What is the Portal?

The Portal allows users to open up specific form(s) outside of the main application of ClientTrack. This will allow people to create, edit, and/or view records that will be able to be seen within the application. This can be done as a registered, unregistered, and/or ClientTrack user.

At the time of this writing, there is no baseline portal setup. All portals must be built custom to the environment that they are in. The portal is not enabled by default in any environment/database and must be turned on by Eccovia per environment. Activation of the portal and access to its permissions are not included with the standard design rights training.

All forms available in the portal must be whitelisted in the application for use in the portal. If you whitelist a root form, the workgroup override will be enabled as well (based on the workgroup of the user that is accessing it).

There are several different use cases that have used this. Below are some examples:

• Pre-screeners - If you have never been here before, please go to our website and fill out this form so that we can more quickly process your request.
  • Please note - This option requires at least a custom intake workflow and custom edit client form, and potentially other custom forms as well. If you are an HMIS compliant client, this would mean having to update these custom forms/workflows when HUD releases their Data Standards updates.
• 3rd party referrals - This could be both incoming and outgoing. You could connect a registered portal user to a specific ProviderID. They could then log in and see all services that were referred to that provider within the last ‘x’ days. Alternatively, you could have that same user log in and prior to referring someone, enter some basic information before they show up.
• Secure data entry outside of the office - A refugee worker could fill out information while helping people detained at the border with a tablet. The form is a dumb form that can only intake data. If border patrol takes the tablet, they can't see anything already saved. Then the worker can look up and finish work when they get back to the office.
• Volunteer signups - If you want to be a volunteer, fill out this page and we will reach out to you.
• Upcoming events - Clients can see their personal calendar or you can set things up to show all upcoming events that people could potentially sign up for
• RSS Feed - You can display an RSS feed.

Accessing the Portal

Normally when you log into the standard ClientTrack environment, you should log in with a URL like this:

https://clienttrack.eccovia.com/login/Environment

At the end of the above URL, the environment will be different for every client. The URL for the portal should look like this:

https://clienttrack.eccovia.com/portal/default.aspx?CustomerID=Environment

If you replace the environment at the end of that URL with your environment's name, that will load the portal for your environment. The portal should be enabled for both your production and training environments. If you have permission to update the portal, you will need to make all changes in the training environment and the portal will sync from training to production. The only items that do not sync are the portal users and news posts.

Portal Administration

The portal can be setup in two locations: in the application and in the portal itself. The forms that control the portal within the application can be located in the Home Workspace → Global Admin → Portal Administration.

In order to access this menu option/group, there are two requirements: 1) The portal must be turned on and 2) you must have the user permission. All baseline forms that relate to the portal are located in this menu group.

When you request to have the portal enabled in ClientTrack, an Eccovia DBA must turn on the portal for your environment. This is a one-time request and once on, it should stay turned on. Until the request is approved, you will instead see an error.

There are some clients that have more than just their production and training environments. If you have something like a sandbox environment, the portal might not be enabled on that other environment. If this is an issue, you will need to reach out to your CSM.

The portal has its own set of permissions. In order to get to the portal administration form, you must have at least read access to the Portal Designer permission.

If you meet both requirements, you can select Portal Administration to get to the Portal Properties form.

Portal Properties Form

Selecting Portal Administration will take you to the Portal Properties form. Please note that changes to this form can sometimes take as long as 10 minutes to take effect. Most changes take effect right away, but not all settings. Let's go through the settings on this form.

The Heading and Tag Line fields control text that will show at the top of the portal.

Most clients prefer to have a full color logo at the top of the page rather than just the text. If you would rather have a picture display, you can submit a support ticket with your image attached to it. The support team will have to forward the request to a DBA to get that picture uploaded to the web server. This process can take a few days, but once uploaded it will replace that text. When this file is uploaded, it will take effect in both production and training right away and will not have to wait for a sync.

The file can be a single PNG file. Below are the recommended pixel resolution settings. The file does not have to be exactly those resolution settings.

640 x 428
960 x 642
1100 x 736
1400 x 937
1800 x 1204 

The Title Bar setting shows what the tab in the browser should display as.

This is the default value for the title. This can be set differently for each individual page within the portal.

The Allow unregistered users to access the portal makes it so that you have to be logged in in order to do anything in the portal.

When this is disabled, no matter what a user tries to do in the portal, it will take them to this page if they are not logged in.

