How to Use the Booking Invitee Portal
One manage link per visit leaves repeat guests hunting old emails
A regular client has four upcoming appointments and four different manage URLs. They cancel the wrong one from an old message.
Staff reschedule by phone because the guest cannot see all visits in one place.
A shared Real Estate-style cookie login would mix property tenants with salon bookers on the wrong portal.
Why this happens
- Invitee portal stays off in Booking Settings.
- Guests only receive per-booking manage tokens and never request portal access.
- The company public slug is missing, so /book/portal/{slug} cannot resolve.
- Staff expect passwordless Real Estate cookies instead of the invitee sign-in flow.
Biznsbook addresses this through Invitee portal, PortalJwt, list cancel reschedule when Booking Management is licensed — locations, resources, offerings, and hours sit on the same company as parties, sales, and the public booking page.
Finance teams lose days each month reconciling versions that should never have diverged. Naming Biznsbook screens as the system of record — and closing periods when agreed — prevents silent edits that auditors flag immediately.
Step-by-step: Use the Booking Invitee Portal
Built for front desks and owners taking appointments, rentals, classes, and stays in Biznsbook Booking Management.
- Enable the portal. In Bookings → Settings → General, turn on Invitee portal. The company public page must already be on with a slug.
- Share the portal address. Tell guests to open /book/portal/ and your slug, or use Open my bookings portal from a manage page when the feature is on.
- Request access. The guest enters the email used on their bookings. If matches exist, Biznsbook emails a set-password link.
- Accept the invite. The guest sets a password of at least eight characters and is signed into the portal.
- List and manage. The home list shows bookings for that email at that company. Open a visit to cancel or reschedule inside your policy.
- Sign out when done. Use Sign out on the portal home. Single-booking manage links still work for guests who never open the portal.
Review results after the first full weekly cycle. Adjust roles, mappings, or approvals where the same exception repeats.
Screen names in this guide match Bookings in the product: Calendar, Bookings, Front desk, Waitlist, Reports, and Settings.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Mistake 1: Invitee portal stays off in Booking Settings. Repeating this each month usually shows up first in today's booking list or the no-show rate.
- Mistake 2: Guests only receive per-booking manage tokens and never request portal access. Repeating this each month usually shows up first in today's booking list or the no-show rate.
- Mistake 3: The company public slug is missing, so /book/portal/{slug} cannot resolve. Repeating this each month usually shows up first in today's booking list or the no-show rate.
- Mistake 4: Staff expect passwordless Real Estate cookies instead of the invitee sign-in flow. Repeating this each month usually shows up first in today's booking list or the no-show rate.
Track recurring exceptions in month-end notes; each should map to a control above.
Best practices that hold up as you scale
- Enable the portal — In Bookings → Settings → General, turn on Invitee portal.
- Share the portal address — Tell guests to open /book/portal/ and your slug, or use Open my bookings portal from a manage page when the feature is on.
- Request access — The guest enters the email used on their bookings.
- Accept the invite — The guest sets a password of at least eight characters and is signed into the portal.
- List and manage — The home list shows bookings for that email at that company.
Teams that set weekly hours before sharing links, take card deposits into their Stripe account, and keep personal calendars synced as busy blocks avoid double-books and missing Meet links.
How Biznsbook supports this workflow
Invitee portal is documented in Biznsbook Booking Management capabilities. Use it as part of a controlled finance process — posting, review, and period close — not as an isolated export. When Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Taxation, Expense, or Finance Management modules are enabled, related documents can post through the central accounting posting service with double-entry validation.
PortalJwt is documented in Biznsbook Booking Management capabilities. Use it as part of a controlled finance process — posting, review, and period close — not as an isolated export. When Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Taxation, Expense, or Finance Management modules are enabled, related documents can post through the central accounting posting service with double-entry validation.
list cancel reschedule is documented in Biznsbook Booking Management capabilities. Use it as part of a controlled finance process — posting, review, and period close — not as an isolated export. When Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Taxation, Expense, or Finance Management modules are enabled, related documents can post through the central accounting posting service with double-entry validation.
Booking permissions cover view, manage, setup, policy override, refund, reports, and sensitive intake answers. Sales, POS, and Accounting are used only when those modules are licensed.
Suggested implementation timeline
- Week 1: Document current process gaps and configure Invitee portal with finance owner sign-off.
