We want a parent to see their child’s next lesson in one tap, without a username or a password. That is the idea behind the contact portal. You send a family a private link, and the link opens a page that shows only their own lessons and invoices. Nobody has to sign up for anything.

The questions that land on you

Without the portal, every question about a family’s lessons comes to you. When is the next lesson? What was that invoice for? Did my Direct Debit go through? Each answer takes a minute. Across a whole practice, those minutes become an evening of messages.

The Direct Debit question is the hardest one. A family enters their bank details, and then several working days pass before the money moves. During that gap, a worried parent has nowhere to check except your inbox. Most services that families pay for show them this information. We wanted your families to have the same.

An account asks a lot of a busy parent. They need to create a password, remember it, and sign in again months later when they have forgotten it. Some will never get past the first screen. The ones who do will sometimes ask you to help them reset a password, and that is one more job for you.

A link asks nothing. The parent opens it on their phone and sees their page straight away. They can bookmark it, or come back to the email you sent. We chose this because a family who can check for themselves will actually check, and then they do not need to ask you.

What the family sees

The contact who pays the invoices gets a link that shows everything about their family: upcoming lessons, invoice history, what each payment covered, and whether their Direct Debit is active. When they want to pay an open invoice, the portal takes them to the payment page for that invoice.

Each student gets a link of their own that shows only their upcoming lessons. A child can keep that link without seeing any invoices or bank details. When you choose Create links on a contact’s page, Soniq Studio works out the family for you. The payer gets the full link and each of their students gets a lessons-only link.

The portal shows information. It does not let anyone change it. A family cannot cancel a lesson, edit their details or set up a Direct Debit from the portal. Those changes still come through you, so you stay in charge of your timetable and your records.

A private link works like a key: whoever holds it can open the page. We designed the links with that in mind, and we gave you the controls.

  • Links expire. Each link lasts 90 days. After that, the page says This link has expired and asks the family to request a new one from you.
  • You can switch a link off. Choose Revoke to stop a link working at once, for example if a parent forwards it by mistake. Choose Regenerate to replace one link and leave the rest of the family’s links working.
  • You can see when a link is used. Each link shows when it was last opened, or Not opened yet.
  • The page stays private. A link that is wrong or switched off looks the same as one that never existed, so nobody can guess their way in.

These controls let you share freely without worrying about who might find an old link.

Why account invites are paused

Soniq Studio used to let you invite a student or parent to create their own account. We have paused those invites while we focus on the contact portal. The portal gives families what they ask for most often, and it does that without a sign-up or a password.

For now, a portal link is the way to share lessons and invoices with a family. To get started, follow Share lessons with a student through the contact portal.

Rolling out gradually

The contact portal is an early-access feature for founding members, and we are switching it on for more teachers in stages. If you do not see a Contact portal section on a contact’s page yet, it is not switched on for your account. Links that you have already sent keep working either way.

To see exactly what a family sees when they open their link, read How to see what your students see in the portal.