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In Blink Session a client is the person receiving services. On certain plans, a client can be linked to "Contacts" (a parent, guardian, or an adult client themselves), and a contact can have an optional "Portal Login".

Clients can be added two ways

1. In a session: When someone joins a session, the system will try to determine if they might already be a client. It will ask you to pick from possible matches of your existing clients, or "Add Client". Even if the Blink Session plan you are on does not include scheduling or notes, adding them as a Client helps you and the system track what you have or can do within sessions (recommended resources, what we did last time, etc.).
2. Outside a Session: Click All next to the clients search box on the left sidebar. Then, click "Add Client" from the top left. On plans with practice management features, you will have options like "Contacts" and "Linked Staff".

Open the client from the left search bar

Edit: change any section/field and click Save.

Discharge: click Details at the top and tick the Discharged checkbox and click Save. Discharged clients cannot be edited or scheduled, but all of their data is kept.

Delete: click Details and find the red Delete Client button. If it does not appear at the bottom, you do not have permission to delete the client. User-admins can delete any client; other staff can only delete a client they just created. Deleting is permanent and removes the client's notes, appointments, and related data. Deleting a client does not automatically delete their linked contacts.

Client ↔ Staff. All staff seeing a client for services should be linked to them. If you are a User-Admin, when adding Staff or Clients you will be asked which Staff/Client to link them to. If not, the client you create will automatically be linked to you.

Client ↔ Contact. A contact (parent, guardian, or the client themselves) can be linked to several clients, and a client can have several contacts. Note that in Blink Session (version 2) a "Contact" can only log in if you mark that they should have a "Portal Account". Learn more about this in the Contacts section. Click the Contacts tab on any client or go to Reports -> Contacts to manage them.

A contact is a person associated with a client — usually a parent, guardian, or the adult client themselves. A contact record stores their name, email, phone, address, and notification preferences.

A contact can optionally be given a Portal Login: an account that lets them sign in to Blink Session to view appointments, self-schedule, see shared notes/recordings, pay invoices, and manage notifications. (In Blink Session One this was called a "Client Login".)

A contact without a portal login is simply stored information — they can't sign in until you enable the login.

1. Open the client and go to the Contacts tab.
2. Click Add Contact (or Link Existing to attach a contact that already exists in your organization).
3. Enter the contact's details. To let them sign in, tick Portal Login — this requires an email address and sends them an email to set a password.
4. Click Save.

One contact can be linked to several clients — use the Linked to section of the contact to add or remove clients. To give an existing client another contact (for example a second parent), open that client's Contacts tab and add or link the contact there.

For a contact, go to Reports -> Contacts, or open the client's Contacts tab and click the contact; for a staff member, go to Organization › Staff and click their row.

1. A contact awaiting setup shows an Awaiting password badge; a staff member shows a Pending badge.
2. Check the email address for typos. If it's wrong, correct it and save — a fresh invite is sent to the corrected address.
3. If the address is correct, click Resend invite.
4. Delivery can take a few minutes; have them check their spam/junk folder.
5. If it still doesn't arrive, their email provider is likely blocking it — see "Not receiving email".

When a contact signs in with their portal login they see a streamlined version of Blink Session:

• Appointments — upcoming appointments across every linked client, with add-to-calendar links and a Join button to enter an online session. If your organization allows it, a Schedule Appointment button lets them book new appointments.
• Linked Clients — the clients they're linked to; opening one shows shared notes, recordings, and uploads.
• Invoices — view and pay invoices and manage a saved payment card (when invoicing is enabled).

They can update their own email, password, and notification preferences from the menu under their name at the top right.

You must be an Organization Admin. Open Organization from the bottom of the sidebar and choose Features Toggle. Switch a feature on or off, confirm, and click Save. When a feature is off it's hidden everywhere in the app.

Features your current plan doesn't include are shown locked, with a link to change your plan.

You must be an Organization Admin. Blink Session accepts card payments through Stripe; payments go directly to your Stripe account.

1. Go to Organization › Invoicing.
2. Under Stripe payments, click Connect with Stripe.
3. Sign in to an existing Stripe account, or complete the form to create one (you'll need your bank and identity details).

Blink Session takes no fee on these payments (standard Stripe processing fees apply). You can end the connection any time with Disconnect.

