Guest Portal is an Easy Projects page designed to help guest users to be involved in Easy Projects' workflow. They do so by monitoring progress of the projects they are members of, reading a news feed, adding issues and requests, posting messages and sharing files, etc. The page has intuitive controls, and is easy to use. In many ways Guest Portal resembles My Assignments page.

The things that customer user can view and do in Guest Portal include:

Project must have an not-equal-to-completed status for an activity to show, even if the activity has a not-treat-as-completed status.

Accessing Guest Portal

A guest user accesses Guest Portal the usual way, using his login and password on the EP login page.

Guest Portal Screen

The portal's screen includes the following main sections:

• A Green + icon to add an issue or request (provided there are Open projects available to add them to)
• A list of projects and activities the guest user is assigned to, filtered and sorted in accordance with the filters and sorting order set, as explained below.
• The details section (occupies the right-hand half of the screen when opened): the details of a project or activity that you have clicked open here.See below the details

Details section

The project details section contains the following main items:

• Project status;
• Project name, ID number, date of creation and name of creator;
• Progress bar, showing the current rate of completion of the project;
• Start and end dates (if specified);
• Description and Custom fields, if any;
• Project priority;
• Portfolio name;
• Customer's name.

The activity details section contains the following main items:

• Activity status;
• Activity name, ID number, date of creation and name of creator;
• Progress bar, showing the current rate of completion of the activity;
• Description and Custom fields, if any;
• Message board where you can view all messages and file attached to the activity and add your own; 
• I'm done button;
• Type of activity: Task, Issue, or Request;
• Activity type
• Activity priority;
• Category;
• Start and end dates, if specified. 

Message Board

Guest Portal allows you to view all messages exchanged between activity assignees. Apart from viewing communications on activity matters keeping you up to date, you can contribute to the exchange by posting messages of your own.

Messaging

To post a message:

1. Type your message into the 'Type message or drop files...' text bar at the very bottom of the message board.
2. Click the paperclip button on the left to add a file to the message.
3. Click the Post button (), or hit Ctrl+Enter to post the message.

Attaching Files

You can download files attached to activities with a single click, or upload your own in a matter of seconds.

To attach a file:

1. Click the paperclip button next to the message text bar at the bottom of the message board.
2. Navigate to the location of the file, select it and click 'Open'.

To drop a file to message board:

1. Open the folder of the file you want to upload in Windows Explorer.
2. Resize the Explorer window and move it on the screen so as both the file in Windows Explorer and the Easy Projects message board text bar are visible to you.
3. Drag the file from Windows Explorer onto the message board text bar until a blue circle with 'Drop files here' across it pops up.
4. Release the mouse button to drop the file within the circle. 
5. With the file icon and name visible in the expanded text bar, click the Post button.

Filters

Two filter options are available:

• Active activities, and
• Completed activities

To switch between the two, select the respective item on the filter menu.

Sorting

You can sort the items in Guest Portal by project name (ascending order), start date, end date, and in a couple of other ways. Here's the complete list of sorting options:

• Start date;
• End date;
• Priority;
• Project; and
• Importance

The sorting options are selected from a dedicated menu:

Sorting by importance is the same as sorting by WBS in Activity Center.

Extra options

Additional options (one, as of this writing) are available through the cogwheel button ():

• Show activities without end date.

When enabled, this option instructs Guest Portal to display activities with no end date specified. 

Custom Forms

The Custom Forms option gives you access to the forms with 'Allow guest users to access the form' turned on. 

To add a record to a custom form:

1. Log in to Guest Portal.
2. Click the Custom Forms item in the menu on the left.

3. Click 'Add record' of the custom form you would like to add a record to.
4. As the form opens in a separate window, fill in its forms.
5. Click 'Submit' when you are finished.

I'm Done

A guest user can indicate that his or her portion of work on an activity is complete by using the 'I'm Done' button.

To use the 'I'm Done' button:

1. Log in to Guest Portal.
2. Click on an activity name to open its details.
3. Click 'I'm done'.

Notification Center

For an overview of the Notification Center, see this article.

Notifications Available to Guest Users

On the Stream tab, guest users receive only notifications reflecting changes in project or activity fields that they can view. These include:

Inbox Tab Notifications

Only two kinds of notifications are received and shown on the Inbox tab of the Notification Center.

These are:

• Assignments
• @mentions

For archiving Inbox notifications, please see this article.

Shared Project Plans

Other users can share project plans they create  with guest users.

To access the shared project plans:

1. Login to Easy Projects Guest Portal.
2. Click Shared Project Plans on the main menu.