V5 Portal Information
About the portal
The V5 Customer Portal has been created to replace the existing V3 and V4 portals. It has been developed in line with GOV.UK GDS (Government Digital Service) guidelines, ensuring a user-friendly, accessible, and secure experience for both residents and council administrators.
Forms from previous versions do not need to be recreated for use in the V5 Portal. However, you may want to review and adjust them to align with GDS design patterns for improved usability and accessibility. This update is primarily a visual overhaul, enhancing the user experience while maintaining existing functionality. Any changes to forms are optional but recommended to ensure consistency with the updated interface and streamlined GOV.UK-style service flows.
About this guide
This guide provides a summary of key updates and differences introduced in the new V5 Customer Portal compared to the previous versions.
It outlines the main functional changes, new features, and areas where the user experience has been improved or aligned with updated design standards.
Testing
It is highly recommended that all components used in V3 and V4 forms are fully tested. All functionality has been thoroughly tested internally and by multiple local authorities. However, since implementations may vary, it is advised that each use case is tested individually before deployment or migration.
General
Customer login (MFA)
When signing into their account, the user will be prompted to complete multi-factor authentication. The options for this are via phone call, SMS, or email. These will contain a code which the user must enter as prompted. There is also an option to sign in with a Google account.
There are costs associated with the call and text processes:
SMS - 0.09 per text
Call - 0.0050 per call
Page names
The page name will display as the title text on the relevant page of the form. This means pages can be used to display the ‘parent’ question. For example, ‘Please provide us with your details’ may be used as a page name instead of ‘User Details’ for a smoother customer journey.
Region names
On a form viewed through either the V5 Portal or a V5 short URL, the region names will no longer display. This is in line with GDS guidelines where it is suggested that ‘regions’ should be split out across specific pages.
The display of forms will be unchanged when completed through the admin portal or mobile app.
Mandatory items
Mandatory items are no longer marked with a red asterisk (*) on the V5 Portal. This is to ensure compliance with the GDS guidelines.
Allow check (report summary)
The ‘allow check’ page can be enabled against individual forms and has been designed to replace the report content previously displayed upon submission of a form. This allows the submitter to review their answers and provides the opportunity for them to go back and make changes before the form has been submitted.
Confirmation and What happens next
The confirmation page after submission will display a banner containing the reference number and status of the report. This will likely be ‘open’ on most forms, but changing the initial status of forms to something like ‘report received’ will result in this text being displayed.
A ‘what happens next’ message will display beneath this tile if you have configured this against the form. You can configure this to display a custom message after submission.
Components and Items
Specialised component pages (e.g. Contracts and Bookings)
The V5 Portal moves away from pop-up screens completely, favouring a more accessible ‘page’ design. This means that components such as Contracts and Bookings have been redesigned to enable this.
The functionality of these components remains unchanged (aside from a minor configuration update required for waste bookings), meaning no action is required for administrators to make bookings available on V5 forms.
The event booking component is not currently available in V5 portals and will be redesigned in line with GDS guidance in the future.
Location Picker
In the V5 Portal the Location Picker will always display three options for the submitter, and the map will always be visible. The three options are:
Manually typing in an address
Search using what3words
Dropping a pin on a map
The Location Picker will return and display the precise geo-coordinates of the selected location, whereas previously when a location was selected the pin would ‘jump’ to the closest UPRN to the selected location. This enhances point accuracy, especially in more rural areas.
As the map will always display on V5 forms regardless of the configuration in forms builder, in scenarios where a property address needs to be returned, the Advanced Postcode Picker component must be used.
Advanced Postcode Picker
The Advanced Postcode Picker should be used to allow the submitter to select a specific property.
When using this component, the submitter can tick a box if their address is not appearing in the list of properties when their postcode has been entered. System administrators can choose the action that ticking this box causes. The options are:
Display a message (for example, please contact us at 01234 567 890)
Allow manual address entry
This is configured under Administration > (SR and Case) Settings. Please note that allowing manual address entry will result in a temporary address being created using the parameters the submitter has entered.
Display - HTML Text
The default text size for the HTML Text item ensures that the text is correctly sized in line with the other general text that makes up forms.
Please note, however, that currently if bullet points are used within a form, these will need to be resized manually to size 17 to match the default size for ‘paragraph’ text.
Display – Plain Text
Please ensure that you don’t have any plain text fields in your form which contain only either a space or no value at all.
Payment Components
Payment integration components will now provide fields to capture the name, email address, and address of the submitter, meaning customer-facing billing details pages can be hidden. These fields will still be required for CNP payments made through the administration portal.
The payment component must be placed on the final page of forms.
Date Picker
The Date Picker component will now display using the GDS style of individual boxes (DD/MM/YYYY). All data validation logic will continue to function as configured.
Inset Summary (GDS)
Inset text is used to display information to the resident. It can include external URLs and other plain text configuration. This component was previously available in the V4 portal and can also be used in V5 forms to enhance the user experience as it is a recognised GDS component.
Detail Summary (GDS)
The detail summary is used to display information underneath a heading. By default, this is collapsed but a submitter can click to expand it and view the information set within. This component was previously available in the V4 portal and can also be used in V5 forms to enhance the user experience as it is a recognised GDS component.
New Components
Table
The Table component can be used to present information to residents in a clear, structured format. When setting up the component, you can define between 2 and 7 columns and can specify the content of each. This ensures that tabular content is easy to read and consistent with the design standards found on GOV.UK.
Customer
The Customer component can be used to capture information on a signed-in customer. It will pull information from the submitter’s profile, and administrators can define what information is being captured on a form-by-form basis. Specific fields within the component can be made mandatory as required.
There is also an option available to update the information against a customer’s profile if they change their details within the Customer component when completing a form. Please note that it is not possible for the submitter to update the email address associated with their profile when completing a form.
Guest
A Guest component is also available and can be used alongside the Customer component on forms that allow guest users to input requested details.
Upon submitting a request where the Guest component has been filled in, an email will be sent to the entered address allowing the submitter to click a button to create an account. If the submitter chooses to do this, they will be prompted to set a password and can log in as a customer using this account in the future.
If someone chooses to enter an email address into the Guest component which is already associated with an account, a message will appear informing them of this and giving the option to log in. However, this can be ignored, and the submitter can continue anonymously.
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