 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

100 13. Client Activation The activation, create password, reset password and login screens have been designed so that your clients can easily activate or log in to their portal account using a smartphone, a tablet or a desktop Client Activation ID In order to get started with the client portal, the following are required: address: Client address Activation ID: Practice client reference (or client code). Contact Practice for further information When an individual client s portal access is enabled, an automated notification will be sent from notifications@clientspace.co.uk. responses to this address are not monitored. This contains an activation link to complete the portal activation process. The activation will time out after a set length of time, configured by the Practice. Clicking the link in the activation takes the client user to the activation screen: Client Code The activation ID is the same for all users of the same client regardless of how many associated contacts have a portal user account for the same client. The activation ID is the same as client code and should be provided before the Portal activation process by the Practice Random number sent via SMS To improve the Portal on-boarding process for your clients, we have introduced the option to send an SMS text message with the Activation ID to clients who have a primary mobile phone number set in Central. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 94

101 This option is called Send Activation ID via SMS and can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security. If this option is selected, when a client clicks on the link within the activation an SMS containing a randomly generated code is sent to the client s mobile, which they should then enter in the activation page. This is sent to the primary mobile phone number set in Central. A similar SMS message is sent when your clients reset the password and the Activation page is shown: A notification is displayed on the activation page informing the clients that they will receive the SMS text message. NOTE: As before, the clients can use the Client Code to activate their portal account. When you enable access to portal for a client that does not have a primary mobile phone number set in Central, a warning message will be displayed to advise you about it Password set up and password reset Once Client portal has been activated, a password setup will be required, according to the password complexity set by the Practice prior to activation. The number of characters and types of characters required as a minimum will be clearly identified on this screen as seen in the screenshot below. 95 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

102 The create password screen is a universal page and, depending on your Branding selection, your clients will be presented with the new mobile responsive design or with the existing design directly after setting up their password. Passwords can be reset by using the Forgot Password link on the main login page on subsequent visits. This will send an to the client s address with a temporary password. Both the temporary password and the original activation ID used at the time of activation (see section 13.1) will be required for this stage. Once this is done, a new password must be set and the temporary password will become void Answer security questions to reset password To improve the forget password process and allow clients to self-serve, we have introduced the option to use the security question to reset the password. This option is called Use security questions to reset the password and can be found under Maintenance > Portal > Security. When this option is ticked, your clients will need to select two questions in the list below and answer those selected questions. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 96

103 The security questions screen appears in the following situations: when the client sets up his portal account for the first time; when an existing client logs into the portal account and he has not answered the security questions previously; when an existing client resets the password and he hasn t answered the security questions before. Note your clients cannot select the same question twice. Once the security questions have been set up, your clients will be asked to answer the selected questions in order to reset their password. If your clients cannot remember the answers for the security questions, they can click the here link and use the activation code as before to reset the password. 97 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

104 13.3 Log on to Client Portal On subsequent visits, the main login page is displayed. The clients can log on using their address and the password they set in the previous step. Your clients will be greeted with a modern mobile user experience. This means, no more pinching or unnecessary scrolling to view things on a standard web page and no more use of controls not designed with a smartphone user in mind Client Tutorials To assist your client adoption of the new look and feel, we have implemented the Exploring Portal tutorial. This will appear either when an existing client logs in for the first time since a system upgrade, or a new client logs in for the first time ever. This tutorial can be accessed later from the left hand menu where more tutorials can be found (e.g. approving or rejecting a document). If your practice has chosen to modify the branding of your client portal by amending the CSS (via the Advanced option under the Portal customisation section), the tutorials will not be available for your clients. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 98

105 NOTE: The Exploring Portal tutorial is only available for a desktop or ipad (landscape) view Client Personalisation Personalisation is available in the user drop down menu by Edit Profile option. To upload a photo, click on Edit Photo and select the picture to upload. Maximum file size for such photos is 1MB. Photos will appear in the Messages list and in Conversation view. Profile details can also be updated, such as name, title, or salutation. These changes will take effect in Practice s Client records accordingly Image Cropper The Crop Image option within the Edit Profile screen allows your clients to easily crop their profile picture and highlight only the best parts. 99 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

