Enrolling a site

Why there is a first-time step at all

LinxyPass proves that a particular phone belongs to a particular person. What it cannot know on its own is whether that person is allowed into a given site. Enrollment is where those two questions are joined up: the site decides you belong, and your phone is bound to that decision.

The site decides how that call is made. Some sites let anyone who scans their Mark enroll after a face or fingerprint check; some ask you to sign in the usual way first and turn LinxyPass on from inside your account; some want a person to review every newcomer, and those requests arrive in a queue for whoever runs the site.

Three ways in

You do not choose the route; the site does. If you scan a site’s Mark and it reviews new members, the App tells you so and opens a Request access sheet in place of enrolling you. Whichever route it is, you must be signed in to the Linxy App, and the enrollment is tied to the Linxy account signed in there.

A site that has only just been set up is open to its owner alone until it goes live. Scanning it before then gets This site isn’t open to members yet; there is nothing to do but wait for the site to open.

Enrolling by scanning: the number and your face

When you scan a site’s Mark for the first time and the site lets you enroll that way, enrolling and signing in happen on one screen. The App asks Which number is on the sign-in screen? and shows three; pick the one on the page you scanned, then confirm with your face or fingerprint. Your phone is enrolled and the page you scanned signs you in.

The number works exactly as it does for an ordinary sign-in: your first pick is final, and a wrong pick cancels the attempt — start over from the site’s page and scan again. See Signing in with LinxyPass.

If the site removed your access earlier, scanning does not quietly enroll you again. The App shows the site’s reason — Your access has been revoked. Please contact the site administrator. — and the way back is through the site, not through another scan.

Requesting access: the four steps

Making the request

On the site’s sign-in page, follow Don’t have access? Request it and give your name and email address, then press Request Access. If the request started in the App, after a scan, the Request access sheet asks for the same two things and sends them with Send request. The name must be at least two characters and the email has to be a real, well-formed address — both are checked immediately, so you will know at once if something is mistyped.

Use the address you actually read. The whole process depends on an email reaching you, and there is no way to change the address afterwards without starting again.

There is a limit on how often requests can be made from one internet connection — ten in five minutes — which you will only ever meet by repeatedly submitting the form. If you hit it, your connection is held off for fifteen minutes; wait rather than trying harder.

Waiting for approval

Your request sits as pending until somebody at the site approves or declines it. You are told this plainly when you submit.

Sites are usually notified the moment a request arrives, but that notification is sent on a best-effort basis — if it fails, your request is still safely in their queue and will still be seen. A slow response does not mean a lost request.

Submitting again while pending does not speed anything up. You will simply be told, again, that your request is pending.

The enrollment email

When you are approved, an email arrives with an enrollment link. The link is good for seven days. After that it stops working and you have to request access again from the beginning — the approval does not survive on its own.

The link works once. Treat it the way you would treat a password reset email: use it, then stop worrying about it.

Finishing in the App

Tapping the link on a phone that has the Linxy App opens the App directly. Tapping it on a computer, or on a phone without the App, opens a page on lnxy.me that describes what you are about to get — no password to steal, works only from your device, recoverable with your Recovery Mark — and notes that the site will appear in your Connections as a direct line to their team who cannot message you unless you allow it later. On a phone that page offers Continue with LinxyPass, which hands over to the App, and Use a password instead, which takes you back to the site’s ordinary login. On a computer it asks you to finish on your phone: open the same email there, or copy the link and send it to yourself. There is no code to scan — the link is the only way in, on purpose.

Once in the App, the binding between your device and that site is completed.

You must be signed in to the Linxy App for this to work. Your identity is taken from your App session rather than from anything in the link, which is what stops a forwarded email from enrolling somebody else. If you are signed out you will be told a valid login session is required — sign in and tap the link again.

When it completes, that site appears in My Sites and you can sign in there from then on. It also appears as a Brand card in Connections, with a Sign in segment for One-Tap sign-in and a conversation with the site’s team behind it. That conversation starts muted on the Brand’s side: they cannot write to you until you either write to them first or, the first time you open it, answer Let <Brand> message you first? with Allow messages from <Brand>. Choosing Only when I write first keeps it quiet; closing the sheet without deciding means you are asked again next time.

If you are turned down

A denial is not final. You can request access again, and doing so puts you back in the queue as a fresh pending request rather than bouncing off a permanent block.

That said, a second identical request is unlikely to fare differently. If you were declined and believe you should not have been, the useful move is to contact the site by some other route and sort it out with a person before requesting again.

If you are told you already have access

This means a binding already exists for your email at that site — often because you enrolled from another device, or were added directly by the site rather than through the request form. Do not request again. Go to the sign-in page and sign in normally.

Symptoms, causes and fixes

Things people commonly get wrong

Related reading: What LinxyPass is, Signing in with LinxyPass, Managing your sites, and LinxyPass for site owners.