Signing In to the Client Portal
How an agent gets into their client portal with a magic link — no password, no account setup — and why they only ever see their own data.
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Signing in to the client portal is passwordless. Agents never set a password, and they can’t use a “forgot password” flow — there isn’t one for client accounts.
Where agents sign in
The portal only lives on your business’s own subdomain or custom domain, at /portal/login. It doesn’t work on the main Spatiko app — an agent who lands there gets bounced to the regular login page instead.
How the magic link works
- The agent enters their email at
/portal/login. - Spatiko checks for a Client record matching that email at your business — or for an account manager with that email, including someone whose invite is still open. If there’s no match, nothing is sent — and the page doesn’t reveal whether an account exists either way.
- If there is a match, Spatiko emails a secure login link. The link is single-use and expires after 15 minutes.
- Clicking the link signs the agent in and takes them back to the portal page they were trying to open — an order, say, from a link in one of your emails. If they started at the login page, they land on
/portal.
There’s no signup form. The first time an agent clicks a valid link, Spatiko creates their account automatically in the background — no separate welcome or consent step.
If you offer more than one language to clients, the sign-in page appears in the language the visitor last picked on your pages — otherwise your default language — and the login email goes out in the language saved on their client record, or your default language if none is saved. See languages and translations.
What happens behind the scenes on first sign-in
On that first successful click, Spatiko:
- Creates the agent’s user account silently.
- Links every Client record for that email at your business to the new account.
- Creates an empty Agent Profile for them, carrying over the company name from their Client record as a starting brokerage name.
An account manager who isn’t your client gets a user account but no Agent Profile. If they have no orders of their own, they land straight in the agent’s account, or on a list of accounts to choose from if they manage several agents.
From then on, the agent is a normal signed-in user with a session — future sign-ins just verify the link and take them to the page they opened, or to /portal.
Why agents only see their own data
Access to the portal comes from having a Client record linked to the signed-in account, or an accepted account-manager invite from your business. Someone with neither gets a “not a client account” error, even if they separately work as staff at a photography business.
Every portal page and download re-checks, server-side, that the order or website being requested belongs to a Client linked to that agent — and, when accessed from your subdomain, that the record belongs to your business specifically. So an agent who’s a client of several photographers never sees one business’s data while signed in on another’s site.
There’s one more layer on orders with several people on them: which orders appear in someone’s portal follows the order’s own people setup. A person added to an order sees it in their portal when Gets the delivery or Can pay is on for them on that order, or when they hold an invoice on it. Only people who get the delivery see its photos, video, and property website; someone who can only pay sees the order and its billing. See order participants for how those switches work.
Two more kinds of access widen what someone sees, always within your business. A company admin also sees every order tied to their company, read-only. An account manager sees the orders of the agents they act for, and only while they’re switched into that agent’s account.
Go deeper
- The client portal — what agents can do once they’re signed in.
- Client records — the record an agent’s email has to match before the portal lets them in.
- How clients manage their profile — what an agent fills in for themselves once they’re through the door.
- Delivering your media — how a shoot first reaches an agent.
- Account managers — how an agent’s assistant gets their own sign-in.
Frequently asked questions
What do I tell a client who forgot their portal password?
That there isn't one. Client accounts are passwordless — agents never set a password, and there's no forgot-password flow for them. They just enter their email at your portal login and Spatiko emails them a link.
Why won't the client portal load for my client?
Usually they're at the wrong address. The portal only exists on your business's own subdomain or custom domain, at /portal/login — it doesn't exist on the main Spatiko app, so an agent who lands there is bounced to the regular login page. Send them your portal address instead.
Why does a client sign in successfully but see no orders?
Usually because they aren't set up to see any order. A person added to an order sees it in their portal only when Gets the delivery or Can pay is on for them on that order, or when they hold an invoice on it. Turn Gets the delivery on for the orders they should see, or send them their delivery link instead.
Why is a client seeing a not-a-client-account error?
Portal access comes from a client record at your business that's linked to their account, or from an account-manager invite they've accepted with your business. If the email they signed in with matches neither, they see that error — even if they work at a photography business themselves. Add or correct their client record and they're in.