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Checked against the product · 2026-10-05

Your First Day — Getting Into the Portal

This guide is for you, the subcontractor, on the day you are given access. It covers getting in and nothing else. Once you are looking at the portal, the Subcontractor Portal guide takes over.

Part 1 — The two things you need to know before you start​

Your access is created for you​

There is no registration page. Somebody at the company that hired you creates your access, and it is two separate steps on their side:

  1. A login is created for you. Arcvue then emails you an invitation headed Your Arcvue account is ready, with the Sign-in address, your Username, and a Temporary password.
  2. That login is linked to your company, so the portal knows whose time and expenses you are recording.

Both have to happen before the portal is useful, and they can happen minutes or days apart. If only the first one has, you will sign in successfully and the portal will tell you it has no company for your login. That is the normal half-finished state; see Part 3.

The temporary password is for you alone. Do not forward the email.

You will only ever see your own company​

The portal is not a filtered view of a larger list. There is no setting to change and nothing to switch between. Whatever else exists in that company's system, your account reaches your own company's records and nothing else.

Part 2 — Signing in​

The sign-in screen​

Open the Sign-in address from your invitation; its Sign in to Arcvue button opens the same page. The screen asks for two things:

  • Username or email: either works.
  • Password: the temporary password from the invitation, the first time.

Then Sign in.

If you end up on the forgotten-password or forgotten-username panels by mistake, Back to sign in returns you.

Your first sign-in sets up an authenticator app​

After your password is accepted the first time, you are asked to connect an authenticator app, the kind that shows a rotating six-digit code. Any of the common ones works; install one on your phone before you start. The screen shows a QR code to scan, and the same setup key in plain text underneath for an app that cannot scan. Copy key copies the key so you do not retype it. The button reads Copied for a moment so you know it took.

Type the code your app is showing into Enter the 6-digit code it shows, then select Finish setup. It stays disabled until all six digits are in and reads Finishing setup... while it works. A code that does not match leaves you on this screen to try the next one.

The key stays the same until setup finishes, so if you sign in again partway through, the Arcvue entry you already added keeps working. Do not add a second one. If the page says it timed out, select Back to sign in and sign in again.

From then on, every sign-in asks for a fresh code from that app, typed or pasted into Authenticator code and checked with Verify. Your password alone will not get you in, and that is deliberate: you are reaching records about money.

If a code is refused, wait for the next one and set your phone's clock to update automatically. Codes change every 30 seconds and are checked against the exact time.

If you lose the phone​

If you ever lose the phone your authenticator is on, your contact asks the company's administrator to reset your two-factor login, and you set it up again at your next sign-in. Until then nobody can sign in as you, which is the point.

Then choose your own password​

Replace the temporary password next, because somebody else chose it. Arcvue asks for this with a panel headed Choose your own password, shown in place of the portal. If you find yourself in the portal without seeing that panel, open the same form yourself: select your name at the top right, then Change password.

  1. Current password: the temporary password from your invitation.
  2. New password: at least 8 characters, different from the temporary one.
  3. Confirm new password.
  4. Set password and continue on the panel, or Update password on the Change password page.

After that the temporary password no longer works.

Part 3 — When something looks wrong on day one​

"This portal has no company for your login." Your sign-in worked. The second half of the setup, linking your login to your company, has not happened yet. You cannot fix this from your side, and it is not a missing permission. Send that message to your contact and they finish it. The portal guide's own troubleshooting table covers this and the states after it.

No invitation email arrived. Check your junk folder, then ask your contact to check the email address on your login.

You do not know your username. Choose Forgot username? on the sign-in page, and Send my username emails it to the address your contact registered for you. You do not need to ask anybody for it.

The password does not work. Use Forgot password? and Send reset link rather than asking for the password again. A reset goes straight to you, where a re-sent password has to travel through somebody else.

You are not sure who your contact is. It is whoever at the hiring company asked you to start using the portal, usually the person who handles their subcontracts or their accounting. Anything in Part 3 of the portal guide that you cannot fix yourself goes to that person.

One-line summary​

Your access is created for you and arrives as an invitation email; your first sign-in connects an authenticator app and then asks you to choose your own password.