Step-by-step guides, common questions, and quick answers. All searchable, all in one place. The same content powers the help tab inside the app, so what you read here is what your team sees there.
New here? These steps walk you from sign-up to your first live project.
Sign up with your email address, company name, and password. You'll receive a verification email to activate your account.
Create accountOnce verified, log in and configure your organisation — upload your logo, complete your profile, and customise your workspace.
Go to Administration → Users to invite team members via email and assign roles (Admin, User, or Client) to control access levels.
Start a new project with a name, description, and location, then assign team members so the right people can see and work on it.
Upload files into categorised folders within a project. Set per-category privacy so the right people see the right files.
Build a polished, branded report with photos, tables, signatures, and location maps — and export it as a client-ready PDF in one click.
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Click 'Forgot Password' on the login page and enter your email address. You'll receive a password reset link valid for 1 hour. If you don't see the email, check your spam/junk folder. After resetting, you'll be signed out of all devices for security.
First check your spam/junk folder — most missing emails end up there. If it's still missing, try logging in with your unverified account and you'll be offered the option to send a new verification email. Verification links expire after 24 hours, so don't sit on the email for too long once it arrives.
On the login page, switch to the 'Magic Link' tab, enter your email, and we'll send you a one-click login link. The link is valid for 15 minutes and can only be used once. Magic link login is rate-limited to 3 requests per email per hour, so don't spam the button if the email is slow to arrive.
If you're invited to another organisation while you already have an account, the invitation links to your existing email and password — no need to create a separate account. After login, you'll see a 'Select Workspace' page that lets you choose which organisation to enter. You can switch between them at any time by logging out and selecting a different one.
To protect your account, we lock it after 3 consecutive failed password attempts. The lockout lasts 1 hour and clears automatically. If you're locked out and need access sooner, use the 'Forgot Password' flow to reset your password — that bypasses the lockout. Magic-link login is also rate-limited but tracked separately.
Document privacy is set at the category level, not on individual files. When creating or editing a category, you'll see a 'Privacy' section with three options: open to everyone in the project, restricted to specific roles, or restricted to specific named users. The same applies to image folders. Whatever you set on the category cascades to every document inside.
Trash is your safety net. Every soft-delete (project, report, document category, image folder) goes there first. Open Trash from the sidebar, select the item, and click 'Restore'. After 30 days, items are permanently deleted by an automated cleanup job. Bulk-restore is supported for multiple items at once.
Documents: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, plain text, CSV. Images: JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC. The maximum single-file size is 50 MB. Total storage is limited by your plan — you'll be warned at 80% and 90% usage, and uploads will be blocked at 100% until you free up space or upgrade.
Open a document and use the Comments panel to start or reply to a thread. Use @ followed by a teammate's name to mention them — they'll receive an in-app notification and an email. Comments stay attached to the document forever and form part of the activity trail. Likes are supported for quick acknowledgement without adding noise.
Archive is the right move when something is finished but you still want it on file (closed projects, old report categories). Archived items are hidden from active views but stay accessible from the Archive surface, fully restorable. Delete moves the item to Trash for 30 days; after that it's gone for good. As a rule: archive when the work is done, delete when it shouldn't have existed.
Reports live inside projects. Open the project, go to the Reports tab, and click 'New Report' — give it a title and you're in the builder. Add blocks (text, tables, photos, signatures, maps) in any order. Drafts save automatically. When you're ready, mark the report Completed and export it as a PDF.
The report builder ships with these block types: rich text (with headings, lists, links), tables (any size, editable cells), photo galleries (drop in images from project folders), signatures (captured on screen — touch or mouse), and location maps (embedded as static images). You can mix and reorder blocks freely. Each block is independently editable.
Once a report is finished, mark it Completed (drafts can also be exported, but Completed is the right state for delivery). Click 'Export PDF' — the file is generated server-side, branded with your organisation's logo, and downloaded with a unique filename. You can re-export at any time; older exports remain in your activity trail.
If two people open the same report and one saves before the other, the second save would silently overwrite the first — bad for trust and bad for the audit trail. Reports are version-locked: when you save, your client tells the server which version you started from. If someone else has saved in the meantime, you'll be prompted to refresh and re-apply your changes. The history of every edit is retained.
Open your account menu and go to Notifications. Each notification type has independent toggles for in-app and email delivery — uploads, comments, mentions, project assignments, reminders, and more. Security-critical notifications (password changes, magic-link logins, account lockouts) cannot be turned off. Email delivery quotas vary by plan.
Every email Portal Worx sends — invitations, notifications, password resets, report shares — is logged with delivery status, bounce reason, and recipient. Admins with the 'Manage Email Delivery' permission can open Email Delivery Centre, find the message, and see exactly what happened. Failed deliveries can be resent in one click. If a recipient's mailbox is hard-bouncing, you'll need to confirm their email address with them before retrying.
Direct Messages live in their own area in the navigation. Pick a teammate, type a message (up to 10,000 characters), and send. Read status is tracked, so you can see when the other person has seen it. Deleting a message you sent overwrites the body so the recipient can no longer read it. Direct messages are private to the two participants — admins cannot read them.
Every new account starts on a 14-day free trial of the Professional plan. No credit card is required upfront. You can use every feature during the trial. We'll email you a few days before it expires to remind you to choose a plan.
When your trial expires, the application becomes read-only — you can still log in and view everything, but creating, editing, and uploading are blocked until you choose a paid plan. Your data stays untouched. Pick a plan from the Billing page to restore full access immediately.
Open the Billing page and choose a different plan. Upgrades activate immediately and you're charged a pro-rated amount for the rest of the current billing period. Downgrades schedule at the end of the current period — you keep all features until then. If a downgrade would push you over the new plan's limits, you'll be asked to clean up first.
Annual billing saves 20% across every plan — see the Pricing page for the exact monthly and annual figures. Switching from monthly to annual takes effect immediately, with the difference pro-rated against your current period. Switching back to monthly takes effect at the end of the annual term.
Storage warnings fire at 80% and 90% via email and in-app notification. At 100% (over-quota), new file uploads return an error and you'll be prompted to either delete old files or upgrade your plan. Existing files stay untouched. Trash counts toward storage until items are permanently deleted (after 30 days, or via 'Permanently Delete').
Every organisation's data lives in a separate Postgres schema — there's no shared row in any table. All traffic is TLS-encrypted end-to-end. Authentication cookies are HTTP-only (not accessible to JavaScript) with the Secure flag. Cross-site request forgery is blocked by token validation. Every authentication, billing, and tenant-lifecycle event is logged to a tamper-evident audit trail. See the Security page for the full breakdown.
Primary storage — application database, file storage, and email infrastructure — is hosted in AWS's London region (eu-west-2). Limited data is processed by global sub-processors: Stripe for payments, Cloudflare for bot protection, Google for static map images, and OpenAI for AI summaries (opt-in). The full sub-processor list and transfer safeguards are documented in our Privacy Policy and Data Processing Agreement.
Open Settings → Account → Delete Account to request erasure. We follow GDPR Article 17 / POPIA Section 24: a 30-day grace period during which you can cancel the request, then permanent anonymisation of your data. For requests on behalf of someone else (legal guardians, etc.), email privacy@portal-worx.com.
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