To ensure that Pencil Spaces works correctly in your school / school district, please follow the steps outlined below.
Network & Firewall Allowlisting
Pencil Spaces relies on several secure web services to support login, real-time collaboration, and embedded content. If your school or district uses firewalls, web filters, or SSL inspection, some services may be blocked by default. Use the steps below to verify student-device access and allowlist required domains as needed.
Allow *.pencilapp.com
Please attempt to visit https://my.pencilapp.com on a student device, authenticated with a test student account.
If the website doesn’t load correctly, or appears blocked, then please adjust your firewall settings by ensuring *.pencilapp.com is allow-listed (the wildcard represents all subdomains associated with pencilapp.com)
Allow Firebase authentication
Please login / create an account on https://my.pencilapp.com on a student device. If your school uses Google Classroom, we recommend you try to “Continue with Google” and use a student’s Google Classroom credentials to authenticate yourself.
If you’re not able to login:
If the issue is a network issue, please adjust your firewall settings as required. You may need to visit the Developer Console Network Tab to determine which exact URLs are being blocked.
If the issue is caused by your Google Classroom / Clever administration settings, please adjust them as needed to support 3rd party application log-in with Pencil Spaces
Allow our third party service providers
We use a number of libraries / partners to ensure that educators have a great experience teaching on Pencil Spaces. As a reminder, please ensure you follow all the steps below on a student device with a student test account.
To verify that everything is working properly:
Log-in to Pencil Spaces and create a Space with your test account (details here)
Attempt to start a call (details here). If you see any network errors while attempting to start a call, please allowlist all the domains detailed here.
If wildcard hostnames are not allowed by your firewall policy, please follow the guidance in the Minimum requirements section and use pencil when prompted for <your subdomain>.
If your institution is planning to use Web Viewers, try to import a web viewer into your Space. Click “Insert Web Viewer” on the top left of the screen, and verify that you see Google load as an app on your screen.
If you see any network errors, including "Your browsing session could not be loaded at this time", please make sure you allow-list the following domains:
*.pencilapp.com
Authentication
Set-up Clever or ClassLink
Follow these steps to enable Clever or ClassLink login for Pencil Spaces.
Add students, teachers, and admins to your institution by following our guide here. We need each student’s full name and the email addresses associated with their Clever / ClassLink accounts to meet our COPPA and FERPA compliance requirements.
If you’re using Clever, ask your school district to submit a request to add Pencil Spaces to your district's Clever library (learn more here). Make sure all the students in Step 1 are included in the sharing permissions for your request.
Once submitted, we'll typically approve your request within 24 hours.
Using a student test account, try to log-in via Clever or ClassLink (follow our guide here). The student should be able to successfully log-in and access their Spaces. If you run into any issues, contact Pencil Spaces Support.
Set-up Google Workspace for Education
Google SSO is enabled by default in Pencil Spaces. If, while testing on a student device, you see the message “Access blocked: Your institution’s admin needs to review Pencil Spaces,” your Google Workspace administrator must approve Pencil Spaces for your domain.
Step-by-step instructions are available here.
Set-up Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) SSO is supported in Pencil Spaces. If, while testing on a student device, you see a message indicating that admin approval is required or that the application has not been consented to, your Microsoft Entra ID administrator will need to grant permission to Pencil Spaces for your school or district.
Set-up LTI
Follow our guide here to set-up LTI-based SSO and deeplinking within your school or district's LMS (e.g., Canvas).
If the steps below do not work for your particular LMS, please reach-out to [email protected] and we will be happy to assist.
Hardware
In-School Networking
Pencil Spaces operates with similar bandwidth requirements to other video calling providers. In cases where there are >15 students using Pencil Spaces in a single classroom, network instability (laginess, glitchy video, voice distortion) may occur due to the limitations of classroom WiFi routers.
In general, please verify that your classroom routers can support the following specifications:
Device capacity: 30-40 simultaneous connections. Generally, this bottleneck is reached most often when operating 20 devices per classroom.
Bandwidth: For 20 devices, 200+ Mbps router bandwidth is recommended, though Pencil Spaces will require considerably less for 20 parallel 1:1 calls
Examples of routers that are suitable for classroom settings include:
Additional guidance on recommended topologies for routers/network hardware in schools can be found here. If adjusting routers is not possible we recommend splitting students across different classrooms (ideally max 10 students per room).
Supported Devices
Our recommended system requirements can be found here. We regularly have students join Pencil Spaces without issues on school-issued iPads and Chromebooks, provided they're on the latest available OS versions. See here for details on our our minimum OS requirements.
Additional support
We're here to help! If you require any additional support, reach-out to 24/7 Support by following the instructions here or email us at [email protected]