106 When the client uploads an image and clicks the Crop Image button, the picture is presented inside a cropping area. The client can move the image or resize it to include only the necessary elements in the cropping box. Upon clicking Crop button, the image is cropped and the result is saved instead of the original image. At any point, the user can go back to the original image by clicking the Reset button Multiple portal access If a portal user has multiple relationships with the practice, maybe as director of several companies, and also in connection with their personal affairs, the same username ( address) can be used to access all client portal accounts. When an organisational client is first activated, some of the portal users for that client may have already been activated to use portal in the past for a different client. Such individuals will receive and notification informing them that new access rights have been created on portal with regards to another client. Upon login, a home page will appear in the client portal, listing the client portals that can be accessed from this portal account. Each client is listed in its own row called a swim-lane. The use of the swim-lanes on the home page now provides your client with the ability to easily navigate to their desired client and also gives a snapshot of other important information. Each swim-lane can be expanded or collapsed for each client by clicking on the heading. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 100

107 Note If more than three clients are listed on the home page, the swim-lanes will be expanded by default for any clients with new messages/documents or documents that require approval. From this page clients can: - Click on a Messages widget - will list all messages for that client with the unread messages shown in bold - Click on a Documents widget - will list all folders that contain documents - Click on the number of new documents on a Documents widget - will list all unread documents. - Click on a Documents to approve widget -- will list the documents to approve for that client. Documents to approve widget is visible only if your client has documents that require approval. Once your clients are drilled into an account they will be able to easily switch between the messages and documents for that account using the corresponding icons on the left hand menu. To access another account, they can click back into home and proceed from there. On mobile devices, they can use the hamburger menu to toggle between accounts or just click on the practice logo in the top left hand corner to go back to home and proceed from there. 101 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

108 It could also be that there are several contacts accessing the same client portal, such as directors, shareholders, bookkeepers and so on. Each individual will be given their own client portal access and will only see the messages and documents sent to them. Replies to a particular portal message can only be seen by the recipients of that message. When a document is approval required, the approval will take place on the same document. See further sections for more details on this Cookie Bar Notification A cookie bar notification has been added to the client portal to notify your clients that the portal uses cookies. There is a hyperlink that will display more information in a popup about the cookies: The popup can be closed by clicking on the x. The cookie bar notification will persist until the x is clicked. Once the cookie bar notification has been closed it will not appear again in that browser for 90 days. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 102

109 14. Client Messages and Notifications 14.1 Displaying messages In CCH Portal, messages are grouped into conversations. All messages, including the first welcome message if it was sent by the Practice, can be seen in the Message list, in chronological order from the most recent to the oldest. Where messages are unread, the row will be in a larger font and bold. When the message is opened, the message is treated as read and font style turns regular. The message status reverts to unread when further replies are added to that conversation. There is also a summary column to show how many replies and attachments this conversation has, useful for an overview. By clicking on a message will take your client to the content (conversation) of that message in its own screen. The conversation chain shows the newest message first and the oldest last. 103 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

110 Print messages Some practices have requested an option for their clients to be able to print messages directly on Client portal. Accordingly, we have introduced the Print button on the conversation screen. Clicking the Print button will show the message conversation in a PDF format similar to the practice version of the message chain stored in CCH Document Management Show/hide CC recipients We introduced the more link if the CC contacts list exceeds the available screen display. Your clients will be able to view the all contacts in the CC field by clicking on the link: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 104

111 Once clicked, all contacts are revealed. At any point you can collapse the CC list by clicking on the less link Sending messages To send a new message, a document or file, click on + button from the Messages screen. To reply to a message, click on it and choose Reply. Enter subject and message and select Practice recipients to send to. The Add Files and Send buttons are inactive until text is entered in the Subject and Message fields and a recipient is selected in the To field. 105 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

