This guide is designed to help parents get the most out of Securly Home, a powerful tool for keeping students safe on their school-issued devices at home. Not only can parents determine what their kids access on their school devices such as Chromebooks, but they can also track their activity on & off-campus as logged by Filter, and know about any blocked and flagged activities.
(The school admin determines which settings can be modified by parents and can be changed at the admin’s discretion. They determine what activity filtered & logged by Filter should be displayed to the parent. To learn more about that, read this KB.)
Home screen
After logging in, parents will see the main dashboard, displaying the five main features of the Securly Home app:
- Activity Feed
- Flagged Activity
- Rules
- Offline Schedules
- Pause Internet
They will also see a menu icon in the top left corner of the screen, from which they can navigate between features, modify settings, and find support.
Activity Feed
The Activity Feed provides a real-time view of a child’s online activity. Activities are displayed in descending order starting with the most recent activity. Each activity tile displays the URL of the activity, the content category it belongs to, the date and time of the activity, and the user email address associated with the activity.
Switch between multiple users (if applicable) by tapping the cap-and-gown icons along the top of the screen.
In the top right corner, parents will find options to search and filter activities. Tap the magnifying glass icon to search. Tap the filter icon to make selections to only display certain types of activities in your feed.
Flagged Activities
The Flagged Activities section shows parents a list of activities that the Securly AI flagged as indicative of self-harm or bullying. This feature of the Securly Home app gives parents a glimpse into potentially serious activities relating to their child’s wellbeing.
Rules
The Rules section allows parents to set specific rules for their child’s school-issued Devices. The Categories tab gives parents the ability to toggle on or off a set of predefined categories (Pornography, Drugs, Gambling, etc.) to block or allow large groups of content with one tap. Sites belonging to a blocked category will not be accessible on the child’s device.
The Categories tab also provides options to toggle on or off site- and search engine-specific settings for popular websites, including Google’s Safe Search, YouTube’s Safe Video, and more. Enabling these settings provides an extra layer of security for students online.
The Sites tab allows parents to enter specific web addresses to Block or Allow simply by typing the URL into the field provided. Sites can be removed from either list by tapping the trash can icon.
Offline schedules
The Offline Schedules section allows parents to set specific time windows for their child’s internet access. Whether bedtime or family time, parents can use this feature to encourage their children to take a break from devices.
Turning on the “Bedtime” setting lets users create an offline schedule tailored to their needs. Parents can quickly select options to set schedules for School Nights and Weekends, or build their own custom schedule from scratch.
Pause Internet
The Pause Internet feature is accessed from the bottom of the Home screen. Tapping the Pause button will bring up a small window with all connected devices listed. To pause internet connectivity for a device, simply tap that device in the list. To unpause, tap again. To hide the Pause Internet menu, simply tap the down-arrow at the top of the window.
Menu
Tapping the three-line “Hamburger” button in the top left corner will slide out a quick menu for easy access to the key features of Securly Home, as well as links to Account settings and Help.
At the top of this menu, parents will see the account email address they’re logged in with. At the bottom of the menu, there’s a button to log out as well.
Account
The Account section of Securly Home lets parents adjust settings for the Securly Home experience. After tapping “Account” from the side menu, parents will see three subpages:
Manage notifications
Here parents can set the types of push notifications they wish to receive for different types of alerts.
Enabling “Flagged Activities” notifications will push an alert to the parent’s device when activity indicating bullying or self-harm is detected on a child’s device.
Enabling “Notification System” notifications will push an alert to the parent’s device whenever their school sends a mass alert.
Change your password
Here parents can update the password they use to log into Securly Home.
Offline schedules time zone
Here parents can select the time zone they want their offline schedules to be based on. In most instances, parents should just select the time zone in which they live.
Help
The Help section of the Securly Home app gives parents a direct connection to a vast library of Securly platform-related knowledge, with resources developed by the Securly team of experts—including the ability to reach out to Securly support directly.
After tapping “Help” from the side menu, parents will see two subpages:
FAQs
The FAQs page allows parents to see answers to frequently asked questions about the Securly Home app.
Tap the “Securly Home App” tile to view topics related to the mobile app.
A search field is also available which allows parents to search the entire Securly Support library for a particular topic by name. The topics covered here are curated by the Securly team of product experts, making this a parent’s best resource for quick and accurate answers.
Support
The Help page allows parents to reach out directly to Securly for help with a specific issue they may be having, especially in cases where they can’t find the answers via the FAQ section.
Parents can fill out the provided fields, give a description of the issue they are having, and submit it for a response by the Securly team.
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