Staff can take card payments from a contact or they can pay within their portal or a link from their invoice email (a Portal Login is not required to receive invoice emails or pay).

There is also an option to save the card on file for future charges with a consent statement. If a contact has a saved card, Staff can charge it when they create the invoice. All card data and saved cards are stored on Stripe servers.

You must be an Organization Admin. Click Organization › Subscription. Then, click Change Plan. Pick a plan and confirm. Upgrades take effect immediately and prorated upgrades are charged to your saved payment method immediately; downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. Billing is per staff user (admin users are free).

You must be an Organization Admin. Go to Organization › Subscription and click Cancel subscription, then confirm.

• On a paid plan you keep access until the end of your current billing period — you won't be charged again, and the page shows the date access ends.
• If you're still on a free trial, canceling ends access immediately.

Cancellation always follows your Stripe billing period.

Open the menu under your name in the bottom left menu.

• Profile — your name and email (an email change is confirmed by a link we send to the new address).
• Password — change your password.
• Notifications — choose which notifications you receive and whether by email or SMS.
• Two-Factor Auth — add an extra layer of sign-in security.
• Self-Schedule & Sync (staff) — set bookable hours and connect your Google or Microsoft calendar.

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Click Reports in the sidebar. Tabs across the top switch between report types — Appointments, Sessions, Attendance, Invoices, and Contacts (some depend on which features your organization uses).

Each report can be filtered by date range, staff, location, and status, and exported to CSV with the Export button.

You can save a filtered report to return to it quickly.

Resources are the materials you use in sessions. Everything you add is saved in the cloud, so it's ready on any computer — no screen sharing or hunting for files.

Click Resources in the sidebar from the dashboard, or the Share menu in a session. Search and filter to find an item, click the edit icon to change one (including items you added from the catalog), and in a session click a resource to load it for everyone.

Use Search Catalog to find ready-made resources and resources shared within your organization; adding one copies it into your own list.

Open Resources and click Add Resource, then choose a type:

• List — a set of images or words (flashcards). Lists power in-session card and matching activities, and can even be generated for you with Generate with AI (e.g. "farm animals").
• Website — a web page or video link to display or co-browse.
• PDF — upload a PDF to present and annotate.
• Video / Audio — upload media that plays in sync for everyone.

You can also save a Whiteboard from inside a session. It will save in your resources.

Open a resource's sharing options (Edit Sharing) to share it with My Organization (visible to your colleagues in Search Catalog) or with Everyone. Public shares are reviewed by our team before they appear in the catalog for other organizations.

Blink Session displays all appointment times to staff and clients in their time zone.

When you create or edit an appointment, the time you pick is interpreted in your own time zone. A client in another time zone sees the same appointment converted to theirs — on the calendar, in reminder emails, and in the portal. Self-scheduling shows your available slots in the contact's current time zone as they pick.

Notification preferences

If a Contact has a Portal Login, they can control what they receive and how (email, text), from their Settings › Notifications page. Staff can also set a contact's preferences on the contact record.

Appointment reminders

Staff users with organization or schedule admin permissions can tweak reminder settings under Organization › Appointments. There you choose the channels (Email and/or SMS) and up to two send times — a first reminder 24–76 hours before and an optional second reminder 1–23 hours before — plus optional custom text.

Reminders go only to contacts who have that notification enabled, and only for appointments still marked Scheduled. If a contact has several appointments within the window, they're combined into a single reminder.

Each appointment carries a status you can set per client in the appointment:

• Scheduled — the default, upcoming appointment.
• Completed — shown in green.
• Canceled — shown in red with a line through it; a cancellation reason can be recorded (customize cancellation reasons under Organization › Appointments).
• No Show — shown in a darker red for a client who didn't attend.

A few permissions govern who can manage whose calendar:

• Managing appointments for other staff requires the Schedule for all Staff Users permission.
• Viewing or assigning clients you aren't linked to requires the User/Client Admin permission.

Covering for an absent staff member:

1. Because all Sessions are started via the staff user's Join Link, you can simply provide the link of the substitute to clients.
2. If you want the client to be on the substitute's calendar: In Organization › Staff, open the substitute and link them to the clients they'll see. Then, open each affected appointment, click to edit, and change the assigned staff to the substitute. Reminder emails will now have the substitute's Join Link.

