PortalHQ uses a small set of permissions to decide which staff can manage which module. Every staff member gets the same everyday access when their account is created. Anything that involves managing a module, such as approving events, sending newsletters, building forms or editing another person’s slips, needs a permission on top of that. This guide lists every permission, what it unlocks, and how to grant it.
Before you start
- You need to be a Portal Admin to grant or remove permissions. If you are not sure who your school’s Portal Admins are, open Administration → Staff and filter the list by Permission.
- A permission only unlocks a module that is switched on for your school. If the module is off in School Settings, the menu item stays hidden no matter which permissions someone holds.
- Permissions apply to staff accounts. Parents and students never see the staff menus, even if they are added to a user group that carries a permission.
The four account types
| Account type | What it can see |
|---|---|
| Staff | The staff portal: dashboard, calendar, notices, resources, forms, and the modules listed below. This is the baseline everyone gets. |
| Contractor | A cut-down staff portal for coaches and external providers: Sport Roll Marking and the co-curricular pages for the teams they are assigned to. |
| Parent | The parent portal only. |
| Student | The student portal only. |
Permissions are only ever applied to Staff (and, where relevant, Contractor) accounts. A Portal Admin is simply a staff member with the Is portal instance admin permission ticked.
How to grant a permission
To one person
- Open Administration → Staff.
- Click the staff member’s name to open their record.
- Tick the permissions you want under Permissions, then click Save Changes.
The change applies the next time that person loads a page. They do not need to log out.
The Staff list also shows a Permissions column for every person, so you can see at a glance who has what. Use the Permission filter at the top of the list to find everyone who holds a particular permission.
To a group of people
If several people need the same access, use a user group so you only maintain the list in one place.
- Open Administration → User Groups.
- Click Create Static Group (you pick the members) or Create Dynamic Group (members are added and removed nightly from rules you set, such as a faculty or a year level). In the Studio interface these buttons are New static group and New dynamic group.
- Give the group a name, tick the permissions it should carry, and click Save Group.
Everyone in the group holds those permissions for as long as they are a member. A person’s own permissions and their group permissions add together; there is no way to remove a permission with a group.
What every staff member can do
Before any permission is granted, a staff account can already:
- View the Calendar and the Event Planner, submit new events for approval, and edit or resend events they created themselves.
- Read the Daily Summary, today’s Notices, Resources and the File Manager.
- Use the Staff Planner for the current and past weeks.
- View Staff Activities (absences and replacements, room changes and yard duty) without editing them.
- Open the Students and Parents lists when the Staff and Student Links setting is enabled under School Settings → Look and Feel → Menu.
- Contribute to newsletters when the All staff are contributors setting is on (see below).
- Export student, parent and mailing list data to CSV when Allow staff data export is on under School Settings → General. Portal Admins can always export.
Permission reference
The names below are exactly as they appear in the Permissions checklist. Each one also unlocks the matching menu items in the staff sidebar.
Whole-portal access
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is portal instance admin | Everything. This is the Portal Admin role. It includes School Settings, Portal Links, Subjects, Faculties, Staff, Contractors, User Groups, Year Groups, Sync History and the API Token, plus every module below without needing its individual permission. |
| Can log in as other users | Adds the Log in as … menu so the person can view the portal as a staff member, parent or student for troubleshooting, without being a full Portal Admin. |
| Is regional admin | For multi-campus schools only. Lets the person see and filter events across all campuses in the Event Planner, rather than just their own campus. |
Events and calendar
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is calendar admin | Manage the Event Planner set-up: Locations, Categories, Types, Approval Groups, Email Addresses, Additional Fields and Approval Actions. Calendar admins can also edit or delete any event, not just their own, add pre-approved events straight to the calendar, and act on any event request. |
Newsroom
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is newsletter admin | The full Newsroom menu: News Items, Campaigns, Lists, Contacts, Templates, Notifications/SMS and Settings. Newsletter admins can edit anyone’s submission and manage newsletter sections (unless Only portal admins manage sections is ticked in School Settings → Newsroom). |
| Is newsletter contributor | Access to News Items only, to create submissions for the newsletter. Contributors see and edit only their own submissions. You only need to grant this when All staff are contributors is turned off in School Settings → Newsroom; when it is on, every staff member already has this access. |
