How to set up email-only support and hide the Customer Portal

Currently, it is not possible to disable or hide the customer portal. However, you can prevent your customers from using the customer portal and only replying via email (utilize this as an email system) by following these steps.

• Turn off activation verification and contact password reset.
• Delete the ticket URL and ticket ID from the template.
• Disable the sign-up option from the customer portal.
• Change the file attachment download settings to public, allowing anyone who has a file download link to download the file without having to log in.

1. Go to Admin > Email notifications > Contacts and disable the Contact Activation, Contact Password Reset, and Contact Verification events as shown in the following screenshot.

   

2. In other events, click the respective Settings icon and click the Edit icon to edit the email templates.

   

3. Delete the ticket ID and links from all the email notification templates that will be sent to the customer. This approach ensures that the customer remains unaware of the existence of the customer portal, allowing them to only view and respond to emails.

   

4. In the admin settings, uncheck the customer portal sign-up option. This will prevent customers from being able to sign up on the customer portal.

   

5. Go to Admin > Customer Portal > General > Allow anyone to download files without logging in.

   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1) Can I disable or hide the BoldDesk customer portal completely?

No. Currently, you can’t disable or hide the customer portal entirely. However, you can configure BoldDesk so customers don’t use the portal and instead interact only through email.

2) What’s the recommended workaround to prevent customers from using the customer portal?

You can make the portal effectively “invisible” to customers by:

• Turning off activation/verification/password reset emails
• Removing ticket URLs and ticket IDs from email templates
• Disabling customer sign-up
• Allowing public file downloads so customers don’t need to log in

3) Which email notifications should I disable to stop portal-based actions?

Disable these events in Admin > Email Notifications > Contacts:

• Contact Activation
• Contact Password Reset
• Contact Verification

This prevents customers from receiving emails that encourage portal activation, verification, or password-related portal access.

4) Where do I edit the email templates to remove ticket links and ticket IDs?

In Admin > Email Notifications, open each relevant notification:

• Click the Settings (gear) icon for the event
• Click Edit
• Remove ticket ID and any ticket URL/links from templates sent to customers