Using the Plus Portal to Manage Multiple Thinkific Websites

If you're the Site Owner for more than one Thinkific website on your Plus account, you can use our Plus Portal to quickly switch between all your sites. No more logging in and out, or managing multiple login credentials — all your sites are just a click away!

About the Plus Portal

The Plus Portal allows our Plus customers to easily manage multiple learning environments by allowing them to quickly switch between the Admin Dashboards of each of their Thinkific sites. By default, course creators with multiple sites must log in to each site separately, using separate login credentials for each, which can lead to frustration and wasted time — the Plus Portal simplifies this process by allowing you to create authorized links between your sites, and then move quickly between those sites without having to manage multiple URLs and login information.

Sites, Accounts and Learning Environments

Because our Plus accounts are set up a little differently than most of our regular plans, terminology around accounts and sites can get a little confusing. To help make things as clear as possible, this article introduces the idea of learning environments (or just environments) to replace the more general 'sites' or 'instances'.

A learning environment is an individual instance or site that is connected to a Plus account. Many of our Plus customers use multiple learning environments and customize each environment to suit the needs of their customers. This also includes 'sandbox' environments that are made available for testing purposes only.

How It Works

In order to take advantage of the Plus Portal, you will first need to authorize and link together your different learning environments: the separate Thinkific sites that all belong to your Plus account. This can only be done by Site Owners, so you will have to be the Site Owner — or have access to the Site Owner email — for each environment you want to link.

Once the environments are linked, they will appear in the Plus Portal panel at the top of the Thinkific Admin Dashboard of each individual site. Clicking on the name of the environment will take you to its dashboard, allowing you to quickly switch between the different environments you are managing.

Accessing the Plus Portal

All the learning environments created under your Plus account will display a small panel at the top left of the Thinkific Admin Dashboard. This panel will display the name of the current environment, along with the Plus Portal button. Clicking the button will take you to the main Plus Portal view.

The Plus Portal view

The Plus Portal view will list all environments currently connected to this environment — including any that are awaiting authorization — along with some information about each environment:

Name: The name of the learning environment
URL: The site URL you would use to manually view or log in to that environment
Date created: When the environment was created
Type: Whether it is a regular Site or a Sandbox environment
Status: The current status of this environment, in terms of Plus Portal authorization. There are only two possible statuses:
- - Pending: A connection request has been sent and is waiting for a response from the learning environment’s Site Owner
  - Connected: The connection has been approved by the environment’s site owner and the environment can now be accessed through the Plus Portal

From this view you can create a new environment, connect an existing environment to your Portal, remove a connected environment, or instantly log in to a different connected environment.

Learning Environment Limits

When you access the Plus Portal you will see a note at the top (next to the Connect and Create New buttons) that describes how many learning environments are available at your current Plus account tier.

If you already have the maximum number of learning environments, you won't be able to Connect new environments or use the Create New button to add any more. For more information on this limit, or to have it increased, please contact your CSM directly.

Exceeding the Learning Environment Limit

If you attempt to add a new environment that would cause you to exceed your learning environment limit, this will still be possible. You will see a warning message at the top of the Create New screen:

Creating the environment will trigger an upgrade process for your account — but nothing will happen without further communication from your CSM. They will be notified so they can reach out to you about an updated plan.

Important Considerations

The Plus Portal is limited to Site Owners only, it will not appear for other user roles.
Remember that once environments are linked through the Portal, anyone who can access the Site Owner account of one of the sites will also have Site Owner access to every other site.
While sandbox environments will appear in the Plus Portal, they cannot be fully linked, due to security concerns; you will be able to quickly move to the sandbox, as with other environments, but you will still have to enter your login information. You also will not be able to see other sites from the sandbox. To read more about these limitations, see the FAQ, below.

How to Create a New Learning Environment

If you want to create a new learning environment under your Plus account, and ensure that it is automatically connected to your Plus Portal, you can do so directly from the Plus Portal.

