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Student Portal - Creating Your Portal

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Table of contents

Overview

The Student Portal is the learner-facing environment where contacts can access their training, review achievements, manage their profile, and interact with other learner tools provided through Administrate.

Once a Student Portal is created, learners can log in using their portal credentials to view their courses, launch learning activities, and manage aspects of their learning journey.

The Student Portal often sits alongside other learner-facing experiences such as the Booking Portal or WebLink storefronts. These experiences can share branding and authentication patterns so that learners experience a consistent environment across your training ecosystem.

For information about branding and shared portal appearance, see Portal Branding.

Before you begin

Before creating your Student Portal, confirm the following:

  • you have decided which brand the portal should use
  • your learners exist as Contacts in Administrate
  • your courses and events are configured
  • you understand whether the portal will support LMS learning, bookings, or both

If branding has not yet been configured, start with Student Portal – Setting Your Brand.

Create a Student Portal

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Navigate to Portals.
  3. Select Create Portal.
  4. Choose Student Portal as the portal type.
  5. Select the brand that will be used for the portal.
  6. Enter a name for the portal.
  7. Save the portal configuration.

The Portals screen shows all portals that currently exist in your instance, typically including their type, associated brand, and URL. This makes it easier to distinguish between learner-facing environments when you manage more than one portal.

During creation, the portal settings define the core identity of the portal:

  • Suffix — the URL suffix learners will use and see when navigating to the portal
  • Brand — the brand configuration associated with the portal
  • Type — the portal type, such as LMS / Student Portal or WebLink, depending on your setup

After saving, Administrate generates the portal URL. This is the address learners will use to log in and access the portal.

In standard configurations, the generated URL includes the Administrate-hosted domain plus your chosen suffix. Some organizations instead use a vanity domain so the learner-facing URL matches their own branding or existing web structure.

Once the portal is created, you can navigate directly to the URL to review how it looks before sharing it with learners.

Assign a brand

Each Student Portal must be associated with a brand. The brand controls the visual appearance of the portal, including elements such as logos, colors, and background images.

Each portal can only use one brand, so confirm that you are selecting the correct brand during setup.

Because brands can be shared across multiple portals or storefront experiences, always confirm whether a brand is already being used elsewhere before making changes.

For a deeper explanation of how branding works across portals, see Portal Branding.

Create learner credentials

For a learner to access the Student Portal, the contact record must have portal credentials.

  1. Open the Contact record.
  2. Navigate to the Credentials tab.
  3. Select Create Credentials.
  4. Select the correct portal brand.
  5. Save the credentials.

After credentials are created, the learner can receive an email invitation to set their password and begin using the portal.

Many organizations automate this process using communications triggered when a learner is registered for training.

Access the portal

Once the portal is created and credentials exist, learners can log in using the portal URL.

Typical login flow:

  1. The learner navigates to the portal URL.
  2. The learner enters their email address and password.
  3. The portal loads the learner dashboard.

From there the learner can access the features enabled for that portal.

Typical Student Portal features

Depending on your configuration, the Student Portal may provide access to:

  • My Courses – courses or events the learner is registered for
  • My Achievements – certifications or learning milestones
  • Learning content – LMS modules and learning paths
  • Profile management – learner contact details
  • Requests or bookings – if portal registration flows are enabled

The exact features available depend on how your portal environment has been configured.

Testing your portal

Before launching the portal to learners, perform a quick validation test.

  1. Create a test learner contact.
  2. Create credentials for the portal.
  3. Log in using that account.
  4. Confirm the portal loads correctly.
  5. Verify that courses, events, and other learner tools behave as expected.

This quick test ensures that the learner experience is working before real learners begin accessing the portal.

How the Student Portal fits with other portals

The Student Portal is one part of the learner-facing ecosystem in Administrate.

Other related environments may include:

  • Booking Portal – where coordinators can book training on behalf of learners
  • WebLink storefronts – where public visitors browse courses and events

These experiences can share branding and authentication patterns to provide a consistent experience for users.

For more information about coordinator-facing portal usage, see Guide to the Booking Portal.

Managing your portal

After a portal is created, most ongoing management activities involve:

  • maintaining learner credentials
  • monitoring learner activity
  • updating branding
  • reviewing learner-facing features

For operational management tasks, see Managing Your Student Portal.

Common questions

Can one organization run multiple Student Portals?

Yes. Some organizations create separate portals for different audiences, brands, or training programs.

Do learners need credentials before accessing the portal?

Yes. Each learner must have credentials associated with the correct portal brand before they can log in.

If both experiences are part of the same learner journey, using the same brand usually provides the most consistent experience.

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