iService includes a message portal (/f/message-portal) where customers can securely access their message history with you, submit new questions, and chat with your team. The portal is designed to match the most common layout for messaging systems, including an Inbox, Sent box, and Trash folder. This layout is also used in the /f/customerportal-tabs customer engagement center.
The portal uses the existing login function, so customers login using the same email or login that they use for any other forms within iService. The portal can be used with minimal styling, or updated to match your brand identity. The portal requires some basic setup to ensure interactions are properly displayed, and is designed to be used with a custom answer panel that automates the setting of interaction properties used to control message display.
The message portal uses interaction properties to determine when and how to display content. You must create the following four interaction properties before using the portal. They can be created within any segment of your tenant and marked as shared, but should be associated with any topic displayed in your message center.
Property Name
Property Type
Value Type
Shared
Description
Archived
Answer
Boolean
True
This property is used to indicate an interaction was marked by the customer as Trash. This causes the interaction to display in the Trash folder. When the customer clicks the Delete button in the portal, this property is set to TRUE.
HasBeenRead
Answer
Boolean
True
This property is used to indicate whether the customer has read the answer. This only applies to answers in the Inbox. When a question is read in the portal, the action that fetches the question details for display sets this property. If you do not create this property, the following error will be displayed when a message in the inbox is read because the property can't be updated.
Error when HasBeenRead properties is not setup
Deleted
Answer
Boolean
True
This property is used to indicate an interaction was marked by the customer as Deleted. This causes the interaction to NOT display in the portal. When the customer clicks the delete button in the Trash folder, this value is set. Clicking the Resolve button in the Secure Answer Panel sets this property to TRUE so the answer is not shown to the customer.
DoNotReply
Answer
Boolean
True
This property is used to indicate whether an agent answer should be displayed in the customer's Inbox. Clicking the Resolve button in the Secure Answer Panel sets this property to TRUE so the answer is not shown to the customer.
The user interface can be branded to reflect each tenant's unique colors and styles. Available themes can be previewed under the "Theme Colors" tab
in the Message Portal Settings.
Once a theme is selected, it is displayed throughout the Secure Message Portal. As displayed below:
Login Portal
Inbox and Sent Panels
The Read Message Panel
The Trash Panel:
Page Components
The components displayed on the Secure Message Portal can be customized using the "Page Components" settings. This allows you to add or remove features like Live Chat or restrict
the topics users can submit questions to.
The Page Components Setting allows you to customize the following settings:
1. Display Navigational Menus
2. Custom Topic List
3. Live Chat
Display Navigational Menus
Select the Menus to be displayed on your Header's top right side.
To add a menu item, enter the name (e.g., "About") and the URL of the page you want users to be directed to when they click the menu link.
Message Inbox
Custom Topic List
The "Use Custom Topic List" component lets you restrict the topics that logged-in users can select when submitting a question.
To set it up, click the drop-down menu and select the topics you want to display for question submission.
Note: If no Custom Topic List is specified, all public topics available to the contact within their segment will be shown for question submission.
Live Chat
Enabling the Live Chat toggle displays a chat bubble on your Secure Message Portal.
Note: The chat's topic list is limited to the topics selected in the Custom Topic List.
Override Code with Custom CSS and JS
The Override Code allows you to inject custom code into the Secure Message Portal pages.
Head Elements
Inserts code into the <head> section—commonly used for custom styles (<style>) or metadata (<meta>).
Component Templates
Lets you insert reusable HTML structures or layouts into the page. Useful for adding custom UI sections or modifying existing content structure.
Component Templates
Injects JavaScript at the bottom of the page (before the closing </body> tag), ideal for adding custom functionality, interactive behavior, or full components without blocking page load.
The message portal is designed to work with a special answer panel that automatically creates the appropriate type of interaction and sets the values for the DoNotReply interaction property. To enable this answer panel, select it as the default agent interface in Settings > Custom Forms Admin > Agent Interfaces > Answer Panel Buttons. To generate email notifications to the customer when an answer is provided, use the version that includes notifications.
This answer panel creates different types of interactions when sending answers as described below.
The Secure Message Portal Answer Panel
1 - The send button creates a Resolve Note instead of an Agent Response.
2 - The leave open option creates a Public Note instead of an Agent Email. This leaves the original question unresolved.
3 - The resolve button creates a Resolve Note, just like the default answer panel. But, it sets the DoNotReply interaction property to TRUE so the note is not shown to the customer.
This version of the answer panel doesn't have Public Note button, because the Send - Leave Open option already creates a Public Note. It also doesn't have a Spam button because secure message portals don't typically take in outside customer email.
The other action buttons are identical to the Default answer actions.
Error enabling secure message portal when properties are not configured
The secure message portal can be loaded without any configuration, but an error will be shown when users read messages. If you attempt to select the Secure Message Portal answer panel without the required properties, the following error will be displayed.
The notifications version of the secure message portal sends your customer a secure notification each time you provide an answer. The agent interface functions similarly to the regular secure notification panel, but different interaction types are used for the Send and Send Leave Open actions. To use the notifications version of secure messaging, you must first create a Secure Notification that will be sent to the customer informing them their answer is available.
The secure notification answer panel functions similarly to the standard answer panel. The differences are illustrated below.
The secure answer panel with notifications
1 - The SEND button generates a Secure Response that the customer must log in to read. Similar to an Agent Response, the Secure Response resolves the customer question. The SEND button also sends the contact a Secure Notification email that informs them the answer is available. The interaction properties used for controlling display in the message portal are all set to False, meaning the answer will appear as unread in the message center Inbox of the customer.
2. The SEND - Leave Open button generates a Secure Email, which does not resolve the customer's question. A Secure Notification template is emailed to the customer so they know that an answer is available to their question. Similar to the Secure Response, the customer must log in to the message portal to read the Secure Email.
3. The Resolve button create a Resolve Note that is only available for agents to view. It resolves the customer question and the DoNotReply and Deleted interaction properties will be set to True for the answer. This prevents it from being displayed to the customer in the message portal.
4. The Private Note action is identical to the action in the standard interface. It creates a Private Note that is not viewable by the customer in the message portal. Since the secure message portal does not have a SPAM button, the Private Note button was moved from the SAVE split button to its own button here.
The secure notification process requires every segment using the notifications answer panel to have a Secure Notification defined within the segment. You should only create one Secure Notification template for each segment.
The content within your notification template should explain to the customer that an answer is available, and provide instructions for how to login and read the answer. There are no required variables for the notification template, but the standard variables for name, etc. function similar to other notifications.
iService includes a message portal (/f/message-portal) where customers can securely access their message history with you, submit new questions, and chat with your team. The portal is designed to match the most common layout for messaging systems, including an Inbox, Sent box, and Trash folder. This layout is also used in the /f/customerportal-tabs customer engagement center.
Required Setup - Interaction Properties
