Intro to clients and companies
What you need to know about clients
Overview 
Clients represent the individuals that your business serves. For example, if you’re a marketing agency, a client is someone that pays you for marketing services. In the Copilot Dashboard, you need to have clients for most workflows. For example, to send a message or assign an invoice, you need a client to send a message to or assign an invoice to.
Example clients John and Jane
If you create a new workspace, you’ll initially see 2 example clients, John Doe and Jane Doe. If you have companies enabled, they will both be assigned to the company Rocket Rides. We only created these example clients so that you can explore workflows right away. For example, you can click on John Doe to see the Client details page. You can delete the example clients at any time.
Clients and companies
If you’ve enabled companies, you can use them to group multiple clients together. For example, if John and Jane both work at Rocket Rides, you can assign them both to the Rocket Rides company.
In the Copilot Dashboard you can use companies to:
Organize clients by associating them with companies that they are part of.
Take actions at the company level. For example, you can send a message or send an invoice to a company, letting all clients associated with the company see the relevant information.
In your portal, clients with associated companies can:
See other clients associated with their company on the Settings > Team page.
Invite other clients to their company (internal users can enable or disable this feature in Settings > General).
Client and company configuration
If you serve individuals (clients), disable companies in Settings > General. Company fields and company-level messaging and file channels will not be enabled.
If you serve companies each with many associated clients, enable companies in Settings > General.
Company fields and company-level message and file channels will be enabled. Billing will also be associated with companies instead of individual clients, unless a client is not assigned to a company.
You can specify if the default is a company channel or individual client channel. This default affects the type of channel that will be automatically created in Messaging and Files. Also, you can allow client users to invite team members.
Client statuses
Clients can have different statuses. They work as follows:
Status | Definition |
|---|---|
Not invited | The client was created but not yet invited via email. Note that you can also invite a client by manually sharing an invite link, but in this case their status will remain Not invited. |
Invited | The client received an email invite that prompted them to finish creating their account. Creating an account involves either setting a password or signing up with Google. |
Active | The client successfully activated their account. |
Client statuses and email notifications
Many actions you take, like sending a message or assigning an invoice to a client, trigger email notifications. If your client is in the Not Invited status, the default setting is to send email notifications. However, you can disable email notifications by going to Settings > General and toggling off the Send client email notification in uninvited status option.
Disabling this setting can be helpful if you want to set up a client account first (upload files, assign forms, etc.) and then send out a single invite email notification.
Ways to create clients
You can create clients by creating them one at a time, by importing them, or by allowing self-serve sign up. These three methods are explained in the next sections.
Client and Company channels
Channels are a concept we use for the Messages and Files Apps. They let you send messages or share files with an individual client, a group of clients, or a company (i.e. all clients associated with the company).
Creating channels
Note that if you have enabled companies then you can set your default channel type to be an individual channel or company channel.
To create a new channel, click on the + on the Messages or Files page. Then select one or more clients or select a company and submit. A new channel will be created. If the channel already exists, you will be redirected to it.
Channel types
Note that if you have disabled companies then you will only be able to to make use of client channels. You will not be able to use group channels or company channels.
A client channel is a channel with just one single client (i.e. one individual with an email). Other clients cannot see it.
A company channel is a channel that includes all clients that are associated with the company. If the clients associated with a company change, the clients that can access a company channel also change.
A group channel is a channel with two or more clients. Note that the clients in a group channel must be assigned to the same company. You cannot create a group channel with clients from multiple companies.
Editing channel members
Client channels cannot be edited or deleted. If you wish to delete the channel for an individual client, the client must be deleted.
Company channels are visible to all members of a company. If you wish to edit the members of a company, you will need to do so from the Clients page. Adding or removing a company from a client will add or remove the client from any company channels.
Group channels can be edited by clicking the 3 dots in the top-right of the channel and selecting Edit members. You can then add or remove members using the checkboxes in the dropdown.
Frequently Asked Questions
To remove a client from their assigned company, click on the existing company in the Company column for the client on the Clients page.
A dropdown will appear where you'll have the option Remove company. Click this to remove the client from the assigned company. Note: This action will not delete the company from your portal.
