# Invite a user to the Customer Service portal

> [HTML Version](invite-user-service.html)

The **Customer Service** solution provides users with access to an [external portal](customer-portal.md) where they can read popular articles, submit service requests, and leave feedback.

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Only the [system administrator](360006871932.md#administrators) can invite users to the portal.

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In order for both customers and employees to interact with the portal, they need to be added to the system as external users and invited to the portal.

## Add an external portal user

1. Go to **System Apps > External Users**, then click **+External User** in the upper right corner and enter the customer’s details.

**(invite-user-service-1.png)**

2. After an external user has been added to the system, you need to specify the service catalogs available to them and link a contact from CRM. To do this, go to **Customer Service > External Users**. Click **+External User** and fill out the form:

**(invite-user-service-2.png)**

- **External user**\*. Select the user created in the previous step. If they haven’t yet been added to the **External Users** system app, click the **+Create** button to the right of the field and add them.

- **External**. Since a customer is being added, select **Yes**. The **No** option is used when creating a company employee page.

- **Contact**\*. Select or create a [Contact](360012584960.md) for the customer in the **CRM** workspace.

- **Internal**. This option will appear when creating an employee page. You will need to select an entry from the **Internal Users** directory. 

- **Service Catalogs**. Select or create [service catalogs](customer-service-setting.md#service-catalogs) that will be available to the user when submitting a request on the portal.

## Invite a user to the portal

Generate a personal link that the customer can use to access the portal. To do this:

1. In the **Customer Service** workspace menu, open the **Portal** page.

2. Click **+Invite User**.

3. Select a user from the list and click **Get Link**.

4. Copy the link and send it to the customer.

Additional options for generating links are described in the [Add external users](add-external-users.md) article.

You can also import users via AD/LDAP and grant them access to the portal. They will then be able to log in to the portal with their username and password. For more information, see the [Import external users from AD/LDAP](external-users-ad-ldap.md) article.