Add parents and link them to children

A parent in MarkTrack is a guardian account that pays the bills and watches over one or more children. Parents log in to a parent portal where they can see each child's grades, attendance, Hifz progress, and invoices — all in one place. This guide shows how to add a parent, link them to their children as the primary (Parent 1) or secondary (Parent 2) guardian, send them their login details, and what happens to their children when you archive the parent.

Every child student has up to two parent slots. The primary slot is required for a child (a child student must always have a primary parent), and the secondary slot is optional — use it for a second guardian who shares the same child. Both parents get the same portal view of that child.

Adding a child to another school or seeing an email-already-used warning? Follow Add an existing family to another school to reuse the right accounts.

Step 1 — Open the Parents page

1. In the left sidebar, open People and click Parents.
2. Open Actions for Add Parent, Archived Parents, and credential tools. On a phone, use the bottom Add Parent shortcut; the other roster actions remain in the page's Actions menu.

Step 2 — Add a parent

1. Click Add Parent. The Add New Parent window opens ("Create a new parent/guardian account").
2. Choose how the account should be created. Invite by Email is selected by default; choose Manual Creation only when you need to create the account now and send a temporary password.
3. Type the parent's Full Name (required).
4. Type their Email Address (required) — this is the primary contact for notifications and the address their login details are sent to.
5. Optionally add a Phone Number.
6. For an invitation, click Send Invitation. For manual creation, click Create Parent.

With Invite by Email, MarkTrack sends a secure invitation link and the parent creates their account and password by following it. The invitation appears in the Parents page's Invitations area until accepted. With Manual Creation, MarkTrack creates the account immediately and emails a temporary password. Either way, the person is associated with the school you're currently viewing.

Step 3 — Link the parent to their children

A brand-new parent has no children attached. You link them on the parent's profile page.

1. From the Parents list for the selected school, click the parent's name to open their profile.
2. On the Children tab, click Link Student. The Link Student to Parent window opens.
3. Pick a student from the list (students already linked are shown greyed out with an "Already Linked" badge so you can't double-link them).
4. Click Link Student.

How the Parent 1 / Parent 2 slots get filled

You don't pick the slot by hand — MarkTrack fills the next empty one automatically:

• If the student has no primary parent yet, this parent becomes Parent 1 (primary).
• If the student already has a primary parent, this parent fills the Parent 2 (secondary) slot. You'll see "[Student] has been linked as a child of [Parent]".
• If both slots are already taken, the link is refused: "[Student] already has two parents linked. Please unlink one first."
• Linking the same parent to the same child twice is blocked too — "[Student] is already linked to [Parent]."

So to set a specific guardian as the secondary parent, link the primary parent first, then link the second parent — they automatically land in the Parent 2 slot. The same Link Student tool works from the student's side too (see Add students).

Step 4 — Understand unlinking (it's not always the same)

On the Children tab, the Unlink icon next to a child removes that parent-child link. What happens next depends on which slot this parent holds and whether a second parent exists:

• Unlinking a secondary parent (Parent 2): the link is simply removed. The child keeps their primary parent and nothing else changes — "Link to [Student] has been removed."
• Unlinking the primary parent when a Parent 2 exists: the second parent is promoted into the primary slot so the child still has a guardian — "Link to [Student] has been removed. The second parent is now the primary."
• Unlinking the only parent of a child student: the child has no guardian left, so MarkTrack converts them into an independent student — login is switched on, a temporary password is generated, and credentials are emailed to the student. This only works if the child already has an email on file; without one you'll see "Cannot unlink: student needs an email address to become independent."

Step 5 — Send (and resend) login details

Parents created with the Add Parent button already get a welcome email automatically. Two tools on the Parents page let you (re)send credentials afterward:

• Send Credentials (per parent, in the table row): generates a fresh temporary password and emails it. After the first send the button reads Resend, and it disappears once the parent has actually logged in.
• Send All Credentials (N) (in the Actions menu at the top of the page): does the same for every parent in the current school who has an email and has never been given login details. The number in brackets is how many that is. Parents who already have login details but have never signed in are listed separately in the confirmation, under a Resend box, and are only included if you tick it. That covers an earlier send, and the welcome email a family gets when you add them or accept their enrollment. Parents who have signed in are never included. The item stays in the menu while anyone hasn't signed in, apart from a few minutes right after a send while those emails are on their way.

What a parent sees in their portal

Once a parent logs in, they get a portal scoped to their own children only. From My Children they can open any linked child and view:

• Grades — a per-class breakdown and an overall average.
• Attendance — recent records and an attendance rate.
• Hifz — memorization progress for any Hifz classes, with a daily acknowledgment they can tap.
• Billing — the child's invoices and payments, with the ability to pay online. Walk them through it with Pay your invoices.

A parent can only ever see children linked to them in Parent 1 or Parent 2 — they cannot see other families' students.

Step 6 — Parents and schools (multi-school orgs)

If your organization runs more than one school, a parent's profile shows a Schools section with a chip for each school they belong to and an Add to School button. Two things to know:

• Linking is automatic in practice. When you add one of a parent's children to a school, MarkTrack automatically adds the parent (both parents, if there are two) to that school too — so they never lose sight of a child who's enrolled there.
• Removing is guarded. Click the ✕ on a school chip to remove the parent from that school, but MarkTrack blocks the removal if any of their children are still enrolled there: "Cannot remove from [school]: parent still has children enrolled there… Unlink or remove the children from this school first." A parent must always belong to at least one school, so you also can't remove their last one.

For the bigger picture on multi-school orgs, see Understand multiple schools.

Step 7 — Archiving and restoring a parent

Archiving hides a parent from the active roster without deleting anything. On the parent's profile, click Archive. Because a child can't be left without a guardian, archiving a parent has knock-on effects on their children:

• Solo children (whose only guardian is this parent) are archived alongside the parent.
• Co-parented children (who have a second, still-active parent) stay active, and the second parent is promoted into the primary slot.

The confirmation message tells you exactly what happened, e.g. "[Parent] archived. 2 children archived; 1 child kept (second parent promoted to primary)."

That's the full lifecycle of a parent account — add, link, give portal access, and archive. Next, add the children themselves in Add students, or browse all guides in Users & Accounts. Still stuck? Contact us.