Unless they have logged in, they will not be able to see any content inside of the portal.

Portal User Failed Login Attempts

If a portal user tried to log in too many times unsuccessfully, they can get locked out for a time. These settings will match the following System Properties for standard ClientTrack Users.

 

There are options to Allow either users or providers to self-register.

In the top right-hand corner of the portal, it controls this drop down.

If you do not have either checkbox checked, that registration option will disappear. 

If you only have one of the two options selected, it will just say register and that option will take you directly to the registration page.

You can Allow users to reset their own password if they forgot it.

This setting controls if this forgot password link shows up below the login page.

When you select that option, you will get this page.

This works just like it does for normal ClientTrack users.

You can Require that user/provider accounts must be activated before they can log in.

This controls if the PortalUser record is marked as approved or not when the account is first created. When you create the account, it will show different messages to the portal user as well.

You can set the User/Provider registration FormID to be loaded.

This controls which form is loaded when you try to register a user/provider.

To the right of the form search, there is the option for either edit or read only. This shows the current whitelist settings for the selected form. Changing these values will change the whitelist value of the form selected.

You can set the Default Portal Page.

This will show you a drop down of the different pages that have been made within the portal. You should select the page you want to load first when someone opens up the portal. 

Provider Detail FormID

In the portal there is a catalog item called Find Provider. When using this item, you can select a provider. The form that loads will show further information on the selected provider. This will be covered in the Portal Catalog options section.

Portal Users Form

This form can be found in the Portal Administration menu group.

This form will let you search through all PortalUser records.

If you edit a user, this is where you can view/edit specific PortalUser records, including resetting passwords.

At the bottom of this form there are some important settings to take note of.

The Is approved checkbox is where you give a user approval to use the portal.

Depending on how you set the registration to require that the user is approved before login, this will be checked/unchecked by default. If this is not checked, the user will get the following error message.

The Locked Account checkbox will do just that. If the user tries to login, they will get this message.

The ProviderID element is how you can link this user account to a specific provider.

In baseline, this element tags that the user works for a specific provider. This does not give them any additional permissions or access to specific records.

The CT UserID (only set for applications users) field will show if a user is a ClientTrack user in the osUsers table. If the user is not a ClientTrack user, the field will not display any value. This field is not editable.

Portal User Types

There are three different kinds of accounts that can access the portal:

• ClientTrack Users
  • All ClientTrack application users
• Unregistered Users
  • These are anonymous/guest users
• Registered Users
  • These are accounts that are created via the registration inside the portal that get a corresponding PortalUser record

ClientTrack User accounts

If you are a ClientTrack user, you can log into the main application.

If you then open the portal for the exact same environment, you will automatically be logged in under your ClientTrack user account. 

If you sign out of the portal, you will also be signed out of the application. 

While a ClientTrack user is in the portal, all records created will be created and stamped with the OrgID of the org that they are logged into the application with.

This also controls form workgroup overrides. If you put a root form inside the portal that has different workgroup overrides, this will affect what form is loaded for the user.

Non-ClientTrack User Accounts

In all client environments there is an osUsers account named Portal User with a UserID of "POR".

All portal user accounts that get created are going to be tied to this account. Any records created/updated by the non-ClientTrack portal user will be marked as being created by or updated by the user “POR”.

In the user setup for that Portal user, there is the Workgroup setting.

This is the workgroup that is used for the portal users in relation to workgroup overrides. If you change this setting, the next time the portal user signs into the portal, this will be the workgroup that they are signed into. This directly controls the workgroup overrides for what the user will see.

The organization that is used for the portal users will by default be “My Sample Organization” and will stamp the OrgID “DSI” onto records created by the portal user. If you want to change this, you will have to follow several steps. The Organization is based on the last organization that the user logged into and not the owning organization. To change this, you would have to reset the password for the portal user (UserID "POR"), update the organizations that the user has access to, and then log into the portal user account for a different organization. Once you had logged in as the other org you could just log back out and then all records created by portal users would be a different organization.

Portal Form Whitelist

This form can be found in the Portal Administration menu group.

This shows a list of forms that are available in the portal.

Please note, you only need to enter the root FormID for the forms you are loading in the portal. If you enter the root form, the workgroup override that loads will also load without needing to be entered onto the list separately.

If you wish to add a new form to be added into the portal, you can select Add Form.