112 Clients can send a message to one Practice employee, and all or some of the associated contacts within the client organisation. If your client accesses the create message screen on a smartphone, the drop down is replaced with a field and an icon: When your clients click here, they will be presented with a new select screen to add a recipient. Your client can select more than one CC recipient before confirming their selection. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 106

113 14.3 Background sending of large files from client to practice Large files can take some time to upload, particularly where the internet service is slow. In order to make the process as efficient as possible for your clients to send large files or documents to you securely, we introduced the option for messages to be automatically sent when the upload has completed Using the background send function If your client wants to send you a message with at least one large attachment, they will now be presented with an updated New Message screen: Your client can, as before, see the upload progress of the files, and now has the option to click Send immediately, enabling the message to be automatically sent once all the files reach 100%. This allows your client to leave the upload in progress but attend to other matters elsewhere without a risk the session might time out if they forget to return to select send. 107 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

114 Once the background sending function has been initiated, the To, CC, Subject and Message fields are inactive. To make changes to these, your client can click Cancel to discard the whole message. If they want to remove a file or files before the message has been sent they can click on the respective files recycle bin icons to remove them. The message will then be sent once any remaining uploads are completed. Notes If your client is uploading only one file in a message and clicks the delete file icon while the background send function has been initiated, the background send function will be cancelled. If your client closes their browser in the middle of an upload that is incomplete, the message and file upload will be discarded Sending messages with small sized files If the files being uploaded are very small in size, the documents will upload very quickly and in this case, a message will appear at the top informing your clients they can click Send and the message will be sent as normal Notifications Whenever a new message is sent to a client portal, an automated notification is sent to the associated contacts at the clients to whom the message was sent to. This notification is generic and will not provide a specific content due to security reasons. The notifications are sent from notifications@clientspace.co.uk (notifications@clientspace.ie for Republic of Ireland) and replies to this address are not monitored. The notification provides a link to the client portal login page. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 108

115 15. Client Documents and Folders The Documents screen in client portal has been redesigned so that your clients can easily navigate around documents within folders or subfolders. By default, the Documents screen lists all folders with documents within them and displays the total number of documents within them. If your clients have any unread documents, the New folder is shown at the top of the list, providing a shortcut to view all the latest documents that have been received and not yet reviewed. Clicking on a folder will show the subfolders and the documents in that folder Viewing Documents Documents sent via the Portal can be accessed in three places: By clicking the hyperlink in the Conversation view: 109 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

116 In the Documents page under the folders In the New folder <VERSION APRIL 2017> 110

117 All files and documents attached to a Portal message will be saved in the Shared folder in the Documents page. This is a temporary holding place for documents which can later be moved to permanent folders by the Practice. See section 16 for further details on Documents. 111 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

118 16. Client Approving and Rejecting Documents Now that documents for the various government authorities such as HM Revenue & Customs and Companies House do not require original signatures, and most documents are expected to be submitted electronically; the document approval facility within the client portal will provide a secure and efficient way to obtain approval (or rejection) to documents. Each conversation that has an outstanding approval will have an exclamation mark next to the date. On the mobile view you will also see a paper clip, so that your clients can see at a glance if there are files awaiting client s approval. Documents that require approval can also be viewed in three places: By clicking on a message in Messages list: <VERSION APRIL 2017> 112

119 Any documents needing approval will have one of four statuses: - Approved: Document have been approved - Rejected: Document has been rejected - Pending: Document is awaiting approval - Part Approved: Document has been approved by some, but not all approvers Clicking on the document status brings up any details on when and by whom a document was approved. In the Documents page under the relevant folders: In the Documents to approve view: 113 <VERSION APRIL 2017>

120 To approve a document, tick the check box against each document and select Approve and enter portal password. If document is rejected, then a reason or message must be entered. <VERSION APRIL 2017> 114