Set up parent accounts

CloudSchool gives each family one login, on the guardian's phone number. A parent signs in with their number and sees all their children — no need for a separate login per child.

Who gets the login

A student can have several guardians on record — the father, the mother, an uncle. The login goes to whichever one is marked as the student's active guardian, and only to that person. It is the same choice that decides who receives fee reminders and absence alerts, so the family has one contact, not three.

To change who that is, open the student in Students → Edit → Guardians and click Make active on the right person. Then come back here and generate again — the new contact gets the login.

Generating parent logins

1. Go to Users → Parent logins.
2. Under Generate logins, choose the Scope — either the whole school or a specific batch.
3. Click Preview first to see which families will get a login.
4. When you're ready, click Create logins.

Running this again is safe — it only adds logins for families that don't already have one, and never resets an existing password.

Once logins are created, you'll see a notice: "Temporary passwords are shown once. Print the slips now and hand them out — they can't be retrieved later (only reset)." The results table lists each Parent, their Login (phone), their Children, and their Temporary password.

Printing login slips

Click Print login slips to print a slip per family with their sign-in phone number and temporary password, ready to hand out at the school gate or send home with the child.

Resetting a parent's password

If a parent has lost their password, go to Users, find the parent's account, open it, and use the Reset password button — the same control used to reset any staff or parent account. This generates a new temporary password for them; make sure to pass it on securely.

A word about temporary passwords

Because temporary passwords are only ever shown once, at the moment the login is created, keep the printed slips secure until they reach the right family, and encourage parents to change their password after their first sign-in on the mobile app.

Why one login per family

CloudSchool deliberately keys the parent login on the active guardian's phone number rather than on each child. A family with three children at your school doesn't need three logins to juggle — one guardian phone signs in once and sees every one of their children's attendance, fees, and results in the same place. This also matches how most guardians actually think about the school: as one relationship with several children in it, not several separate accounts.

Running the generator again later

You don't need to worry about running Generate logins more than once. If your school admits new students throughout the year, come back to Parent logins whenever you like and generate again — it only creates logins for families that don't already have one. Existing families and their passwords are left exactly as they are, so you can safely re-run this after every admission cycle without disturbing anyone who already signed in.

If a family loses their slip

If a family loses their login slip before ever signing in, or simply forgets their password later, don't try to regenerate their login from the Parent logins page — use Reset password from the Users list instead, and print or share the new temporary password with them directly.