Self-scheduling lets a contact request or book appointments from their portal. Contacts must have a Portal Login to self-schedule.

1. An admin configures appointment types and scheduling rules under Organization › Appointments.
2. Each staff member sets the hours they're bookable under Settings › Self-Schedule & Sync.
3. Contacts then see a Schedule Appointment button in the portal, pick an available slot (shown in their time zone), and book.

Depending on your settings, a booking is either confirmed automatically or sent to the staff member to Approve or Decline.

Blink Session is built for confidential, HIPAA-conscious care:

• All traffic is encrypted in transit, and sessions run in your browser with no software to install. Thus, Blink Session does not store any data on your device, besides login Cookies while you are logged in, unless you explicitly download it.
• Two-factor authentication or passkey is required for Staff or Admin users, and is available for contact Portal Logins.
• All sessions are auto-locked after 10 minutes of inactivity.
• Access to client information is limited to linked staff and administrators, and sensitive access is logged.
• We sign Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with organizations that require one — go here to sign your BAA.

When anyone requests to join a session with you (via your join link), you will receive an in-app notification. Otherwise, you can always enter a session by clicking Open Session in the left sidebar.

A Blink Session session can hold as many participants as you need — there's no separate "group" mode. Everyone in the room appears under Session Members, where the moderator can manage each person's microphone, camera, permissions, and related Client record.

When the session reaches more than 3 participants, the session will briefly reload to switch to a group-optimized experience. Video quality always depends on internet connection and device. If a session gets choppy, have participants who aren't speaking turn their camera off — see "Video is freezing or unstable".

In a session, open the share menu to choose how you share:

• Co-browse websites (preferred) — open a shared cloud browser that everyone sees and can interact with in real time, without sharing your own screen. You can allow a participant remote control.
• Traditional Share Screen — share your whole screen, a window, or a browser tab. Screen share is not supported on mobile or tablet browsers.

Open the Whiteboard from the session's share menu. You can draw, add text, insert shapes, and upload images or a PDF to annotate. The moderator controls whether participants can draw and type under the "Session Members" menu. Save the whiteboard to keep your work, or close it when you're done.

Yes. In a session, click the Settings icon at the bottom, then click Virtual Background to blur your background (with an adjustable Blur Strength), pick one of the default backgrounds, or upload your own image. The moderator can allow or turn off virtual backgrounds for participants.

Because background processing uses extra CPU, turn it off if your video becomes choppy on an older device.

Recording is available when your organization has enabled it and you have the Record Sessions permission. In a session, open Record and choose a mode:

• Session — records all participants' video to watch later (cost is $0.05/minute with free lifetime storage).
• Participant — records a single participant to view now or later (5-minute limit).

Finished recordings appear under the client's Recordings tab, and can be shared to a contact's portal.

Every staff member has a personal Join Link (find My Join Link from the sidebar). Anyone using the link simply enters their name, and requests to join your session. You Approve or Deny each request. Within Portal Logins, there is a Join Session button with a dropdown to each linked staff member's linked login.

Blink Session utilizes the Co-Browsing feature to play videos.

1. One-off: Simply open "Co-browser" from the Share menu, then paste the video link in the address bar. Blink Session will even keep track of the sites you visit (history) so you can always go back.
2. Add as a Resource: Open your Resources from the side menu, click Add Resource, and choose Website. Paste in your video link and save. In a session, open the resource and it will auto-open Co-browsing to play the video.

There are a few ways to bring outside material into a session:

• Websites: use Co-browse websites so everyone can view and interact with the site together in real time.
• Documents: for Google Drive, Office 365, or other web-based files, you can also use Co-browse. You can also add a PDF as a resource or directly to the whiteboard.

You need the User Admin permission to manage staff.

1. Go to Organization › Staff.
2. Click Add Staff.
3. Enter the staff member's details and set their permissions (see "Staff permissions explained"). Grant admin permissions only to those who need them.
4. Link the clients they'll be seeing.
5. Save. They'll be emailed an invitation to set a password and activate their account.

Adding will update your subscription, since billing is per staff user.

