Getting started
Parent portal troubleshooting
Fix an empty parent dashboard, a sibling missing from the child switcher, failed magic-link sign-in, and hidden fees, grades, or exam documents.
Getting started guide for day and boarding schools.
Last updated August 29, 2026
The parent portal has one central record: a guardian row that ties a person to a single student, and optionally to a login. Almost every "the parent cannot see anything" report is that link being absent, pointing at a different account, or existing for one sibling but not the other. Work out which of those it is before touching anything else.
How the link actually works
A guardian record holds one student. A guardian of two children therefore has two records. The portal login lives on the record, not on the family, and it is created when office staff issue a portal invite or when admissions enrolment provisions the guardian from the application. The dashboard then loads every active guardian record that carries the signed-in user id, which is what fills the child switcher. Roster changes here need the Platform Admin, Principal, Vice Principal, or office Admin role.
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard is empty after a successful sign-in | No active guardian record carries this user id | Open the child at /parents, confirm the guardian row exists, and issue the portal invite so the login is attached. Signing out and in again does not help until the record is linked. |
| One child shows, the sibling does not | The sibling record was saved without a login | Each record needs its own portal user and emails must be unique across accounts, so the second one is created guardian-only. Use a second contact email, or keep the two logins separate and tell the family which login shows which child. |
| Enrolment reported "Guardian record created without portal" | The application email already belongs to another user | This is the sibling case arriving through admissions. The student is enrolled and the guardian row exists; only the login is missing. Re-issuing the invite from /parents returns the same conflict until the email differs. |
| Parent sees a child who has left | Guardian record still active | Deactivating the student does not deactivate the guardian record. Set the guardian row inactive at /parents. |
Sign-in problems
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Magic link says invalid or expired | Fifteen-minute, single-use token | Send a new invite and ask the parent to open it immediately on the device they will use. |
| No invite email arrives at all | SMTP unconfigured, or no email on the guardian record | A portal invite is refused outright when the guardian has no email. Add it, then test delivery at /settings/email-test. |
| Creating the login fails validation | Portal credential rules | A portal account needs a valid email, a username of at least three characters, and a password of at least eight. The invite button generates the username and password for you. |
Right login, wrong data
Every child-scoped screen carries the child in the URL, so a stale bookmark or a forwarded email can genuinely show the wrong sibling. Attendance uses /parent-dashboard/attendance?childId=, grades use /parent-dashboard/grades?childId=, homework uses /parent-dashboard/homework?childId=, transport uses /parent-dashboard/transport?childId=, and fees use /fees/me with both studentId and childId set. Notifications generate these links from the record that triggered them, so ask the parent to open the alert rather than an old tab.
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Homework or grades look empty for a real child | Nothing is published yet | Families only see published homework and published results. Confirm the publish state with the teacher before treating it as a portal fault. |
| Fees page shows no balance | No fee instances generated for that student | Instances are created in bulk before collection opens; until then there is nothing for the family to pay. Check /fees/class-summary. |
| Exam documents missing | Session or paper not published | Hall tickets need a published schedule and papers with status PUBLISHED. Staff bypass both checks, so verify as a parent, not as a coordinator. |
Common questions
Quick answers in plain language.
A parent signs in and the dashboard is completely empty. What is wrong?+
The dashboard is built from guardian records whose userId points at the signed-in account. If the guardian row exists but was never given a portal login, the account it belongs to has nothing attached. Open the guardian at /parents and use Create portal and send invite, then have the parent sign in again.
Why does the second child not appear in the parent child switcher?+
Each child is a separate guardian record, and only one of them can hold the portal login because a portal user is created per record and the email must be unique. The second record is saved without a login and returns "Email is already used by another portal account". Today the practical workaround is a second guardian record with a different email; there is no screen that attaches an existing parent login to another child.
A parent says the magic link does not work — what should the office check?+
The link expires 15 minutes after it is sent and can only be used once, so an old email in the inbox will fail. Confirm the email on the guardian record matches the portal account, send a fresh invite from /parents, and verify outbound mail from /settings/email-test.
Why can a parent not download the hall ticket for their child?+
Families only get hall tickets after the exam schedule is published, and only for papers with status PUBLISHED. Before the session publish date the request is refused with "Exam schedule has not been published yet". Coordinators can always download, which is why staff often cannot reproduce the problem.
Related searches
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