How can teachers allow blocked sites for students

Securly’s filtering tools give admins and teachers the ability to grant access to otherwise blocked websites. There are global and per-policy settings that will need to be configured to allow students to request access to blocked websites.  

It should be noted that there is a difference between the Global setting “Show contact admin button” and the per-policy setting “Authorize users assigned to this policy to allow sites” and the differences are subtle but important. 

Global Settings 

When the “Show contact admin button” is on, students will see an option for “Ask for Permission” when a website is blocked. These requests will be sent to the admin directly. The screen will look like this:

If the “Show Contact Admin Button” feature is OFF, this is what the student will see:

Here is our KB article on the Global Settings allow process - Admin controlled website allowing

Custom policy settings  

In each custom policy, you also have the option to let staff allow sites for students. This feature is similar but has a few important distinctions. To enable staff to approve websites, turn on the “Authorize users assigned to this policy to allow sites” feature in the staff member’s custom policy: 

With this feature turned on, any time a student gets a blocked page while on-site (from a registered public IP) they will have the ability to “Ask for permission” to see the site.  As long as the request comes from a registered IP, the student will see this displayed: 

They can put in their teacher’s email address and send the request to them directly. Teachers can approve sites for a set period of time, or indefinitely. These settings can be adjusted in Global Settings, and the article is linked here - Temporarily allow sites.

It is important to note that student requests must come from an on-site, registered IP, or the teacher’s email field will not be displayed. Additionally, the custom policy setting can be enabled independently of the Global Setting, so you do not have to have the “Show contact admin button” enabled for the custom policy settings to function.