What you can see in the parent portal
This page is for guardians. It goes screen by screen and says what is really there. Where something does not work, it says so plainly. Nothing here is a guess.
There are five screens, along the bottom of the portal: Dashboard, Child, Messages, Forms, Settings.
Your account has to be joined to your child's record before any screen can show you anything, and PTRS has no way to make that join today. There is no button for it and no way for your club to set it up.
So if every screen looks empty, that is what you are seeing. It does not mean your child was absent, or that nothing happened, or that there is nothing to sign. See how your account is linked to your child.
Dashboard
What it shows: a card for each of your children with a name and one of three words. Checked In means your child arrived today and has not been signed out. Checked Out means your child was signed out today. Not Checked In means there is no arrival on record for today. If your child arrived, the card also shows the site they are at. This status is real: it comes from the arrival record staff create at the door, and it is correct.
What it cannot show: under Quick Alerts there are two numbers, Unread Messages and Pending Forms. Both are always zero, and not because your week is quiet. Staff have no way to send you a message in PTRS, so there is never one to be unread. Nobody can create a form in PTRS either, so there is never one pending.
What it does not do: refresh on its own. The page loads when you open it, and it does not update while you are looking at it, so if your child arrives while the dashboard is open you will need to reload to see it. The bell in the top corner does nothing when you tap it.
Child
What it shows: nothing, in every installed copy of PTRS. This screen reads from a spot in your device that nothing ever fills in, so it always shows the "no child" message.
What it does not show, even though PTRS can answer it: your child's profile, including allergies and medical alerts; their arrival history for the last 30 days; their weekly programme; a weekly summary of days present, hours and activities; medicines held for them at the site; their emergency action plan; illness records; and incidents they were involved in. PTRS can answer every one of these, and no screen asks for any of them.
One warning about the attendance grid: if your club is running a demonstration copy of PTRS, this screen draws a 30-day grid of coloured squares. Those squares are random. They are not your child's attendance, and they change every time the screen redraws. A real, installed copy of PTRS shows a message saying there is no attendance data yet instead.
Messages
What it shows: a conversation view, and a box to type in.
What it cannot do: you cannot send a message. Tapping send always fails, because the wrong kind of information is sent along with it and PTRS refuses the request before it is even read. Your typed message disappears from the box either way. And you cannot receive one: there is no screen anywhere in PTRS where a staff member can write to a guardian, so nothing has ever created a message from staff to a parent.
This screen shows "No messages yet" permanently. Please keep using the phone number or the paper communication book your site already uses.
Forms
What it shows: two tabs, Pending and Completed, and a way to sign by typing your name.
What it cannot do: both tabs are always empty, because there is no way for your club to create a form in PTRS. The signing screen behind the button is built and works; it simply has nothing to work on.
If a form ever does appear, three things are worth knowing before you type your name. The I agree to the terms above checkbox is not read by anything, and the sign button works whether you tick it or not. If you have more than one child, signing signs for the first child only, even though the card shows all of them. And Download PDF does nothing when tapped.
What a signature would actually record is set out in the signature record.
Settings
What it shows: three things, the portal's language, how you would prefer to be contacted, and quiet hours.
Language works: choosing Español or Kreyòl Ayisyen changes the portal immediately. See change the language the portal is shown in.
The rest does not save. The Save Changes button shows "Settings saved" and then does nothing else: it does not send anything to your club. Your contact preference and your quiet hours stay on your device and are gone when you close it.
Quiet hours have no effect in any case, since the two time boxes are not connected to anything and PTRS does not send messages of any kind. Contact preference has no effect either: PTRS has never sent an email, a text message or a phone notification to a guardian by any route, and two of the four choices, text message and phone call, have no delivery mechanism in the product at all.
If you need to change how your club contacts you, tell your club directly.
Emergency alerts
A full-screen emergency alert is built into the portal. It cannot appear, because nothing in PTRS can create an emergency alert. There is no screen and no service anywhere that raises one.
Do not treat the parent portal as an emergency channel. If there is an emergency at your child's site, you will hear about it the way you do today, by phone. The portal will show nothing.
In one table
| Screen | Shows real information | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | Yes, today's arrival status per child | The two counters under Quick Alerts are always zero |
| Child | No | Always empty; random data in demonstration copies of PTRS |
| Messages | No | Cannot send, cannot receive |
| Forms | No | No form can be created in PTRS |
| Settings | Language only | Nothing else is saved |
| Emergency alerts | No | Cannot be created |
Checked against PTRS on 7 September 2026.