Help center › Your account
Beacon for iPhone and iPad
Teachers and staff use the Beacon app for iPhone and iPad to report a problem and follow their requests; technicians work their tickets and scan devices. This guide covers signing in and the app's own settings. Teachers and staff find it under Account (tap your picture on Home); technicians under More.
Get Beacon Help Desk from the App Store on an iPhone or iPad, then sign in with the account your district gave you.
Signing in
- Email and password. Enter your work email and password and tap Sign In. Forgot Password? sends a reset link to an address that has a Beacon password; the link works for 1 hour. If your email is in more than one organization, the app asks which one.
- Google. Tap Continue with Google and choose your school Google account.
- Microsoft, Clever, ClassLink or your district's own single sign-on. Tap Signing in with Clever, ClassLink or Microsoft?, type your organization's short name (the part after
org=in the sign-in link your district sent you), then tap the button for your district's sign-in. Next time, the sign-in screen shows those buttons under “For” and your organization's short name; Change picks another. - Sign in with Apple is for technicians, admins and owners, and only once it is linked to your account. Sign in another way first, then open More › Sign-In Methods and tap Link Apple ID. Linking needs a sign-in within the last 10 minutes; if yours was longer ago, the app asks you to sign in again and brings you back to Sign-In Methods. Link only an Apple ID that is yours alone: anyone who can use it can open your Beacon account. From then on, Continue with Apple on the sign-in screen opens your account. Beacon asks Apple for no name or email address. Unlink Apple ID on the same screen turns it off; a password change, a reset link or a disabled account turns it off too. When your district doesn't use Sign in with Apple, the screen says so.
Technicians can link a Google or Microsoft account in Profile & Settings on the Beacon website.
Notifications and quiet hours
Technicians are asked to turn on notifications on the inbox; teachers and staff, after they send a request. To turn them on later, open Notifications in the app and tap Turn On Notifications, or Open Settings when they are off for Beacon in iOS Settings.
- Where: More › Notifications for technicians, Account › Notifications for teachers and staff.
- Send Me chooses which notifications reach your phone. Technicians: assigned to me, replies and notes, mentions, new requests for my teams, status changes, due soon, overdue, devices checked out to me and other updates. Teachers and staff: replies to my requests, changes to my requests and devices checked out to me. These switches change push notifications only: everything still shows in Beacon, and email isn't affected. The one exception is New requests for my teams: turned off on the website, it is off in the app and by email too, and turning it on in the app turns those back on.
- Quiet Hours: turn it on and set From and To (8:00 PM to 7:00 AM until you change them), and whether they follow your district's time zone or this device's. Beacon sends no push notifications during quiet hours, and one held back is not sent later; everything still shows in the app. Admins and owners keep getting safety alerts while the district sends them to admins.
- From a notification: press and hold it for its actions. Reply answers a reply (for technicians, also an assignment or a mention) without finding the ticket or request first, and technicians can tap Assign to Me on a ticket that just arrived for their team or one that is due soon or overdue. Replying and assigning need your device unlocked.
The Face ID lock
Turn on Face ID in More › Sign-In & Security (technicians) or Account › Settings (teachers and staff); on a device with Touch ID the switch says Touch ID. Set up Face ID in iOS Settings first; until then the switch can't be turned on.
- Beacon asks for Face ID when it opens and after 5 minutes away. Your passcode works too.
- While the lock is on, the app switcher shows the Beacon logo instead of your tickets or requests.
- Face ID stays on your device: Beacon learns only whether it succeeded.
- Not you? Sign Out on the lock screen signs out. Signing out turns the lock off.
- Don't turn it on for an iPad that several people share.
Working offline and Unsent Changes
Without a connection the app keeps showing what it last loaded, and a banner says you are offline. New requests and tickets with their photos, replies and notes, ticket changes, ratings, and device check-outs and check-ins are saved on the device and sent in order when you are back online.
- Technicians: More › Unsent Changes lists everything not yet on Beacon. Needs Attention, at the top, holds anything Beacon refused; tap one for what you can do about it. Send All Now tries everything at once.
- Teachers and staff: while something is waiting, Account shows Waiting to Send, where you can send it now or delete it.
- Signing out with changes still on the device asks what to do with them: send them now, keep them for your next sign-in on this device, or delete them.
Your AI choice
Your help desk can use AI from Anthropic to sort, summarize and suggest answers. Before the first request, ticket, reply or note you send from the app, and before a technician's first Suggest a Reply, the app asks whether to use AI with what you write.
- Teachers and staff are asked “Use AI with your requests?” Beacon sends your name and what you write in requests and replies to Anthropic, an AI company. Your help desk can use it to sort requests, summarize them and suggest answers. What you send reaches your help desk either way.
- Technicians are asked “Use AI with your tickets?” Beacon sends your name and what you write in tickets, replies and notes to Anthropic, an AI company. Your help desk can use it to sort tickets, summarize them and suggest replies. Suggest a Reply needs this.
Anthropic doesn't train its models on what it receives and deletes it within 30 days, unless its safety systems flag it. Tap Allow or Don't Allow. Nothing you write is sent until you answer: a reply typed in a notification waits in the reply box, and anything saved offline waits in Unsent Changes or Waiting to Send.
Change it anytime with Use AI in Account › AI (teachers and staff) or More › AI (technicians). Until you choose, it reads Not chosen, and your help desk can use AI with what you write; tapping it asks the question. Turned off, nothing you write is sent to AI: requests and replies for teachers and staff; tickets, replies and notes for technicians, including tickets they open for someone else, and Suggest a Reply is off for them. This holds on the Beacon website and by email too. Beacon's own keyword check for signs of crisis still runs on new requests, tickets and replies. The privacy policy has the details.
Deleting your account
Your account belongs to your district, so the app asks your district's Beacon administrators to delete it.
- Technicians: More › Delete Account. Teachers and staff: tap your picture on Home, then Delete Account.
- Add a note for your administrators if you like, tap Ask to Delete My Account, then Send Request.
Your district's administrators get a notification and an email asking them to act within 30 days. When your district has no other administrator in Beacon, Beacon support receives the request and asks your district what to do; your district decides. The request changes nothing by itself: you stay signed in until they act.
When they delete and erase your account, you are signed out and your name, email address, title and phone number are erased. Requests and replies you sent (for a technician, tickets, replies and notes) stay with the district as its records, under an anonymous name instead of yours; someone with nothing to keep is removed entirely. Beacon emails you to confirm when your district's email settings allow it and your administrator has not chosen to send none.
Administrators: in Admin › Users, open the menu on the person's row and choose Delete and erase. Deleting says what it keeps.