Child Tenants

Some organizations run a separate site for each business they look after. A bookkeeping firm, for example, may keep one site per client. In this system your organization's site is the parent and each site you run for someone else is a child tenant. Use this page to add a child tenant, open it without signing in again, change its features, and choose who on your team may open it.

This video is the whole tour: how a parent adds, opens and manages its clients, decides who may open them, and sees what happened. Each section below also has a short screencast of just that task.

Your platform administrator may have renamed these words for your organization. A bookkeeping firm might see Practice, Client and Clients instead of parent, child tenant and child tenants. The screens work the same way whatever the words are.

Menu	Child tenants > All child tenants; Child tenants > Open a child tenant; Child tenants > Access; Child tenants > Activity
Permission	View child tenants; Create child tenants; Edit, suspend, resume and reload child tenants; Enable and disable features in child tenants; Remove child tenants; Manage who may enter child tenants; Enter child tenants that an access grant covers; View Audit Trail (for Activity)
Feature	Parent Tenant (turned on by your platform administrator), which also turns on Audit Trail

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

How it works

• Each child tenant is a complete site of its own, with its own address, users, content and data. Nothing in one child tenant is visible from another.
• Its address is made from a short name you choose and your own address, for example northwind-traders.your-firm.example.com.
• People on your team open a child tenant from your site. They arrive signed in, with the roles that an access rule gives them there. They never need a password for the child tenant.
• The child tenant's own staff, if it has any, sign in there directly with their own accounts. They cannot see your site or any other child tenant.
• Everything your team does in a child tenant is recorded under their own name, so you can always tell who did what.
• Other organizations on the same platform never see your site or your child tenants, and you never see theirs. See Kept apart from other organizations.

See your child tenants

Open Child tenants > All child tenants. Each row shows the name, the address, the description and the state:

State	Meaning
Setting up	The site is being created. The list refreshes on its own and shows Running after a few seconds.
Running	The site is open for business.
Suspended	Nobody can use the site, including its own staff, until you resume it.
Removal scheduled	The site is suspended and is removed when its waiting period ends. You can still restore it.
Removing	The site and its data are being removed.
Setup failed	The site could not be created. Click Retry, or Remove from list to take it off the list.

Your plan sets how many child tenants you may have. When you reach it, Add child tenant is greyed out, and pointing at it tells you the limit. Use the search box to find one by name or address, and the State and Sort menus to narrow and order the list.

Add a child tenant

1. Open Child tenants > All child tenants and click Add child tenant.
2. Type the Name everybody sees, for example Northwind Traders.
3. Check the Address. It is filled in from the name, and you can change it. Use lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, 3 to 40 characters. The screen tells you at once whether the address is available.
4. Optionally add a Description. Only your team sees it, in the list.
5. Under Start from, pick what the new site starts with, for example Blank site.
6. Click Create client (or Create with your organization's word).

The list shows the new child tenant as Setting up, then Running. When it is running, an Open button appears.

Open a child tenant

• Click Open next to the child tenant in the list, or
• open Child tenants > Open a child tenant and pick it from the list.

You arrive in the child tenant's admin, already signed in. Click the building icon in the top bar to see where you are, for example You are working in Northwind Traders, through Your Firm, and these choices:

Choice	What it does
Switch child tenant	Shows your other child tenants so you can jump to another one.
Back to your organization	Returns to your own site. You stay signed in to the child tenant.
Leave this child tenant	Signs you out of the child tenant and returns to your own site.

On the Open a child tenant page, click the star next to a child tenant to mark it as a favorite. When you have more than a handful of child tenants, favorites and the ones you opened recently are listed first, and a search box appears. Sign out of every child tenant ends every session you have open in your child tenants, on every device.

If a child tenant says You cannot open this, you do not have an access rule for it, or it is suspended. Ask the person who manages access in your organization.

Your session follows your own account

When you sign out of your own site, are disabled, change your password, or lose your access rule, your open child tenant sessions end too, within a few minutes at most.