Each staff user has a set of permission toggles:

• Organization Admin — manage organization settings, features, subscription, and invoicing.
• User/Client Admin — manage all staff and all clients, and link staff to clients.
• Schedule for all Staff Users — create and edit appointments for other staff.
• View Staff Schedule/Details — see other staff members and their schedules.
• Record Sessions — record sessions.
• Observe Sessions — silently observe another staff member's session.

Grant the admin permissions sparingly — only to people who need to manage the whole organization or all clients.

You need the Observe Sessions permission.

• To observe: Log in to Blink Session and then go to the staff user's Join Link, which you can find on the Organization › Staff page. If you are logged in while you visit their Join Link, you will see an option to observe or join.
• When you request to observe, the staff user must approve before you enter the session.
• Your camera and microphone stay off — you only see and hear the staff member and their client(s).

Deleting a staff user removes their personal resources and their future appointments for which they are the only staff member. All historical data — past sessions, notes, and completed appointments — is retained.

Chrome: click the camera icon at the right of the address bar, allow the camera and microphone, and reload. (No icon? Settings › Privacy and security › Site settings › Camera/Microphone, then allow this site.)

Firefox: click the camera/mic icon in the address bar and clear any "Blocked" permission, then reload. (Or Settings › Privacy & Security › Permissions.)

Safari (Mac): Safari menu › Settings for This Website › set Camera and Microphone to Allow, then reload.

Safari (iPad/iPhone): Settings app › Safari › Camera & Microphone Access on, then reload the page.

This usually happens when headphones, a monitor, or a projector was connected earlier and your computer is still routing audio to it — most common on Windows.

Wrong microphone: Click the settings icon to the right of the mic and camera buttons. Switch to a mic that's actually connected (accept any new permission prompt).

Windows output: right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar › Sound settings, and pick the correct playback and input devices. Restart your browser if needed.

Mac output: System Settings › Sound › Output, and select the device you want.

An echo happens when someone's microphone picks up sound from their own speakers and sends it back. If you hear the echo, it's coming from someone else in the session.

1. Headphones are the foolproof fix — when the echo-causer wears headphones their mic can't pick up their speakers.
2. Otherwise, have them lower their speaker volume, especially in a room that echoes.
3. External laptop speakers are a common culprit — disconnect them if possible, unless you have a specific conference room microphone designed for this.
4. A good external webcam/mic also helps reduce echo.

Most video problems are due to your internet connection or Wi-Fi interference — and would occur on any video platform. Remember the other person's connection matters just as much as yours.

What affects quality

Bandwidth is shared by every device on your network, and upload speed (sending your camera video) is often much lower than download — so a connection that streams Netflix fine can still struggle with a live call. Latency and jitter (delay and its fluctuation) hurt live video because it can't be buffered. Wi-Fi interference (distance from the router, walls, microwaves, other electronics) is a frequent cause.

Practical tips

1. Make sure no one nearby is streaming video or uploading large files.
2. Move closer to the Wi-Fi router, or use a wired connection.
3. Close other apps that use a lot of CPU; try a different device if you can.
4. Turn off your video, screen share, or document camera to lighten the load.
5. Run a speed test to check your upload speed and latency.

If you or a contact aren't receiving email from Blink Session even after checking spam/junk, the email provider is blocking it. Add our sending domain to the provider's safe-senders (allowlist) so it stops being blocked. If your organization uses a custom (white-label) email domain, allowlist that domain too.

Personal email: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail/Outlook.

Company email admins: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365.

If a content filter or firewall is on your network or computer, allow (whitelist) the following so Blink Session and its video calls work:

• The domain of this site (and your organization's Blink Session domain if it's custom).
• The video service domains: *.opentok.com, *.tokbox.com, and *.vonage.com.
• Secure real-time (WebSocket) connections over wss:// on port 443.

Often this due to a content filter (for example a router's parental controls) blocking the site and showing a security-style message instead of a clear "blocked" notice. Check that first — see "What if I have an internet content filter or firewall?".

If it isn't a filter and you're on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, the device may be caching bad security-certificate data:

1. Clear your browser cache and reload.
2. Make sure the device's date, time, and time zone are set to update automatically — certificate checks require an accurate clock.
3. Restart the browser (and the device) and try again.

This is a device setting rather than a Blink Session issue; Apple's support site has detailed steps for iPhone and iPad if it persists.