Problem description
This issue typically shows up in one of 2 ways:
User cannot access the Portal at all. For example, the user sees “You don’t have access to this Portal.”
User can access the Portal but cannot see a specific item (file, workflow, tabular review, or organization database) you expected them to access.
Cause
Portal uses a collaboration policy model where permissions are item-specific and not inherited. A client user only has access when there is an unbroken path from the user to the collaboration policy to the resource.
Sharing access does not “carry over” from the Portal itself. Each item must be explicitly shared.
If the item is inside a project, sharing the project does not automatically share the other items inside it.
If the user is trying to “find” something via Assistant, remember that the Portal Assistant scope is limited to content that has been explicitly shared (such as shared projects and Org DBs).
Solutions
If the user cannot access the Portal at all:
Confirm the user was invited to the Portal by email.
Confirm the user accepted the invitation using the correct email address.
If they have multiple emails, confirm which email address they used when creating their Portal account.
If the user can access the Portal but cannot see a specific item:
Re-check the sharing settings for that specific resource.
Confirm the external user is included in the external member selection for that resource.
If the item is inside a project, remember that sharing the project does not automatically share other items inside it.
If access was working previously but stopped:
Confirm the user has not been removed from the Portal.
Confirm the collaboration policy for that resource has not been changed.
Confirm the resource has not been unshared from the Portal.
If none of these work:
Remove the user from the Portal and re-invite them to generate a fresh invite link.
Contact Support and include the Portal name, affected user email, and the resource the user cannot access.
Prevention
Before inviting external users, use View as Client to preview what guests will see and validate that the correct resources are shared.
Note: View as Client reflects what you can see based on your permissions, not a specific client user’s permissions.