Forms and slips
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is forms admin | The Forms menu: Form Builder, Form Categories and Submissions. |
| Is slips admin | The Slips menu with the ability to create and change every slip in the school, including its audience, assigned staff, notifications and submitted responses. See Creating a slip. |
| Is slips viewer (read only) | The Slips menu in read-only mode. Viewers can open the slips they are assigned to, see the responses families have submitted, and export or print them, but cannot change anything. Normally granted through a user group such as a year-level team. |
Notices, resources and web apps
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is notices admin | Adds Manage Notices so the person can create, edit and schedule daily notices for the whole school. |
| Is resources admin | Manage Resources (create and edit resources and categories) and the Pages menu. See Publishing public vs. internal resources. |
| Is web apps admin | The Web Apps menu, to add and manage your school’s web apps and collections. See Web Apps — host your own school apps on PortalHQ. |
Staff organisation
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is staff absence admin | Add and edit entries under Staff Activities → Absences/Replacements. |
| Is room changes admin | Add and edit entries under Staff Activities → Room Changes. |
| Is yard duty admin | Add and edit entries under Staff Activities → Yard Duty. |
| Is staff planner admin | Adds Manage Weeks to the Staff Planner, to create and edit the weeks that staff see. |
Students and families
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is contact change request admin | The Address Change Requests and Contact Change Requests menus, to review and approve details parents have updated. |
| Is medical admin | The Health & Medical menu: Medical Data Requests, Unsuitable Medication Requests and Students Data. |
| Is bus management admin | The Buses menu. |
| Is jobs admin | The Jobs menu, to publish and manage job postings. |
| Is fee calculator admin | Manage the Fee Calculator: School Fees, Entry Years, Campuses, Discounts, Per Family Fee, Submissions and Settings. The Fee Calculator only appears in the Portal Admin sidebar, so give other holders the direct link to the pages. |
Co-curricular
Most co-curricular access comes from assignments rather than permissions. A teacher in charge, coach or team staff member automatically sees the Co-Curricular menu (and Sport Roll Marking) for the activities and teams they are assigned to. The permissions below are for the people who run the whole program.
| Permission | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Is co-curricular admin | The full Co-Curricular menu: Overview, Calendar, Sports Fixtures, Activity Groups, Activity Content, Teams/Levels, Signups, Venues, Alerts, Explained Absences, Attendance, Rolls and Parental Permissions. |
| Is co-curricular music admin | The same Co-Curricular menu without Sports Fixtures, plus the music Schedule for managing tutor availability. |
| Is music tutor | A tutor’s own view of the Co-Curricular menu: their Schedule, Students, Lesson Report, Timesheet Report and Notifications. |
Not currently used
| Permission | Note |
|---|---|
| Is shop admin | Not used by any current module. Ticking it has no effect. |
Settings that change who can do what
A few school-wide settings widen or narrow access for everyone at once. All of them live under Administration → School Settings.
| Setting | Where | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| All staff are contributors | Newsroom | On by default. Every staff member can view newsletters and create their own submissions. Turn it off to limit contributing to people with Is newsletter contributor or Is newsletter admin. |
| Only portal admins manage sections | Newsroom | Off by default. When on, Newsletter Admins can no longer create, edit or delete newsletter sections. |
| Allow staff data export | General | On by default. Lets staff export student, parent and mailing list data to CSV. Portal Admins can always export. |
| Staff and Student Links | Look and Feel → Menu | Shows the Students and Parents lists in the staff sidebar for all staff. |
Troubleshooting
The permission is ticked but the menu item is missing. Check the module is switched on for your school in School Settings. Permissions never reveal a module that is turned off. Also ask the person to reload the page: changes apply on their next page load.
Someone in a user group is not getting the group’s permission. Confirm they appear on the group’s member list under Administration → User Groups, and that their account is a staff account. Dynamic groups refresh overnight, so a person added to a faculty today will pick up the group’s permissions tomorrow. If a long-standing group still is not applying, contact support and we will re-sync it for you.
Someone can see more than you expect. Check both the person’s own permissions and every group they belong to. Group permissions add to personal ones, so a permission you removed from the person may still be arriving through a group. Portal Admins also have every permission implicitly.
I want to remove Portal Admin from someone but keep their other access. Untick Is portal instance admin and tick the individual permissions they still need. Their everyday staff access is unaffected.