Setting up the Client Portal

The Client Portal offers a secure, centralized way to communicate with clients and their contacts, send intake forms, share documents, manage billing, and accept online appointment requests.

In this guide, we’ll cover how to turn on the Client Portal and configure key settings to get it ready for clients. Below, we'll cover:

• Turning on the Client Portal
• Setting up your Client Portal domain
• Customizing client-facing welcome messages
• Allowing clients to upload documents
• Configuring additional Client Portal settings
• Next steps

Turning on the Client Portal

Before enabling the Client Portal, review your practice information to make sure it appears correctly for clients. These details are visible in the Client Portal and help clients identify and contact your practice.

Confirm the following in Settings > Practice > Practice details:

• Practice name (displayed at the top of the Client Portal)
• Time zone
• Practice phone number
• Office and telehealth locations

Note: You can choose whether to hide or display your full address from prospective clients. To learn more, see Hiding or displaying your address publicly.

To turn on the Client Portal:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client Portal permissions
2. Toggle the Client Portal on

Setting up your Client Portal domain

Your Client Portal domain is the link clients use to access your practice's Client Portal. Before inviting clients, set and lock your default domain.

To set and lock your domain:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client Portal permissions
2. Under Default domain, review your Client Portal link
3. If the domain isn’t locked, you can personalize the URL by editing the text field
4. Select Save, then click the lock icon to lock the domain

Locking your domain prevents the Client Portal URL from being changed accidentally, which helps ensure that:

• Links you share with clients continue to work
• Clients don’t encounter error pages from outdated URLs
• Bookmarked Client Portal links stay valid over time

Important: Once locked, your default domain can’t be changed directly. If you need to unlock it, submit a help request so our team can assist.

After your domain is locked, you can:

• Click the URL to preview the Client Portal
  • For a walkthrough of the Client Portal as clients see it, refer to the client-facing guide to Getting started with the Client Portal

• Select the copy icon, then share the link with clients via Secure Message or outside of SimplePractice

Note: In a group practice, the Client Portal domain is shared practice-wide and can only be set by the Account Owner or a practice manager.

For more details about customizing your default domain or using it with a Professional Website, see Setting a default domain.

Customizing client-facing welcome messages

You can customize the messages clients see when they’re first invited to, and first sign into, the Client Portal. This can help set expectations and welcome clients to your practice.

Welcome email (sent before first sign-in)

When you share documents with a client or contact for the first time, they’re sent a Welcome email with a link to sign into the Client Portal. You can edit the default Welcome email from your settings.

To preview or edit the Welcome email:

1. Navigate to Settings > Client notifications > Email
2. Click the arrow next to Welcome to preview the message
3. Click the pencil icon to edit the email as needed

Important: Don’t delete the {practice_client_portal_login_link} macro. This macro generates the sign-in button clients use to access the Client Portal.

You can also preview and edit the Welcome email for contacts and couples by selecting the Contact and couple emails tab.

Tip: Macros let you automatically include client and practice details in emails and reminders, helping keep messages accurate and consistent. To learn more, see Explaining client email and reminder macros.

Client Portal Greeting (shown on first sign-in)

When clients sign into the Client Portal for the first time, they’ll see a screen with the Client Portal Greeting.

To edit the Client Portal Greeting:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client Portal permissions
2. Under the Client Portal Greeting section, click Edit

3. Update the message
4. Click Save

This message appears only the first time a client signs in to the Client Portal.

Allowing clients to upload documents

You can allow clients to upload documents through their Client Portal to share them with you, such as an insurance policy or driver's license. To enable document uploads for clients:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client Portal permissions
2. Under File Upload, select Allow clients to upload documents to Client Portal

3. Click Save changes

Once enabled, clients can upload files from the Documents > My Uploads section of the Client Portal. They can:

• Drag and drop files into the upload area, or
• Click Upload Files to select documents from their device

Clients can upload the following file types, as long as each file is 50 MB or smaller:

• PDF
• JPG
• PNG
• MP3
• M4A
• DOC or DOCX
• CSV

When a client uploads a document:

• The client’s primary clinician receives an email notification
• All clinicians assigned to the client can view the files from the client’s profile > Files tab

Configuring additional Client Portal settings

The Client Portal permissions page includes additional settings you can configure based on your practice’s needs.

• Under Localization, select Clients can choose their portal language to allow clients to view and use the Client Portal in Spanish
  • To learn more, see Offering the Client Portal in Spanish
• Toggle Online appointment requests on to allow clients to request appointments online through the Client Portal, based on your availability
  • To learn more, see Enabling online appointment requests

Next steps

After turning on and configuring the Client Portal, you can invite clients to access it. To learn how, see Inviting clients to the Client Portal.