On the next page you can add a form that you would like to have added to the portal. Beneath the option to select a form, you can select what the form can be used for.

• Allow Edit
  • This is required for people to be able to either create or edit existing records on this form.
• Allow Read Only
  • This will make the form read only in all cases. This works like any other form in read only mode.

If you select both options, the Edit option will override the read only option. In general, you should be selecting at least one of these options.

Portal Entity Access

This form can be found in the Portal Administration menu group.

This is where you can tie a specific portal user to specific Client(s) and/or Provider(s).

In the top right-hand corner of the page, you can select if you want to connect a portal user to a specific client or provider.

On the prior search page, you can see which client(s) or provider(s) each user is connected to.

This section ties directly into the Entity Selection Catalog item. We will discuss how this works when we get to that section. What is important is that this is where you can Add/Remove/Audit which portal users have access to certain clients.

Portal Forums

A forum element can be added to a portal. A forum is a place for portal users to exchange ideas and views on topics.  To set up a forum to be used in the portal, you can create the forum in ClientTrack (or within the portal component itself –see instructions for this option further below). To create the forum in ClientTrack, navigate to the Portal Administration menu group, select the Portal Forums menu and then select Add New. From there, simply enter the name of the forum and save the record:

You can also identify categories for your forum, if applicable, by selecting the ellipses next to your completed forum record. Click on the Categories menu and enter the name of one or more categories.  

Once your forum and forum categories have been created in ClientTrack, you can add the forum element to your portal configuration. Instructions for how to configure your portal element and use the forum are included in the Designing the Portal Within the Portal section. 

System Properties 

There are portal-specific system properties that can be set in ClientTrack to use for your portal configuration. In Global Administration, System Administration, System Properties, scroll to the Portal section. There you will the following system properties for the portal, descriptions for each are further below:

• Portal – Account Locked Message
• Portal – Account Not Approved Message
• Portal – Allow File Upload
• Portal – File Types

Portal – Account Locked Message

This property, when checked, allows you to customize the text for the message that displays if a portal user attempts to login while their portal user account has been locked. 

Portal – Account Not Approved Message

This property, when checked, allows you to customize the text for the message that displays if a portal user attempts to login before their portal user account has been approved. 

Portal – Allow File Upload

This property allows you to control how and who can use file uploads:

• Leave the property unchecked, or do not select a value from the drop-down field if property is checked, to only allow authenticated users to upload a file.
• When the property is checked, select ‘Yes’ to allow ‘anonymous’ users and authenticated users to upload files.
• When the property is checked, select ‘No’ to not allow anonymous users to upload files.

Portal – File Types

This property, when checked, allows you to control the file formats if you do not want to use just the default formats. You can override the default settings to determine file extension and/or content types that you want to allow users to upload. The type values should be entered as a comma-separated list. If the list starts with the ‘+’, the system will include the default file types (see below) plus the file types specified by you. You can also use the following category values—[document], [image], [media], and/or [office]—to include types from those categories. If this property is not checked, all default file formats are allowed. 

The same default file types and categories allowed in ClientTrack are allowed in the portal. The include:

• Document: .csv,.pdf,.txt,.xml,.zip
• Image: .gif, .heic,.heics,.heif,.heifs,.jpeg,.jpg,.png,.svg,.webp
• Media: .avi,.mov,.mp3,.mp4,.wav
• Office: .doc,.docx,.ppt,.pptx,.xls,.xlsx

If you want to allow all these types, but allow additional types as well, simply start your value with + (e.g. +.html will allow html files along with the default types). 

If you want to completely specify your own types, you can enter them in. In this setting, you can also use [document], [image], [media], and [office] to include all files of the appropriate category (e.g. setting File Types to .html,[document] will allow html and other document files, but not images, media, or office files).

Please note, to utilize the Portal-File Upload and Portal - File Types properties, the portal must have a file upload form added to the Portal Form Whitelist.

Designing the Portal Within the Portal

If you log into your ClientTrack account and that account has the additional portal designer permissions, you will see some extra options in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Configure Site Structure

This is where you can add Pages to the portal and configure the Navigation menu options.

If you either add a new page or edit an existing one, you will get the Page Properties. This will be discussed in the next section.

You can select pages on the left and drag them to the site navigation.

The site navigation section is what makes different pages appear in the top left-hand corner of the portal.

You can click on the Label to change the text to display on the portal.

The order in which it displays on the site navigation also controls the order in which they are shown.