Change a child tenant

Open Child tenants > All child tenants, click Manage next to the child tenant, and pick a choice:

Choice	What it does
Edit	Change the name, the address or the description. If you change the address, the old address stops working at once, so tell the people who use it.
Features	Turn features of the child tenant on or off. Changing a feature restarts the child tenant, which takes a few seconds. Features that could reach other sites are hidden, and some features are always on.
Access	Rules for this child tenant only. See Decide who may open child tenants.
Activity	Everything that happened to this child tenant, in the Audit Trail.
Reload	Restarts the child tenant, for example after a change that has not shown up yet.
Suspend	Closes the child tenant to everybody until you Resume it. Its address then shows that the site is not available.
Remove	Only for a suspended child tenant. See below.

To change several child tenants at once, tick them in the list and use the bulk action menu.

Remove a child tenant

1. Suspend the child tenant first.
2. Click Manage > Remove.
3. Type the child tenant's name exactly as it is shown, and click Remove child tenant.

If your plan keeps removed child tenants for a number of days, the child tenant shows Removal scheduled and you can Restore it until the waiting period ends. Otherwise it is removed at once with all its users, content and data, and this cannot be undone.

Decide who may open child tenants

People on your team never get a password for a child tenant. They open it from your site and are signed in to it automatically. Access rules decide who may open which child tenants, and which roles they have once they are inside. Someone who matches no rule cannot open a child tenant.

Open Child tenants > Access for rules that cover every child tenant, or Manage > Access next to one child tenant for rules that cover only that one. The Rules table reads like a sentence: Who in your organization, Can open, Roles inside the child tenant. A child tenant's page also lists the rules for every child tenant, because they apply there too.

To add a rule:

1. Under Who in your organization, choose Everyone with a role, then pick the role from your own site, for example Bookkeeper. Or choose One person, click Select a person and search for them.
2. Under Their roles inside the child tenant, tick the roles they get there, for example Editor. These decide what they can see and do once they open it. A role that does not exist in a child tenant is ignored there.
3. Click Add rule.

When someone matches several rules, they get every role of every rule. To take access away, click Remove next to a rule. Open sessions that depend on it end at their next check, within a few minutes.

tip

Give access through roles rather than one user at a time. When someone joins or leaves the team, changing their role on your own site updates their access to every child tenant at once.

See what happened

Everything that happens to your child tenants is recorded in the Audit Trail, under the Tenant Hierarchy category. Open Child tenants > Activity for the whole history, or Manage > Activity for one child tenant. Each line shows what happened, when, who did it, and which child tenant, with details such as the roles someone received, how they signed in, why a session ended and the network address it came from. Click Details for the full event.

The Audit Trail keeps events for as long as its settings say, under Settings > Audit Trail. There you can also turn single events off.

Kept apart from other organizations

Your platform may host many organizations, each with its own child tenants. They are kept apart from yours in every direction:

• Your lists, searches, tenant switcher and Audit Trail show only your own child tenants. Another organization's child tenants never appear, even when you search for their name or address.
• Nobody in your organization can open, change, suspend or remove another organization's child tenant, and nobody there can do it to yours. A link to another organization's child tenant gives the same You cannot open this page as one that does not exist.
• Being signed in to your own site does not sign you in anywhere else. Another organization's site, and its child tenants, ask for their own sign-in, and your account does not exist there.
• Access rules only ever cover your own child tenants, and only your own team.
• A child tenant cannot see or reach your site, the other child tenants, or any other organization.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Why, and what to do
Add child tenant is greyed out	You reached the number of child tenants your plan allows. Point at the button to see the limit, and ask your platform administrator to raise it, or remove a child tenant you no longer need.
This address is already in use or This address is reserved	Another of your child tenants uses the address, or it is kept for the system. Pick another one.
Setup failed	The site could not be created. Click Retry. If it fails again, click Remove from list and tell your platform administrator.
You cannot open this	You have no access rule for the child tenant, it is suspended, or it is not one of yours. Ask the person who manages access in your organization.
Two-factor sign-in required	Your organization requires it before you open a child tenant. Sign out of your own site, and sign in again with two-factor authentication.
You are signed out of a child tenant	Your session ended: you were idle too long, it reached its maximum length, you signed out of your own site, or your access rule changed. Open the child tenant again from your site.
A child tenant's address shows This site is not available	The child tenant is suspended or removed. Resume or restore it, or check the address.
Changed by platform	Your platform administrator moved the child tenant to another organization, or made it an ordinary tenant. Click Remove from list to clear it.