Liverpool Education Hub · User guide
How to give a colleague access, change what they can see, deal with someone who has left, and get access to an area your school does not yet hold. Written for the person in a school who looks after this — usually a business manager or office manager.
Now that more council services are on the hub, each school looks after its own staff accounts. You do not need to contact the council to add a colleague or change what they can reach.
Everything on the hub is opened by a service — a named key such as Education Hub Access or Human Resources Access. Every service is handed over twice.
Step 1 · The council
Added to your school's record, with a start and an end date.
Step 2 · Your school
You tick it for each person on the Users page.
Result
Menus, pages, updates and alerts appear for them.
You can only pass on what your school holds — and nobody sees anything until you tick it for them.
Those two sentences explain most of the questions we get. If a service is not in your list, your school has not been given it, and there is nothing you can switch on at your end. If it is in your list but a colleague cannot see the area, it has not been ticked for them.
Who does this
Anyone who holds the User Administrator service. That is usually the headteacher or the school business manager. It is what puts the Users button in the top bar, and it is the only thing needed.
If you cannot see the Users button
You do not hold User Administrator. This is the commonest thing after a change of headteacher or business manager. Use Contact Us and ask the hub team to add it — and ask for a second person at the same time.
Everyday task
Open the Users page
Sign in and click Users in the bar at the top of any page. If you look after more than one school you will see a bar for each — click a school's name to open it.
Find the person
Each member of staff is one row, with a count of how many of your school's services they hold. A grey count means they have none yet.
Open their row
Click the row. Every service your school currently holds is shown as a pill. Purple means they have it; plain means they do not.
Click what they need
Click a pill to give that service, and click it again to take it away. Each click saves on its own — there is no Save button and nothing to confirm.
Everyday task
If the person is not on the list, fill in Add New User at the bottom of your school's block — first name, last name, job title and email address — and click Create User. Their row appears straight away with nothing ticked, so go back and tick what they need.
Use the address they will sign in with
Most school staff sign in with their school Microsoft account. If you type a different address — for example firstname.lastname when they sign in as f.lastname — the hub cannot match the two, and they end up with a second, empty account that has none of the access you gave. It is worth checking the exact address with them first.
Tell them yourself
The hub does not email a new person to say their account exists. Ask them to go to the hub, click Sign In and choose Sign in with Microsoft (or Google). If they use neither, they can sign in with their email address and use Forgot your password? to set a password the first time.
Everyday task
Taking a service away is the same action as giving it: open the person's row and click the purple pill so it goes plain. It takes effect immediately — on the next page they open, that part of the hub is gone.
When somebody leaves, open their row and click every purple pill off, so the count reads 0 of…. That is what stops their access, and it is the part that matters. Please do it promptly — some hub content is not for general circulation.
Their name stays on the list afterwards. There is no delete button, so that nothing they have sent or submitted is lost. If you want the name taken off the list altogether, ask the hub team through Contact Us.
Before a headteacher or business manager leaves
Give User Administrator to whoever is taking over. You cannot remove your own, and the person leaving cannot hand it on once their account has gone.
The pills fall into five kinds. You will probably see more of them than you expect, because the list shows every service your school currently holds.
| Kind of service | What it lets the person do |
|---|---|
| Anything ending Hub Access Education, Finance, Support Functions |
Opens a whole department: it appears in the top menu, its sections show as tiles, its announcements appear on their home page, and they can choose email alerts for it. One tick covers all the general sections in that department. This is what most staff need. |
| User Administrator | Puts the Users button in their top bar and lets them do everything in this guide. Give it only to the people who should manage your staff's access. |
| A named section, for example Human Resources Access, Health and Safety Access, Funding Access | Opens that one area only, and only for the people you tick. These are the areas limited to particular schools, so the pill is only there if your school has been given it. |
| Finance Document Submission | Adds the Returns button, for uploading returns and submissions to the council. |
| Other services ending … Access | Services for individual sections that everyone with the department service can already see. Ticking them or leaving them makes no difference to what the person can reach today. They are safe to ignore. |
A safe default for a new starter
Tick the Hub Access services your school holds, and nothing else. Add a named section only when they actually need it, and User Administrator only for the one or two people who manage access.
| Given the service | Not given it | |
|---|---|---|
| Top menu | The department appears, for example Human Resources | It is not in the menu at all |
| Sections | Its sections show as tiles on the department page | No tile — there is no sign the section exists |
| Home page | That department's announcements appear | They do not appear |
| Email alerts | They are offered alerts for its sections | They are not offered them, and any they already had stop |
| A link you email them | Opens the page | Quietly takes them to the hub home page, with no message |
Changes take effect on the next page the person opens. They do not need to sign out and back in, and neither do you.
Needs the council
Some areas of the hub are limited to the schools that have signed up for them — Health and Safety works this way. For those, the service only appears in your list once the council has added it to your school's record. There is nothing you can switch on at your end, and the area is not visible to anyone at your school in the meantime.
Ask for it
Use Contact Us on the hub, saying which area you want and which school you are asking for. The council service team that runs the area decides.
Watch for the new pill
Once it is added, it appears in your list the next time you open the Users page.
Tick the people who need it
Until you do, your school holds the service but nobody sees the area. The council can tick the first few people for you when they set it up, if you ask them to.
"I cannot see the Users button."
UsuallyYou do not hold User Administrator. Common after a change of headteacher or business manager.
What to doAsk the hub team through Contact Us to add it, and ask for a second person at the same time.
"The service I want to give is not one of the pills."
UsuallyYour school does not hold it, or the end date on your school's record has passed.
What to doEither way it is a request to the council, not a setting you can change. Use Contact Us.
"I have given someone a service but they still cannot see the section."
UsuallyEither the section has no published content yet, in which case it stays hidden from everyone — or they are signed in on a different email address and are looking at a second, empty account.
What to doCheck the address on their row against the one they actually sign in with. If it differs, ask the hub team to merge them.
"A link we sent just takes them to the home page."
UsuallyThey do not have access to that page. The hub does not show an error, it sends them home.
What to doCheck their row has the right service ticked.
"Everyone at the school lost something overnight."
UsuallyThe end date on your school's record for that service has passed.
What to doAsk the hub team to extend it. Nothing is deleted, and access comes back with the same people still ticked.
"They have the service but did not get our email."
UsuallyMailing lists are rebuilt once a day, so a change can take until the next day to reach them.
What to doAllow a day. Alerts are different — each person chooses their own, so they may simply not have turned them on.
"I clicked a pill and nothing seemed to happen."
UsuallyIt saved. There is no confirmation message.
What to doClose and reopen the row to check the count, or reload the page.