How do staff sign in with a PIN?

Staff open the shared portal link on a paired device, tap their name and type their PIN — plus what happens on wrong PINs and lockouts.

Staff sign in by opening your venue's staff portal link on a paired device, tapping their name and typing their personal PIN — no email or password needed.

• Open the staff portal link (usually saved as a bookmark or home-screen icon on the front-of-house device or tablet). The page asks Who's signing in? Tap your name. and shows the team as name tiles — the people who signed in on this device lately come first. With more than twelve people there's a Find your name search box and an A–Z bar.
• Tap your name. It shows above the keypad; if you tapped the wrong one, tap Not you? to go back to the names.
• Type your PIN. The prompt reads Enter your 6-digit PIN (the number shown follows your venue's PIN length policy — 4 to 8 digits; 6 is the default). It submits itself when the last digit goes in; a physical keyboard works too.
• You land on the portal's Home page, ready for service.

Search or do anything works on the portal too — the magnifying glass at the top, the box at the top of the menu, or Ctrl+K (⌘K). It finds bookings, customers and settings, and opens a page filled in when you type what you want to do ("book 4 at 7", "message tonight's guests saying we're running late"). You only see what your own role lets you do — a Host gets no marketing or gift card rows, for example — and the page's own button still does the thing.

Forgot your PIN? Tap your name, then Forgot my PIN? under the keypad: ResoFlow emails you a link to choose a new one (if there's an email address on your staff profile — if not, ask your manager). Your old PIN keeps working until you choose the new one.

There is ONE shared portal link for the whole team. Because everyone taps their own name first, a PIN is only ever checked against that one person. The names — and the keypad — only appear on a device the venue has paired (Settings → Security policy → Devices allowed in): anywhere else — another phone, a home computer — the page says "This device needs to be set up by the venue owner or an admin before staff can sign in.", so the link on its own lets nobody in. Never share the link publicly all the same.

Wrong PINs and lockouts. A wrong PIN shows "Incorrect PIN — try again." with the number of attempts left. After 5 wrong PINs under one name, that person's PIN is locked for an hour ("Too many wrong PINs — this PIN is locked for 60 minutes. The venue owner or whoever manages staff can unlock it from the Staff page.") — everyone else on the device carries on signing in as normal. After 20 wrong PINs in a row on one device, whichever names were tapped, the device itself locks for an hour ("Too many failed attempts — this device is locked for 1 hour. The venue owner or whoever manages staff can unlock it from the Staff page."). A third one-hour lock within 24 hours stays until the venue owner or whoever manages staff clears it from the Staff page — it no longer frees itself after an hour.

At the top of the Staff page a notice names each locked PIN — for example "Jo's PIN is locked — Front desk iPad, 19:40" — with its own Unlock (the same notice is in that person's panel when you click their name). Unlock clears just that person's lock: their own PIN works again straight away, and nothing else changes (to give them a new PIN, use Reset PIN — or they can use Forgot my PIN? on the PIN pad). When a device is locked instead, an amber banner — "A device is locked out from too many wrong PINs" — has a Clear lockouts button; that, and Clear all lockouts in the … menu at the top of the page, clears every locked device and every locked PIN without changing anyone's PIN. All three — Unlock, Clear lockouts and Clear all lockouts — ask you to confirm it's you first.

Forced PIN change. If someone's PIN has expired, or you've reset it, they can still sign in once but land on Your profile with an amber "Your PIN has expired" banner — everything else is disabled until they set a new PIN.

Owners and admins. An owner's name tile reads "Signs in with email" and opens the email-and-password form; under the names and under the keypad there's also an Owner or admin? Sign in with your email link that opens the same form (with Sign in with Google and Forgot your password?). Owners and admins are both taken to the main dashboard. On a shared device that's a task: when you've finished, tap Done — back to the PIN pad at the top of the page (or leave it — it goes back to the PIN pad after the venue's idle time). Rather your name wasn't on the pad? Switch on Don’t show me on the PIN pad in Your account → Sign-in and security — your tile goes, and the Owner or admin? Sign in with your email link is still there whenever you need it.

If the page says "Portal not found" or "Staff portal unavailable" instead of the names, the link has been replaced or the portal has been disabled — see the FAQ below.

Related: How do I set up a device for the staff portal? · How do I reset or change PINs? · Why did my staff portal link stop working?