How the Portals work

Purpose of Portal Files

If you want teachers to do the register directly on the system, update end of year reports, provide a way to communicate with the management, add homework for their classes etc. then they need to access the system. The same for parents should they want to see progress, holidays, exam results, end of year reports, communicate etc.

Why can't they use this system domain?

This is a private URL for admin staff only. Keeping this URL private will ensure there's no leaks so malicious programs cannot exploit the site. Even if all users are legitimate, they can have infected emails or software that reads URLs. So keeping this system link private means there will be almost no chance for any attacks on the server.

So where will they get access?

On this page, we will assume your own web site is www.myschool.com. You can tell your web site developers or if you are familiar with FTP/cPanel/servers then you can upload the file yourself as well to any location you prefer. For example, you can give access to teachers on:

• https://www.myschool.com/teachers
• https://www.myschool.com/teacherportal
• https://www.myschool.com/tp-private-7634872
• https://teachers.myschool.com
• https://www.myschool.com/portal/teachers
• https://private.myschool.com/teachers
• quite-literally-anything-you-want

As you can see, none of the above involve your IBEAMS domain.

How do they get access?

To give them access, we use a portal file that communicates on the server side with the IBEAMS system. Here are the benefits of this:

1. Your system URL is kept private and secure
2. The portal looks like it belongs to you and these are your efforts to the students/parents/teachers/public which in reality are your efforts.
3. Teachers and Parents have more trust on your own URL.
4. All the data is

This is how the portal communicates with the system:

How do I host the portal on our server?

To host the portal as a subdirectory e.g. https://www.myschool.com/teachers/:

1. Log into your cPanel or FTP. In File Manager (for cPanel) open the public_html folder.
2. Create a new folder here called "teachers" (or whatever you decide)
3. Download the portal file from the Downloads/Tools section
4. Upload the file to the folder you created and rename it to "index.php"

If you don't rename it, they will have to access the portal on https://www.myschool.com/teachers/teacherportal.php which is very inconvenient.

To host the portal as a subdomain e.g. https://teachers.myschool.com:

1. Log into your cPanel. Look for subdomains.
2. Create the subdomain called "teachers" or "parents" (or whatever you choose)
3. Remember the home directory for this subdomain when creating it.
4. Now go FTP or File Manager and browse to the home directory.
5. Upload the portal file to this directory and rename it to "index.php"

Done.

How to provide logins to the portal to users

For teacher portal, you have to provide them the link to the portal by whatever means you prefer. Send a newsletter, print the URL and give it in person. SMS or whatever you prefer. There's no way to register on teacher portal as that's a security risk. You must add the teacher for them to be able to login.

You can set the password for them by editing the teacher or they can use the password reset option to create a new one.

For parent portal, you can use the premade newsletter to inform them about it. Go to Tools > Portals > click the link "Who is Active?" and use the button at the top to inform all inactive parents.

If after all of the above, you are more confused than ever, you really should get your IT admin to do this for you. If that's also not possible, please get in touch with us after ensuring your have the login details to your own web site/domain/server.