How can I manage family access as an administrator?

Family engagement is a crucial part of the student learning journey with SpacesEDU. Administrators have the option to family connections at the school level, allowing families direct access to school-wide features without relying on class-specific invitations.

What is the difference between Class and School Associations?

It is important to understand the difference between the two types of family connections in SpacesEDU:

1. Class Associations: Managed primarily by teachers, these connections grant family members access to class-specific features, such as Class Spaces, 1:1 Spaces, Group Spaces, and Messages.
2. School Associations: Managed by administrators, these connections grant family members direct access to school-level features that sit outside of a specific classroom, such as student Portfolios.

• Establishing a School-Family association does not automatically grant a family member access to class-level spaces or messaging. However, it does add that family member to a teacher's Invite Family from SIS/LMS list, making it easier for the teacher to grant them class access later.
• For schools using SpacesEDU Pro with Family Accounts and Family Data Imports enabled, the data received from your SIS or LMS will always be used to populate the list of family members for teachers to invite.
• By default, no email is sent to the family member immediately upon import, and the Class Association is not created until the teacher actually sends the invitation.
• School Associations are an option that must be enabled separately. With this feature active, an email invitation will be sent to families immediately after their records are first imported — or when they are invited manually by an administrator — allowing them to create their accounts and link with students directly.
• Family members with an active school association to a student can automatically view that student's portfolios within the Portfolios tab of their account, as long as the Student URL Sharing option is enabled.
• Even with an active school association, teachers still control when to invite family members to connect with their classes, and the visibility of each Space for family.

How do I invite families?

Administrators (including School Admins, District Admins, and Counsellors) have two pathways to establish family associations.

1. Automated Invitations via SIS/LMS Import

For districts utilizing OneRoster or Advanced CSV imports that contain family data, administrators can automate the invitation process.

• When the Automatically create School-Family associations setting is enabled for your imports, the system will automatically send email invitations to set up these associations for any active students included in the import file.
• This allows districts to proactively engage families at scale, rather than relying solely on teachers to manually invite them class by class.
• Note: You can also choose to enable Automatically remove School-Family associations, which removes access and invalidates pending invitations for family members who are no longer included in your import file.

2. Manual Invitations via the Family Tab

Administrators also have a centralized dashboard to manage family members manually.

1. Navigate to the Family tab on the left-hand side of your Administrator account.
2. From this page, you can view all active and invited family members for your school(s).
3. You can manually add new family members by clicking Add Family, entering their email address, and selecting the student(s) to link them with.
4. You can also revoke access from this page by clicking the menu button (three dots) for a student, then selecting Revoke Account.
5. To view or manage family access to specific classes, click the Class Connections button, which will redirect you to the Classes page to view class-specific family associations.

Important Considerations

• Feature Activation: Family accounts are available only with SpacesEDU Pro and myBlueprint+, not with the free version of SpacesEDU.
• In order for the Family tab to appear for administrators, the School-Family-Student Associations feature must be turned on for your school or district.
• If you're the administrator for a district or independent school and you'd like to enable this option, please contact our support team at hello@spacesedu.com or via the messaging option in the corner of your screen.
• Portfolio Visibility: A family member's ability to view the Portfolios tab in their account also depends on the Student URL Sharing setting being enabled for at least one of their linked students' active portfolios. Click here to find out more about managing Portfolio Templates as an administrator.
• Even with an active school association, if their linked students have no active portfolios with the Student URL Sharing option enabled, the Portfolios tab will remain hidden in family accounts.

Updated on: 06/05/2026