Hey there!
I was a public school teacher for a long time. Now transitioned out and just working on Coda!
What you want is TOTALLY doable and no parents/teachers/ students would even need an account. Heck you don’t even need lock-in! There are ways to set up password protected portals on top of Coda whee unique password actually end up revealing the unique info associated with that password (aka attendance, grades, etc) and only a username/password can access the info.
That being said, it’s quite the complex set up. Before going into detail about how to create it, I’ll let you know the “gotchas”
GOTCHA: anything in a coda doc, no matter how hidden, Can with enough brute force and effort be found and seen despite any in-doc protection measures.
- Can anyone find it? No not just anyone. With enough measures you can make it extremely difficult to find hidden information inside a doc and one would need to use Codas api or different developer tools to surface information.
- is this secure enough for me? I use it any many ways for portals with sensitive information. It is technically very secure for many use-cases. That being said, if you are in the states in public Ed you are likely held to FERPA and therefore the mere chance someone might stumble upon grades they shouldn’t see might cross a ferpa line.
the only sure-fire way to hide info is with the use of cross doc. But that’s not going to be a good use case for this. Not scalable. Don’t recommend.
What you COULD do if you are married to using Coda is use a form that acts as a “request” for info, and then trigger automations that then sends the related info to the parents or students via an automated email with the gmail pack. Probably some other fun ways too if I keep thinking about it!
Actually. Give me a moment to ponder. I might have a wild and totally secure solution for you . . .