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Automating New Client Creation and Portal Invitations

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Set up an automation to turn service bookings, package purchases, program registrations, or public form submissions directly into client profiles, with Client Portal access and Journals included if you want them.

In this article:

Before You Begin

Only the account owner can create an Add/Invite New Clients automation. This automation type isn't available to other team members.

Once created, the account owner can still scope the automation to other team members' resources. Use the Booking & Registration Restrictions within the automation's settings to select specific services, packages, programs, or forms belonging to any team member.

⚠️ Important: This automation only applies going forward. It won't retroactively add or invite clients who already submitted a form or made a booking before the automation was created.

If the team owner creates this automation without selecting any Booking & Registration Restrictions, it applies to all client services, packages, programs, and form submissions across every team member.

Setting Up the Automation

Create an automation to automatically add client records when a client completes a service booking, package or program purchase, or submits a public form.

  1. Go to My Practice > Automations.
     
  2. Click the Fast Action Button in the bottom right corner.

     
  3. From the pop-up, choose Add/Invite New Clients.

     
  4. Name your automation.
     
  5. Choose whether to give new clients, existing clients, or both, access to the Client Portal.


    📍 Note: If you enable Client Portal access, clients receive an invitation to join Practice Better and activate their account → as soon as the automation triggers. This is useful even for existing clients; for example, someone you've only seen in person who's now registering for a virtual program will need portal access to participate.
     
  6. If you're inviting clients to the portal, choose whether to give them access to Journals, and select which entry types to include. Learn more about Setting Up Client Journals and Reviewing Entries →

     
  7. Optionally, restrict the automation to trigger only for specific event types: services, packages, programs, or public form submissions. Once you enable a checkbox here, you'll see a dropdown list of your resources to specify which one(s) will trigger this automation.


    📍 Note: If you leave all these checkboxes unchecked, the automation triggers for every event type: any service booking, package purchase, program registration, or public form submission.

     
  8. Optionally, set the automation to automatically apply or remove client tags. Learn more about Organizing Clients Using Tags in Practice Better → 

     
  9. Click Create to save your automation.

You can create more than one automation of this type. For example, you might set up one automation for service bookings with Journal access enabled, and a separate one for public form submissions without portal access.

📍 Note: When new clients are added by automation, their time zone defaults to their local time zone.

Registering Clients for Programs

This automation is the only way to automatically invite clients to the Client Portal when they register for a Program.

Without this automation, a client who registers for a Program is left in a Prospective state and won't be able to access any resources or receive notifications until you manually review and invite them.

⚠️ Important: Unless you're running an email-only Program, clients need Client Portal access to participate. 

How This Connects to Public Forms

If you're also using a Public Form Link or embedded form → to collect prospect or client information, this automation determines what happens the moment someone submits the form:

  • Without this automation, form submissions land in your Prospective Clients list for manual review.
     
  • With this automation set to create the profile only, form submissions immediately become full client profiles. No portal invitation is sent.
     
  • With this automation set to invite clients, form submissions immediately become full client profiles and the client receives a Client Portal invitation right away.

Choosing Between Add/Invite and Auto Confirm Automations

Services and packages have a second automation option: Confirming New Bookings Automatically → and Confirming New Packages Automatically →. Both can create a client record and send a Client Portal invitation, so which one should you use?

It depends on how you want control over your automations to work.

  • Add/Invite New Clients works at the practice level. It's set up by the account owner and applies across services, packages, programs, and public forms in one place.
     
  • Confirming New Bookings/Packages Automatically works at the individual level. On a team plan, each practitioner can set up and customize their own automation for their own services or packages, with their own tag and invitation preferences.

Programs and public forms are only available through Add/Invite New Clients; Auto Confirm automations don't cover those triggers.

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