You will also notice that one of the items has a house icon next to it. That denotes that it is the Default Portal Page from the Portal Properties form.

Page Properties

If you are on a page, you can select the page properties button in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

This will open up the below page. You can also get to this via the Configure Site Structure.

The Page Title is where you can set the name of the page.

The Title Bar will override the browser tab name.

If left blank, the Tab Name will default to what you set in the Portal Properties Form.

Require Log-in requires that the user is logged in. It does not matter if the user is strictly a portal user or a ClientTrack user, they just must be logged in to see this option. Unregistered users will not be able to load the page.

Require ClientTrack requires that the user is a ClientTrack user and will not let registered or unregistered users view the page.

If you do not check either Require Log-in or Require ClientTrack, all users, including unregistered users, will be able to load the page.

If a page is not visible based on the Require Log-in or Require ClientTrack settings, it will not display in the site navigation. 

The Require Provider and Require Client tie into the Entity Selection Catalog option. This will be covered in more detail in that section.

The last part of the page properties has some different grid display options.

These options allow you to customize the layout of the page, this works similar to how the dashboard in the main application works.

Customizing Pages

While you are on a page, you can customize it by clicking the button in the top right-hand corner of the page.

This will open up the Catalog and show you which items are on the page.

This will look and act very similar to the dashboard designer.

If you want to add things from the catalog to a section, you can check the box, then at the bottom of the catalog you can set the section you wish to add it to.

In the top right-hand corner of each item added to the page, there is the button to see the settings for that section.

Again, this should work very similarly to the dashboard. Some Catalog items can have different options on this icon. One example would be if a form is loaded it will give a link to the form designer for that form.

You can select Configure and there are a few universal options.

The Title shows the name of the section in the top left-hand corner of the element.

The Redirect Title to makes the title clickable and lets you redirect them to another page.

When using redirects, you need to use this format for the URL.

• default.aspx?CustomerID=CES_Train&PageID=1
  • The ‘PageID’ correlates to the different pages. If you open that page via the navigation, you can see the PageID that you would need to use in the URL of the browser.
• viewform.aspx?FormID=1000000469&PrimaryKey=
  • This follows the standard form of URLs.
  • The form still has to be in the whitelist for it to load.
  • You can even load other forms in the portal from a button like an add new.

The Show Chrome checkbox determines if you want the portal to show the title at all.

Let's take a deeper look at the different Catalog items.

News

The News element has a few specific customizations.

When adding News, you can either create a new blog (which is a container for news posts) or select an already existing blog. You can also choose how many of the most recent news posts will be visible.

Once added, you should see the new section.

Adding a new entry will take you to this page.

You can add any news you would like.

Once saved, it will show the Summary, who posted it, and the news content.

When you create a news message, it will put that piece of news on the blog you set for the element. If you have a different page with the same blog, you should see the same posts.

Entity Selection

When you add the Entity Selection you will get the below configuration setting.

The Entity Type is checking what kind of entity it is checking your user account against the Portal User Entity Access. It will check the user that is currently logged in, and verify what Client(s)/Provider(s) that you have access to.

You can select one kind of entity and it will only show the entities of that type that are assigned to the current user.

Then on the form it will display the items that you have access to in order to switch between them.

If your account only has access to a single entity of said type, the dropdown will not display, and it will load whatever the single entity would be selectable. The user will not be able to see this element at all.

The way that entity selection works is that it controls the variable @PrimaryKey on the form on the page you are on. If you are selecting a Client entity, it will be the ClientID. For providers it will be the ProviderID. If you add a form to the page and set the Primary Key Value to @PrimaryKey, it will know to load that ID number on the form.

If you have a form on the same page as this entity selection, and you enable the entity required checkbox, if the entity selection does not have an entity loaded, that form will not load.

There is also some additional filtering that is done around tables with a column named ClientID when the enforce org restrictions setting is set on it.

Additional Client Security

In order to keep client data as secure as possible, there is another action performed on forms in the portal. If a table in the data definition has a column named exactly “ClientID”, and the form has the enforce org restrictions on the table is selected, an additional filter will be added.

 It will require that the portal user that is currently logged in must have access to the client in question, within the Portal Entity Access in order to load the record.

If you are building a record that will eventually connect to a client, it is recommended that that you do not name the column that will connect it to the client, “ClientID” (capitalization of ClientID does not matter). It is recommended that you add a column that ends in ClientID such as “RefClientID” or similar.

