Schools and providers can add Contacts to each of their students. A student contact can have one of four permission levels: Parent, Family, Approved Pickup, or Emergency Contact. Except for emergency contacts, each individual contact can create their own brightwheel account with varying levels of access.

Programs have three ways to invite student contacts to join their program and create their own brightwheel account: Email, SMS Text Message, and manually with a 10-digit code (Parent contact types only). When a student contact is invited to join brightwheel, it’s essential that the same email or phone number was used to create the account.

The most common way to be invited to join a center on brightwheel is via email or text message. Once the center has invited a student contact, they will receive an email or text (depending on which contact method is added) with the subject: [Action Required] [School Name] has invited you to their brightwheel community. The easiest way to complete the sign-up process is to click the "Connect to STUDENT NAME" button directly from the message, simply enter a password, and click Create Account.

If the message cannot be located, a new account can be created manually. Here's how:

Brightwheel allows student contacts to manually add students to their accounts using a unique 10-digit code. The contact can locate this code in their email, paper invitation (if applicable), or by contacting the center’s administrator. The center can locate the code from the student’s profile in brightwheel. To add the student, navigate to the My Children portion of brightwheel and tap Add a Child.

It is possible for student contacts to run into trouble signing up due to administrative mistakes. The issues below are the most common and quite simple to fix.

This indicates that the student contact was added as a Family contact type rather than a Parent contact. To correct this, reach out to the center’s administrator. The administrator must edit/update the current contact record to the new contact type.

If the student contact can see one of their children but not all of them, the contact may have duplicate accounts with different login information. This can happen if the center has added them more than once with mismatched information or the contact mistakenly created duplicate accounts, one with their email address and one with their phone number.

The center’s administrator can click +add a new contact under the contact section on the student profiles that the contact cannot see and add the contact record as a New contact for that student with the contact method that the parent's correct account is under (email/phone).

Please Note: If contacts can see one child at a program but not another, they will need to be added as an Existing contact to the child they cannot see.

An administrator can fix this by removing the contact record from this extra profile:

This means the information used to create the account did not match the information added to the student’s profile or that the contact simply has not been added to the student’s profile in brightwheel. Users should reach out to the child's program and request their email or phone be added to the student’s account or provide the student’s specific 10-digit invitation code.