- Weeks 2–3: Pilot on one month or one entity; post all test transactions through Biznsbook; freeze parallel spreadsheet journals.
- Week 4: Run first trial balance or report tie-out; fix mapping and permission issues.
- Month 2–3: Roll out to full team; add approvals and period close cadence from this guide.
- Ongoing: Monthly review using manage link versus portal and leadership dashboard.
Security model
Invitee passwords use the same PBKDF2 style hashing pattern as the CRM portal. Access tokens are PortalJwt bearer tokens with a booking_invitee role. The Razor UI stores the access token in an HttpOnly cookie for /book/portal paths.
JSON clients can call /book/portal/auth/login and refresh, then authorize API list and cancel routes with the bearer token.
Real Estate owner and tenant cookie portals are not reused here. Mixing those logins with salon bookers would cross product boundaries and confuse which company scoped list the guest should see.
Email matching
Bookings are matched by GuestEmail and optional PartyId on the invitee account. Turning the portal off stops new sign-ins for that company slug while existing manage tokens continue to work.
Enter from a manage token can sign the guest in when a password already exists, or send them to set a password on first use.
Request access always returns a neutral success tone so strangers cannot probe which emails have bookings. Only matching emails receive the set-password message.
Desk messaging for repeat guests
Put the portal URL on confirmation emails for regulars, and keep the manage link for first-time guests who only need one visit.
Cancel and reschedule from the portal use the same GuestCanCancel and reschedule services as the manage page, so policy windows stay consistent.
If a guest changes email, they will not see old visits under the new address until bookings are updated. Staff should correct GuestEmail on the booking rather than inventing a second portal account by hand.
Card pay links and Meet links stay on each booking. The portal is a list and policy actions hub, not a second place to configure Stripe or Google Calendar.
Share /book/portal/{slug} on the confirmation email footer for regulars. First-time guests can keep using the manage link until they ask for a full list. Staff should not invent passwords for guests; the set-password email is the only supported path.
If Invitee portal is off, hide the portal URL from marketing. Guests who land on /book/portal/{slug} while the switch is off will not get a working sign-in for that company.
Metrics to track monthly
- Today's booking count
- Utilisation (booked time over open time)
- Stay occupancy
- Revenue booked versus revenue collected
- No-show rate and deposits held
Start with three metrics; trend direction matters more than a single point-in-time snapshot.
Spreadsheet / manual books vs integrated ERP
Compare typical manual finance work with Biznsbook Invitee portal and related capabilities.
| Capability | Manual / Spreadsheet | Biznsbook |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | ❌ One token per booking | ✅ All visits under the email at that company |
| Auth style | ❌ Opaque manage URL only | ✅ CRM-style JWT after password |
| Real Estate portal | ❌ Cookie tenant/owner login | ✅ Not used for booking invitees |
| Cancel rules | ❌ Same guest cancel policy | ✅ Same GuestCanCancel rules via portal actions |
| Reschedule | ❌ Manage link form | ✅ Portal detail form with the same guest reschedule service |
| First visit | ❌ Email manage link | ✅ Request access once, then reuse sign-in |
Manage link versus portal
The manage link is the fastest path for a single confirmation email. The portal is for repeat guests. Both honour cancel and reschedule windows. Card pay links and Meet links on each booking remain on the booking detail and manage views.
Document this in your finance SOP and revisit each quarter as transaction volume or entity structure changes.
Frequently asked questions
Does the portal show another company’s bookings?
No. The portal is scoped by the company slug and the invitee account’s company. Email alone is not enough across tenants.
Can guests still use /book/manage/{token}?
Yes. Per-booking manage links remain. The portal is optional for people who want a list.
Is this the CRM customer portal?
It uses the same JWT signing approach and pattern, but booking invitee accounts are separate and only list bookings.
What if the email has no bookings?
Request access still returns a neutral success message so addresses are not leaked. No invite email is required when nothing matches.
How this differs by industry
Retail
A colour client can open the portal before a holiday week and move two of three appointments without calling the desk for each manage link.
Wholesale & distribution
A buyer who booked three showroom slots can cancel one visit from the portal list while leaving the others confirmed.
Manufacturing
A contracted technician can reschedule remote Meet diagnostics from the portal after signing in with the email on the bookings.