Signing in to the portal
Your office sends an invite to your email; follow it, verify your address, and you have an account: one per email, at the office's own /portal address, with no app to install. Set a password if you like, or skip it: you can always sign in by tapping a fresh link the office emails you, and that same link resets your password if you ever forget it. It works in any browser, on any phone.
You manage your own profile (name, contact details, photo), and you can see your active sessions and sign out of a device from any other one. If an invite expires, ask the office to resend it; it takes them one click.
Checking a case
Your cases are listed with their current status and a count of any new messages waiting on each one, plus a timeline (received, assigned, referred, resolved) that updates as the office works. No calling during business hours to ask where things stand; the answer is on your phone, and a notifications feed gathers every update in one place.
If the office gave you a private status link instead, it works without an account and shows the same progress. Either way you're notified by email when your case moves.
Messaging the office
Write to the office from any case, or file a new one, with attachments up to 25 MB each. A photo of the pothole beats a paragraph about it. Your message lands on the case, where the whole office can see it, not in one staffer's inbox.
Replies come from a staffer, a person on the record, and you're notified by email when one lands. The office reads everything; “filed on the case” is what makes sure of it.
What you see and what you don't
The portal shows you your side of the case, and only that. When a staffer writes a note meant for you, it appears; the office's internal working notes (the ones marked staff-only) never cross into the portal, by design. You are reading the conversation with you, not looking over the office's shoulder.
Your sign-in is pinned to one office, too. An account for your assemblywoman's office cannot see into another office's portal, even if you hold accounts at both. Each door opens onto its own room, and nobody else's.