PORTAL Q & A

1. What is the Portal?

Portal is a simple and easy to use Web application that facilitates secure file transfers and continued access between The GriggsGroup CPAs and our clients.

For our clients, Portal is a web-based interface that only requires the installation of Microsoft Silverlight for use.

Your Portal User ID and login information will be provided via email. All documents made available for continued access such as a tax return or financial statement will remain on your portal for a stated period of time in accordance with The GriggsGroup, CPAs record retention and portal use policies.

*We highly encourage you to send confidential documents and data via your portal.

2. What are the Benefits of using the Portal?

  • Protects client’s vital information (social security numbers) by keeping returns and tax documents away from email.
  • The portal is housed at IBM data center that is certified to be safe.
  • Acts as a ‘digital safety deposit box’. In addition to prior tax returns, the client can put all permanent records into this portal for safekeeping.
  • Ease of accessing tax returns and financials
  • Decreased turnaround time
  • Allows transfer of large files (i.e. QuickBooks files)

3. What are the system requirements for using the Portal?

Portal relies on the Microsoft Silverlight 3 platform. You may be prompted to install Silverlight the first time you login to the portal. This is completely safe and typically takes less than a minute to install.

Browser Options:

  • Firefox - recommended browser for accessing Portal as it tends to run faster without the need for additional setting changes.
  • Internet Explorer - Portal is ONLY supported for version IE7 or higher. IE users are required to change some Security Settings. To view the solution on how to change the appropriate Security Settings, click here.
  • Safari - Not Supported at this time. Mac users will need to use Firefox instead.

Internet Explorer Users:

Portal can be used with Internet Explorer 7 or higher. Although not required for the use of Portal, changing the following settings will allow for even easier use:

  • Open Internet explorer and browse to https://portal.prosystemfx.com/portal
  • In Internet Explorer: select Tools, Internet Options.
  • Click on the Security tab, Trusted Sites and click the Sites button.
  • Click Add to move the Portal URL to the Trusted sites zone, then click close.
  • On the next screen, click Custom level button.
  • Click Enable for ‘Automatic prompting for file downloads’.
  • Click Enable for File Download
  • Click OK to save the changes.

4. How do I access the Portal?

  • Open your Internet browser and go to www.thegriggsgroup.com.
  • Click the ‘Client Login’ button at the top right side of the page.
  • If you do not have Silverlight installed, you will see a prompt to Install Silverlight. Click the button to Install Silverlight and wait for the install to complete. Then you should see the login screen (see diagram below).
  • The Login ID (email address) is not case-sensitive. The temporary passord provided via e-mail is case-sensitive. For security reasons, you are required to change your password upon logging in for the first time.
  • Your new password may be from 8 to 32 characters, must contain at least one alpha character, one numeric character, one special character (E.G. !, @, #, etc.) and is case sensitive.
  • Your password may be reset at anytime by entering your email address and clicking ‘Forgot your password.’
  • Login to the portal using your email address and temporary password.
  • Select ‘Remember me’ and/or ‘Remember password’ to save the login and password…click ‘Login’.
  • After you login, you will see the main Portal screen. Under ‘Portals’ on the left side, you will see a list of portals in which you have access. Left-click on a portal name and you will see the folders under ‘Files and Folders’. These folders contain your data, including any files shared with your GriggsGroup representative.

Folders are used to organize files on the portal. To view or download files, simply right click on the file and choose download. A dialog box will appear in the right lower corner – click to download. Do not click on the yellow bar at the top of the page. This will automatically log you off of the system.

Click Open to view the file or Save to download/save a copy to your computer or network.

The File Download example displayed above refers to Internet Explorer.

It is recommended to download (save) a copy of your deliverable items from Portal, as most files will not remain there indefinitely.

5. What if I didn’t receive my temporary password?

The temporary password will be emailed to you from CCH.com. Some e-mail filters will block messages if they can't verify the sender. Verify that your e-mail settings allow you to receive e-mails from CCH.com. Check you inbox or junk mail folders. If you still can’t locate the email, contact the GriggsGroup to have the temporary password re-sent to you.

6. How do I add files to the Portal?

*On the Portal Home page, click button to display ‘Add Files’ screen (see below).

  • Select a portal (only for those users that have access to multiple portals)
  • Set the file location (destination folder within the Portal)
  • Click ‘Browse for files’ and select files to upload.
  • Check box beside the file name, click “Apply to Selected”.
  • Click ‘Upload’ to add the files to Portal.

7. What is the procedure to log off the Portal?

To Logoff the portal, click the Logout button on the top right side of the page.

Please do not click the ‘X’ at the top of the browser to logoff. This will result in the account being locked and will require the temporary password to be resent to unlock the account.

8. How do I connect to the Portal with my iPad, iPhone or other mobile device?

iPAds, iPhones and most smart phones will need to use the Simplified Portal Login to connect to the Portal. This is because Microsoft Silverlight is not yet supported on these devices.

To use the Simplified Portal Login from the iPad or iPhone:

  • Go to www.thegriggsgroup.com
  • Click the ‘Client Login’ button at the top right of the screen.
  • In the left window in the ‘Account Login’ box, Click the ‘clicking here’ link in the text that reads “If you cannot or choose not to install Silverlight, you can access a Simplified Portal Login by ‘clicking Here.’
    Do not click on the ‘Install Microsoft Silverlight button.
  • Then you will see the login screen. Login to view your Portal.
  • You will be able to view most MS Office and Adobe files on the iPad and iPhone.

**Update for FireFox Users**

Accessing Portal using Firefox causes the Silverlight plug-in to crash and Firefox to become unresponsive

This scenario can occur if an action is performed in Portal which causes a dialog message to be displayed. An example of this is when a file is selected to be deleted from Portal.

This issue is related to a defect that exists with the Silverlight plug-in for Firefox.

The following steps can be used to configure Firefox so the issue can be worked around.

  • Open Firefox
  • Browse to the URL 'about:config'
  • Set 'dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nprctrl.dll' to false by double clicking it
  • Close and reopen Firefox