If you're seeing extra companies in the Company field dropdown, chances are the company was removed from clients but not fully deleted.
To delete a company, click on any company field in your Clients page. A dropdown will appear listing all of the companies associated with your portal. Click the 3 dots next to the company you wish to delete, and select Delete.
To create a company, click on either:
- The building icon in the company column for any client
- An existing company in the company column for any client
A dropdown will appear with a list of existing companies and an option to type a company name.
Typing in the dropdown will search the list of existing companies, and if none are found, you'll receive the option to create a new company.
Be sure you've typed the full name of the company you wish to create, then click Create.
To edit a company, click on the company in the Company column on the Clients page. A dropdown will appear with a list of existing companies.
Click the 3 dots next to the company you wish to edit (you can search for companies by typing in the dropdown).
An edit modal will appear where you can change the name and icon for the company.
To change the icon, click on the company icon in the edit modal and select an image from your device to upload a new icon.
To change the name, type the new name into the Name input.
After making your changes, click Save to update the company settings.
To change the profile image for a client, click on the client in your Clients page and the User details panel will appear on the right. Hover over the profile image and you'll see an Edit icon. Click on the profile image and select an image from your local device.
To change the profile image for a company, click on any company field in your Clients page. A dropdown with all companies associated with your portal will appear.
Click the 3 dots next to the company you wish to update and select Edit. The Company details panel will open. Hover over the profile image and you'll see an Edit (pencil) icon. Click on the profile image and select an image from your local device.
Currently our data model doesn't support a one client <> many companies relationship. As a workaround we recommend one of these two paths:
Create two client users, one for each business. This means that your client will have two separate login credentials. This path will lead to a bit more friction for your customer but is the most organized.
Create one client and assign it to one company that represents both businesses. For example, "McDonalds and Burger King". Then, whenever possible, organize client information in a way where you separate things out for each business. For example, in the Files App you may have one top-level folder called "McDonalds" and one called "Burger King".
Currently an internal user cannot update a client's email directly. This is a feature on our roadmap. There are two workarounds:
- Ask the client to log in and click on Settings > Account. On this page, the client can update their own email address.
- Go to the Clients page and click on the client to navigate to the Client details panel. Click the 3 dots in the top-right of the panel and select Reset password. Proceed to reset the password, log in as the client, then follow step 1 above and give your client the temporary password that you generated.
Foundation: Offer clients an experience that feels familiar
When clients sign up for your portal, it is important to offer them an experience that feels familiar and safe. We recommend that you:
- Connect a custom domain. A custom domain will make clients feel more secure because they are now on a URL that you own.
- Connect a custom email domain.They will now receive their invite and other email notifications from a known sender. Email notifications are also less likely to go to spam.
- Customize your portal. Upload your your logo, set your color scheme, and add your login image.
- Customize your Apps. Disable Apps you don't need, reorder them based on importance Apps, and update their names and icons.
- Set up a friendly welcome message. If you have the Messaging App enabled, new clients will receive a welcome message the first time they log in.
Inviting clients successfully
Your goal should be to make all your clients Active. Active means that the client has successfully accepted their invite and set their password. We have some tips:
- Before inviting your clients, tell them about the invite in advance, so that the email invitation they receive doesn't come as a surprise.
- If the client hasn't accepted their email invitation in a few days, you can click on the actions button and click on "Resend invite" to resend the email invite. You can repeat this process as many times as you like, but we recommend to do it no more than 2 or 3 times. If the first invite wasn't accepted you may also consider reaching out the client directly and walking them through the process.
- If the above step doesn't work, you can also try a more hands-on approach. Click on the actions button for the client, select "Resend invite", and copy the invite link. You can now paste this link into an email or SMS, and manually send the invite link to the client with a customized message.
You can invite your clients individually, or you can also bulk import clients from a .csv file. You can read more about importing clients here, and instructions for creating and inviting clients can be found here.
Letting clients self-serve sign up
If you instead want to let a user navigate to a page where they can self-serve sign up, you may consider enabling direct sign up.