Portals is where you give parents, guardians and sponsors their own login to the parent portal, where they can follow their child’s results, attendance and fees. In schools with tertiary or postgraduate students, those students can be given their own login too. You can also take access away again.
- Where System → Portals
- Who can use it Anyone whose role includes Portals.
- Set up first Guardians with an email address in Guardians, linked to their children in Students. Outgoing email set up in Settings.
Invite a parent or guardian
- Find the person in Parents, Guardians & Sponsors. Type in Search by name or email to narrow the list, for example Asante.
- Click Invite in their row.
- A message confirms they’ve been invited. They get an email with a link to choose their password, and their status changes to Invited — not signed in yet.
Once they sign in, they see every child they’re linked to as a guardian. Their status changes to Active after their first sign-in.
Tip: If a row says Needs an email instead of Invite, add their email address in Guardians first, then come back.
What the status means
| Portal Status | Meaning | Button shown |
|---|---|---|
| Not Invited | No portal login yet | Invite |
| Invited — not signed in yet | Account created, waiting for them to set a password and sign in | Revoke |
| Active | They have signed in at least once | Revoke |
| Revoked | Access was taken away | Invite |
The counters at the top show how many guardians you have, how many are using the portal and how many were invited but haven’t signed in yet. Chase those up: the invite email may be in their spam folder.
Student logins (tertiary)
If your school has tertiary or postgraduate classes, a Students list appears below the guardians. Invite and revoke work the same way, using the email on the student’s record.
Only tertiary and postgraduate students can have their own login. In a basic or secondary school this list doesn’t appear at all: parents and guardians use the portal on the student’s behalf.
Take access away
Click Revoke in the person’s row and confirm. Their portal access ends straight away and their status becomes Revoked. A login created by the invite is deleted; if the invite linked an account that already existed (for example a staff member’s own login), that account stays and only loses portal access. Their guardian or student record, and everything linked to it, stays in the app.
To let them back in later, click Invite again. They get a fresh email to set a new password.
If a guardian uses the same email address as an existing login (for example a parent who also works at the school), the invite adds portal access to that login instead of creating a new one, and no new invite email is sent; they sign in with the password they already have.
Good to know
- An email address can only belong to one school. If it’s already used at another school, the invite is refused; use a different address.
- Portal accounts appear in Users labelled as portal accounts, but you manage them here.
- Parents can pay fees online from the portal only once Paystack is connected in Integrations.
- To see what parents see, read the Parent Portal guide.