Quick start guide: Welcome to Backpack for administrators!

Thanks for choosing Padlet Backpack. Here’s how to quickly sign up and get started.

Want a more comprehensive guide? Check out this article.

Prefer to watch a video? This covers everything below.

1. Sign up for your account

The first step is to sign up for a Backpack account. Even if you have an existing Padlet account, you need to use this link to sign up for Backpack: https://padlet.com/premium/backpack/try

The most important part of this step is choosing your Backpack domain. This is the unique URL that your teachers and students will use to access Padlet Backpack. So, if you choose the domain fakeschool.padlet.org, that is the URL that everyone will use to sign into Padlet.

Once you choose your Backpack domain, you can skip the next screen to get started with step 2.

2. Enable single sign-on

From the dashboard, open your organization settings by clicking the three dots in the lower left > Settings > Organization info.

We recommend enabling third-party login (aka single sign-on or SSO). Click the field under Enable third-party login to select your provider, either Google or Microsoft. Once you choose your provider, more options will appear below.

We recommend turning on create student accounts automatically if you are adding students to your account. If you enable this feature, when someone with your email domain accesses your Backpack domain (like fakeschool.padlet.org) and clicks Log in with Google/Microsoft, we will assign them a student account automatically. If your students have a different email domain than your teachers, you can add it to the alternative email domain field.

Don’t forget to save!

For more details on single sign-on, check out this article.

3. Set user permissions

Backpack accounts have 4 roles: owner (that’s you!), admin, teacher, and student. The owner and admin can adjust the permissions for teachers and students in your account.

If you followed step 2, click Permissions to access these settings. If you skipped step 2, open the permissions settings from your dashboard by clicking the three dots in the lower left > Settings > Permissions. Toggle between Students and Teachers to set permissions for each role.

We recommend adjusting the default privacy setting for teachers to:

• Org only - Hidden if your students will be licensed.
• Secret if your students will not be licensed.

We recommend changing the default visitor permissions to:

• Can write if students typically post on teacher padlets.
• Can read if students typically read but don’t post on teacher padlets.

For more on recommended permissions, check out these FAQs.

4. Add users

The final step is to add your users. From the dashboard, access the user management page by clicking the three dots in the lower left > Manage users.

We recommend using invite links to add teachers. To access invite links, click Add new user > Invite links and enable the teacher link. Copy the link and distribute it to the teachers who will be using Backpack. When a user clicks this link, they will be assigned a teacher license.

We recommend using automatic account creation through SSO to add students (see step 2 above).

For more methods to add users, check out this article.

You’re done!

Once your users are added, your work is done! Licensed users can import their existing padlets and start creating padlets in your new school account immediately.

Make sure your users are accessing Padlet through your unique URL that you chose during step 1, like fakeschool.padlet.org.

Please contact us if you have any questions about setting up your Backpack account.