The client portal
What clients can do in your client portal, like cancel or see invoices, how they log in, and how to change its link, look, sections and welcome message.
Your client portal is where clients sign in to see their appointments, fill in forms and keep their details up to date. It uses your logo and colors. You set it up in Settings → Client Portal.
Share your portal link
- Go to Settings → Client Portal.
- Under Client Portal URL, select the copy button next to your portal's address. You'll see Portal URL copied to clipboard.
- Send it to clients, or add it to your website.
Your emails link to the portal. Confirmations have a View or Manage Appointment button, and reminders have View Appointment.
How clients sign in
Clients don't create an account. Any client with an email address on their profile can sign in with it.
- They open your portal link, enter their email and select Send Login Link.
- Lilo emails them a login link. It works once, within 15 minutes.
- They open the link and land on the portal's home page.
They stay signed in for 7 days in that browser. To sign out, they choose Sign out from the menu.
What clients can do
- Home: your welcome message, their upcoming appointments and the forms waiting for them. Members also see their membership, and clients with loyalty points see their balance.
- Appointments: their upcoming and past appointments. They can cancel an upcoming one if your cancellation policy allows it. They can't move it to another time.
- Membership: their plan, when it renews and their vouchers. Only clients with an active membership see it. See Memberships.
- Forms: forms waiting for them, with Complete, or Continue once they've started. See Form responses and what clients see.
- Photos: their photos and their photo consent. See Photos and consent.
- Invoices: their invoices, what they've paid and what they owe. They can look at them but can't pay in the portal. To settle a balance, the portal asks them to contact you.
- Profile: their name, phone, birthday and address, and which emails they get. To change their email address, they contact you.
While your referral program is active, Home also has a Refer a friend card with the client's code. See Referrals.
Owners and admins
Change how your portal looks and what it shows
- Go to Settings → Client Portal.
- Change what you want:
- Logo & Favicon: a Portal Logo and a browser tab icon (Favicon) just for the portal. Leave them empty to use your company brand.
- Branding Colors: the portal's Primary Color and Accent Color.
- Portal Features: turn Appointments, Forms, Photos or Invoices off to take them out of the portal's menu and home page.
- Welcome Message: the Title and Message at the top of the portal's home page. With no title, clients see "Welcome back" and their first name.
- Support Contact: the Support Email and Support Phone at the bottom of each page once clients sign in.
- Select Save Changes. You'll see Portal settings saved.
The first time you give the portal its own logo, favicon or color, Lilo asks whether your company brand should change with it. Choose Update company brand too to use it everywhere, or Just the client portal. To go back to your company brand later, select Reset to company brand next to that setting's name, then Save Changes.
Change your portal's address
Your portal link and your booking link end with the same name, like /portal/your-business and /book/your-business. Changing it here changes both, along with your website's booking code and your team's booking links. Lilo doesn't forward the old links, so they stop working.
- Under Client Portal URL, select Customize URL.
- Type the new name, using lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. Lilo shows ✓ Available when it's free.
- Select Save URL. You'll see Portal URL updated successfully.
Then copy your new booking link and website code from Settings → Booking Page, and replace the old ones wherever you've shared them.
How it works
- Only active clients can sign in. Archived and blocked clients can't, and blocking or archiving a client signs them out.
- If two clients share an email address, only one of them can sign in with it.
- If you change a client's email, they sign in with the new one. The old one stops working.
- You can turn off Appointments, Forms, Photos and Invoices in Portal Features. Home and Profile are always there, and Membership shows only to members.
- Clients can't book in the portal. They book on your booking page.
- In the portal's Profile, Appointment Reminders controls more than reminders. Turning it off stops all your appointment and form emails to that client, confirmations included. Marketing Emails controls your marketing emails.
- Your team can turn a client's appointment emails back on with Email notifications in Edit Details on their profile.
- The portal and its settings are on the web only. Front desk staff and location managers can see the settings but not change them.
Appointment Reminders also turns the client's appointment texts on or off.
When clients can cancel
Your cancellation policy in Settings → Booking Page decides it. Appointment Cancellation Policy on the Client Portal tab shows how it reads to clients.
- No restrictions: clients can cancel any upcoming appointment.
- Notice required: they can cancel until the Required Notice before it starts. After that, Cancel appointment is grayed out, with a note to contact you.
- Contact to cancel: there's no cancel button. The portal asks them to contact you.
Clients can only cancel appointments that are booked or confirmed, not ones already checked in.
Clients who paid a deposit can still cancel after the Required Notice, once they confirm they won't get the deposit back. See Cancellations, no-shows, and deposits.
Common questions
A client didn't get the login email. Why?
The portal always shows Check Your Email, even when Lilo didn't send a login email. Usually it's one of these:
- The email they typed isn't the one on their profile, or their profile has no email.
- Their profile is archived or blocked.
- Your client messages are paused until you go live after switching from another platform. See Switch to Lilo.
After 5 requests in an hour, the portal shows Too many login requests. Please try again later.
The login link says Login Failed. What do they do?
The link expired or was already used. They select Back to Login and ask for a new one.
Can clients pay an invoice in the portal?
No. They can see their invoices and what they owe, but not pay them there.
Can clients reschedule in the portal?
No. If your policy allows it, they can cancel and book a new time on your booking page.
Can I turn the portal off?
No. You can turn off Appointments, Forms, Photos and Invoices. Any client with an email address can still sign in.
Share a provider's booking link
Copy or share a team member's own booking link, which opens your booking page with them already chosen and shows only their services.
Create your Lilo Site
Set up and publish your one-page booking site, what it needs to go live, its heylilo.me address, and what clients see.