Sign in to any environment already linked to your Plus account
Click the Plus Portal button located at the top left of your dashboard, directly below the environment name
Click the +Create New button on the top right of the portal page
Enter the Environment name and Password you want to use for your new learning environment — the new environment will automatically use the existing site's site owner email
Click on Create Environment

And you're done! Your new environment will appear at the bottom of your Plus Portal list, and be automatically connected to the Portal. You can use the Log In button next to that environment to quickly switch to that environment, and start building it out!

How to Connect an Existing Environment to the Portal

In order to maintain the security and integrity of your sites, connecting an already-existing learning environment to the portal will require its Site Owner to approve the connection. For example, if the Site Owner of environment A wants to connect to environment B, the Site Owner of environment B must approve. (In many cases the Site Owners in this scenario are the same individual.)

Sending a Connection Request

Sign in to the first environment using the Site Owner credentials
Click the Plus Portal button located at the top left of your dashboard, directly below the environment name
You should now see a list of all the environments associated with your Plus account — to request a new connection, select the Connect button in the top-right corner of the page
In the Request environment connection box that appears, select Site or Sandbox, depending on whether the environment you are connecting is a regular environment or a sandbox
Enter the Thinkific subdomain and Site owner email for the environment you want to connect, and click Send Request
Make sure the account you want to connect appears on the list
You will see a message confirming that the request has been sent, and the new environment should now appear in your Plus Portal list with its status set to Pending

Now that you've sent the request from the first environment, you will have to approve that request from the other side.

Receiving and Approving a Connection Request

The request will be sent to the Site Owner email for the second environment, so the next step will be to access that email address and locate the Request email from Thinkific:

Locate the Request email from Thinkific — the subject line will mention that someone has sent a request to connect with your account.
The Request email should show the name of the requesting account at the top. Make sure the name is correct and click the Respond to Request link in the email
(Optional) If you are not logged in to the second environment, you will be prompted to do so now
Read the Connection request page, confirm that the Requester profile matches the first environment's details, and then click Connect Environment

The connection is now established! You will be taken to the Plus Portal view of the newly-connected environment, which should show both environments with a green Connected status. You can now easily move between these two environments, by clicking their respective Log In buttons from the portal.

Note: If you are trying to connect several sites at once, it is important to process each request before making the next one; the system will not allow you to have multiple pending requests involving the same environment. In general, the simplest way to connect many environments together is to make all the connection requests from the same initial environment. Once the connections are established, all the connected sites will share access to each other.

How to Disconnect an Environment from the Portal

If you need to disconnect an environment that was previously approved, you can do so from the Plus Portal:

From the Plus portal of either of the connected environments, locate the other environment you want to disconnect and click on the three vertical dots at the far right of the listing
Click Disconnect

You should see a confirmation message that the disconnection was successful. If you refresh the page, your Plus Portal listing should no longer show the environment in question. The Site Owner of the disconnected environment will no longer see this environment in their Plus Portal.

Moving Between Sites

Once your environments are connected, moving from one to another via the Plus Portal is very simple:

From any connected environment, click on the Plus Portal link on the top left of the Admin dashboard
From the Plus Portal list, click the Log In button that corresponds to the environment you want to access
You're there!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I log in directly to my sandbox site/environment?

The Plus Portal treats sandbox environments slightly differently from regular learning environments. Because they are often used by developers (possibly including third parties and contractors) and it is common for multiple people to share the login credentials for a single sandbox site, we do not allow sandbox sites to be directly connected/authorized via the Plus Portal.

You can still add a sandbox site to your Plus Portal, to quickly switch to the environment, but you will need to log in manually when you do so.

When I log into my sandbox environment, the portal is empty? Is something broken?

This is expected behavior, relating to the restrictions we have placed on connecting sandbox environments (see the question directly above.) Because the sandbox environment is not fully connected, when you are logged into the sandbox your portal will appear to be empty: there are no connected/authorized sites. In addition, you will not be able to create any connections from the sandbox environment.

I am getting an error that says “something went wrong”?

If you run into problems sending a connection request through the Plus Portal, you might notice that the error messaging is quite general. Unfortunately, this is necessary for security reasons. If you encounter an error, double-check that you have filled out all the fields according to the instructions in this article, and that you are sending the request to an environment associated with your Plus account.

If you continue to get this error, please reach out to your CSM for resolution.

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