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The client portal is a website of your own where the people you care for sign in to see appointments, sign documents, join video visits and message you. This page gets it switched on, named, addressed and published.
The product changes this word to match your edition, so your sidebar may say Patient portal and Patient Portal instead. Everything on this page works the same either way.

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Turn it on and publish

1

Open the portal settings

Go to Settings, find the Client portal group in the settings sidebar, and select Client Portal.The card at the top holds the master switch, your portal’s web address and the publish button. Below it are seven tabs: Branding, Appointments, Messaging, Telehealth, Documents, Notifications and Privacy.
2

Switch the master toggle on

Turn Client Portal on. The sublabel underneath tells you where you stand: Currently disabled, Active & accessible, or Requires upgrade if your plan does not include the portal.With the master switch off, nobody can sign in — whatever any individual record says.
3

Name the portal and set its address

Open the Branding tab and fill in Portal Name — for example “Sunrise Health Portal”. A URL Slug is generated from it, and that slug is the last part of your portal’s web address.The slug is checked as you type: at least three characters, no reserved or offensive words, and not already taken by another practice. A slug that fails the check blocks saving until you change it.Pick something short that a patient can read out over the phone. Changing it later breaks every link you have already sent.
4

Save

Save stays unavailable until both Portal Name and URL Slug are set. Until then the card at the top says “Set a URL slug in Branding to publish your portal”.While you are in Branding, add your logo and colours too — see Brand your portal.
5

Publish it

Back on the top card, select the publish button. Your portal goes live at the address shown on the chip — client.clinikehr.com/ followed by your slug — and the button becomes a green pulsing Live.Use the copy and open buttons on that chip to grab the address or view the portal as a patient sees it.
The green Live button is not a save button. Once your portal is published, selecting it unpublishes the portal — its tooltip reads “Unpublish Client Portal” and you get the message “Portal unpublished successfully”. Patients can no longer reach it. If you unpublish by accident, select the button again to publish it back.

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Check it worked

Three things tell you the portal is genuinely live:
  1. The master switch’s sublabel reads Active & accessible.
  2. The button on the top card is a green pulsing Live.
  3. Opening the address on the chip in a private browser window shows your clinic’s welcome page with Existing Patient, New Patient and a Sign In link.
Now give one real person access and sign in as them — see Give a patient portal access. A published portal with nobody enabled on it does nothing.

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Two switches, not one

This is the single most common source of “the portal isn’t working” tickets. A person can only sign in when both of these are true: If the clinic-wide portal is off, the Portal tab on a client record shows an amber notice: “Clinic portal is currently disabled — The client portal is globally disabled for your clinic. You can enable it in Settings > Client Portal to allow clients to log in.”

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What each plan includes

A locked tab shows an amber shield. If a paid plan lapses it counts as Free and the portal goes away with it, so keep billing current if patients depend on it. See Change your plan and Roles and permissions.

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No custom domain

The portal always lives at client.clinikehr.com/ followed by your slug. It does not support a domain of your own, and there is no setting for one. Custom domains do exist elsewhere in ClinikEHR — for booking pages, your store, memberships, contact forms and agents — which is why people go looking. The portal is not one of them, so put the client.clinikehr.com address on your website and in your emails rather than waiting for a custom one.

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If something goes wrong

Both Portal Name and URL Slug must be filled in, and the slug must pass its check. Open the Branding tab; the field with the problem is marked there. A slug that is too short, reserved, offensive or already taken by another practice blocks saving until you change it.
Only the practice owner can change portal settings. Managers and staff can look but not edit. Ask your owner to make the change, or see Roles and permissions.
Your plan does not include the portal, or a paid plan has lapsed and reverted to Free. See Change your plan.
Those tabs need a higher plan — messaging and notifications need Essential and above. The rest of the settings still save normally.
Check the button on the top card is a green Live. If it is not, the portal is unpublished — select it to publish. Then confirm the person is using the exact address on the chip, including your slug, and that their individual access is enabled.

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Next

Give a patient portal access

The three ways a person gets in, and the email-address trap.

Choose what patients can see and do

All seven settings tabs, one by one.