Adding and editing clients
On the Clients page, click Add client. Only the name is required; the legal business name, website and industry are optional. Owners and admins add clients, since each takes a slot on your plan; members work on the clients they're given.
To bring in a list, click Import and pick a spreadsheet saved as CSV: your own client list, or another tool's export of companies or contacts. Phloz guesses which column is which from the header, you correct any it got wrong, and you see what will be added before anything is. Rows with the same client name become one client, each row adding its contact. A client whose name is already in Phloz is skipped, never merged; contacts start without portal access, and no one is emailed. A file adds all its clients or none: if your plan has room for fewer, the import says how many. Tasks don't import. The same button takes a Phloz client export (a client's Overview → Export), which adds that client with its tasks, plans and tracking map.
The Overview tab holds the client's industry, website and contact details, monthly ad budgets per platform, account IDs and notes. Anyone except a viewer can edit them while the client is active.
Each client has tabs for Overview, Contacts, Tasks, Plans, Messages, Tracking map, Audit, Retainer and Files. Owners and admins also see an Access tab.
Client groups
Groups organise clients into portfolios, such as "Acquisition" or "Retention". A client is in at most one group. Owners and admins manage groups under Clients → Groups, and put clients in them three ways:
- the Group menu on the right of a client's page, one client at a time;
- Add clients on a group's page, to add several to that group;
- Bulk move at the top of the Clients page: search, tick the clients and pick a group.
Groups become powerful when paired with departments: assign "SEO Team" to the "Acquisition" portfolio and every SEO teammate sees every client in the group, including clients you add to it later.
Forwarding address
Every client gets its own email address, like client-7k2m9x4qbv8d@inbound.phloz.com (each client's code is random). You'll find it at the top of the client's Messages tab, under Forwarding address for this client. Put it in your email forwarding rules or give it to the client.
Email sent or forwarded to that address appears on the client's Messages tab. A reply to one of your emails lands in that same conversation; other email joins the client's most recent conversation the sender can see (never a request's own), except a new email from one of the client's contacts, which can become a request (see Client requests).
If the sender's address matches one of the client's contacts, the email shows under that contact. Email from your own team (the address of a teammate who works on this client, or your Portal contact email) is filed as an internal note in a conversation of its own, marked with the address it came from. Your team sees it, and the client's portal never shows it. A client's email you forward can still become a request: Log as request on the note.
Anyone else's email shows to your team with the sender's address and an Unknown sender tag, and the client's portal doesn't show it. One click adds the sender as a contact, and from then on their email shows in the portal too. A forwarding rule keeps the original sender, so a vendor's quote a rule forwards arrives as that vendor's mail: your team sees it, the client doesn't.
Email you send from Phloz comes from Phloz's address (no-reply@phloz.com), with your name and your agency's name as the sender. When the client replies, the reply comes back into the same conversation.
Archiving instead of deleting
Archive a client when an engagement ends. Its history stays (tasks, messages, tracking map, files), and it stops counting toward your plan's limit on active clients. Owners and admins archive and unarchive clients.
While a client is archived it's read-only: you can't send emails or notes, or change its details, contacts, files, tracking map or plans. Email from the client still arrives, so you can read it.
To restore one, filter the Clients page by Archived, open the client and click Unarchive. Your plan needs room for another active client, and a client can be unarchived once every 30 days (see Billing).
When clients have had no activity for 90 days or more, owners and admins see an Archive [number] dormant button on the Clients page. Confirm, and they're all archived at once.
There's no delete button: deleting a client would also wipe out its tasks, messages and tracking map, and archiving can be undone. To have a client erased, email privacy@phloz.com.
Client portal
Turn on portal access for a contact (in the client's Contacts tab) and Phloz emails them a sign-in link. The link works once and expires after 60 minutes. It opens a page with a Continue button, so an email security scanner that opens links can't use it up first; continuing keeps them signed in for 30 days. When a link has expired they ask for a fresh one on the portal's login page with their email address — there is no password. When your portal runs on your own domain, that page shows your name, logo and colour, and a request there sends only your portal's link.
A client's reply to their sign-in email or monthly report reaches you: it goes to the client's forwarding address, or, when they have none, to the Portal contact email under Settings → Agency branding (the owner's email when that's blank).
The portal shows only their company's data: client-visible tasks (they approve, reject or ask for changes when a task waits on their approval), conversations they can reply to or start, files and plans you've shared, and — when you turn it on — a tracking-health summary they can sign off (you get an email, and the client's Audit tab shows who signed, when and their note). Anything waiting on them, an approval or something you marked Waiting on client, is gathered at the top under Needs you, each linking to its page. They can also update their own contact details and report a problem to you. No pricing, no other clients, no internal notes.
A reported problem is emailed to the Portal contact email when it's the address of someone on your team, and otherwise to the workspace owner. A report with a link in it goes to the owner only, and a workspace gets at most 20 reports a day; past that, the client is shown your address to email you directly.
Turning portal access off, or changing the contact's email address, signs them out everywhere and cancels any link already sent. Granting or revoking access, and every link you send or copy from the Contacts tab, are recorded in the Activity log. Conversation emails carry their own fresh sign-in link for the contact they are addressed to. To replace someone who left, add a new contact rather than changing this one's address — the old contact keeps its conversation history.
Portal users don't use team seats, and every paid plan allows as many as you like.