Form

When you add a Form, you will get the below configuration settings:

The Form dropdown will show you the list of forms in your Portal Form Whitelist. Adding/removing forms from the whitelist will make them appear or disappear from this list. If the form is not in the whitelist, it can't be added to the portal. If you remove a whitelisted form from the application that is currently in use within the portal, that form will no longer load in the portal.

The Primary Key Value is tied into the Entity Selection element. @PrimaryKey will return the ClientID/ProviderID that is supplied by the Entity Selection. If you do not have the entity selection on the page, this will be blank.

The Show Wizard has to do with forms that have more than one page. If you have multiple pages, showing the wizard will make the user go to one page at a time and click next between the pages. If you don't have the wizard, it will show the whole form and not multiple pages.

The Max Rows only works with search and multi edit forms. It will limit how many results you will be able to see on a page before having to click next.

The Full Search option is deprecated, and you do not need to worry about it.

The Entity required is tied into the Entity Selection. This means that in order for that page to return results, you must have the entity selection element on the form and an entity selected.

The Error message is only shown when Entity Required is selected. It defines what the error message should say if you try to load the page and do not have an entity selected. You can also add “{0}” in the text message and it will replace that series of characters with the word “client” or “provider” based on the setting in the entity selection. It should look like this when the error happens.

FORUM

You can add the forum element to your portal configuration. Please note, you must first set up the forum in Portal Administration, Portal Forums, as noted above. From the Catalog widget, select the Forum option and the position it should have in the portal page, then click Add.

This will open the Forum component in your portal page in design mode. From here, you can do some further customization of the forum element as well as select the forum record and categories for your forum. 

• Title – Enter text to override the default title of “Forum”.
• Redirect Title to – Enter a URL to redirect the portal user to when the title of the forum is clicked.
• Show Chrome – Defaults to as checked. When checked, the component will show its title bar. When unchecked, the title bar will be hidden. Unchecking this option will also hide the list of options for the component. The title bar is always shown when designing the page.
• Show – Defaults to Always. This option allows you to choose who to show the forum to:
• Forum – You can select a forum that has been created on the Portal Forums form in ClientTrack or select the + button to add a new forum to the component. You can also delete a forum from the component. When you delete a forum from the portal configuration, it will ‘soft’ delete the forum record in ClientTrack. Soft deleting a record is not a permanent deletion, meaning it can be restored in ClientTrack if it was deleted accidentally. 
• Categories - You can set one or more categories for a forum. This allows you to have multiple sub-threads within a forum. If a category was previously set up for the forum in ClientTrack, it will display listed when you select the forum for the component. You can also create a new category for the forum from the component design page. 

Using the Forum

The forum element, once added to your portal, displays the category(ies), latest post for each and the total number of applicable posts (topics and replies) for each category. The view also displays the user email, date and time of the post for each post.

To create a new post, portal users can select the ellipses in the top right corner of the forum to access the New Post button. The New Post pop up page appears where users can create a post associated to a category that will then display in the forum under the applicable category header. 

Selecting the category header will take you to the category page, where forum posts for the category are listed in reverse chronological order. From here, portal users can click the post headers to access a particular post. 

When the post header is clicked, either from the main forum page or the category page, users will see the following post details page where they will be able to reply to the post or edit the post, as applicable. A reply to a post will be listed in this page with the name of the original post preceded by “RE:”. Both original posts and replies to posts can have replies to them. 

Users can also create a new post for the category from this page by selecting New Topic. 

Selecting the path options in the navigation bar of the forum will take users back to the selected previous page of the forum. 

It is possible to have more than one forum configured on a portal page if desired.

Client Events

The Client Events element works in tandem with the Entity Selection element. It will display the calendar items for the entity that has been loaded. Then it will show calendar items for said client.

If you load the client in the main application and click on the calendar at the top of the entity bar, you can see their upcoming appointments.

You can then open up their calendar.

This will display their appointments in the monthly format.

If you go back to the portal and look for the same client, you will be able to see those events.

Find Providers

Page Text

The Page Text simply allows you to add text to a page. 

A dialogue box will appear that will let you add text to be displayed on the page.

Once you select Update, it will be shown on the page.

RSS Feed

This function allows you to have the page link to an existing RSS feed to display the information from the RSS feed on the page.

The item count shows how many results should show in the RSS feed.