A passkey is a secure, digital key that's designed to replace your password. It uses your device's built-in security features (such as your fingerprint, face scan, or device PIN) to let you quickly and easily access your account.

Passkeys are a quicker, easier, and more secure way of logging into your account. Just your email address and password are no longer sufficient for keeping any type of account secure—you also need to have additional measures, such as 2FA and a passkey.

Traditional passwords have weaknesses. They can be stolen, guessed, or hacked, and it's becoming more common to see them become victims of infostealers and end up in the hands of hackers. Passkeys are immune to all these threats, because they prevent anyone besides you from gaining access to your account through your device and greatly reduce the risk of a security breach. This is essential when it comes to securing sensitive patient health data in your Cliniko account.

Passkeys are known as many things—"touch ID" and "face ID" are probably the most common phrases you may have heard. It's quite possible that you're already using them to access different applications! If you're signing in with a fingerprint or your face to any website or app (such as your bank account, email, or social media, just to name a few), then you're a passkey user!

Cliniko passkeys work the same as passkeys do on other sites, and they are a very straightforward, easy, and secure way to access your account.

Once you have a passkey set up, you won't need to use your email or password to log in, even if you have 2FA turned on (though you can still use 2FA, too—the passkey is just an additional login option!). If you do not have 2FA enabled, you will be prompted for your passkey after entering your email and password—more on this below.

In this guide, we'll walk you through how to enable passkeys in Cliniko and how to use them to log into your account! We'll also cover some general FAQs and troubleshooting that will help if you have questions (and, of course, our support team is always just a message away if you need assistance!).

Rachel will also walk you through the steps to enable passkeys in the video below! 👇 While completely optional, we strongly recommend turning passkeys on.

Enter your email address and password to log into your account:

If you have 2FA enabled, you will also need to enter your verification code after inputting your email address and password. Then, you'll be logged into Cliniko! 🙌

Once you're logged in, head to My info under your name:

On the next page, scroll down to Passkeys, and select the Create a passkey button:

Type in your Cliniko password to proceed to the actual "adding the passkey" bit:

Depending on what type of device you're using, you may be prompted to sign in using your fingerprint, face ID, device pin, or browser profile. The below image is an example of what you might see, but different devices and browsers have different ways of "presenting" the passkey setup options:

If you're on an Apple device, you will see the option to save the passkey to your iCloud Keychain. This is Apple's default method of saving passkeys and can be used on each Apple device you own. If you select iCloud Keychain, you will only need to set up the passkey once to use it across all of your Apple devices. This means that once you've set up your passkey on your computer, you will not need to also set it up on your iPhone or iPad.

On Apple devices, you will need to either have Touch ID enabled for your Mac computer, or Face ID enabled for your iPhone or iPad. These are required for passkeys to work, in Cliniko and in other apps. Apple also has instructions for:

If you're using an Android device, you can save your passkey directly to your phone (i.e. a Samsung phone), an Android tablet, or directly to your Chrome profile (Chrome is Android's default browser). Google has instructions for:

If you're using a Windows device, such as a desktop PC, laptop, or Windows phone (and are using a Windows browser, such as Edge), you will have the option to save your passkey to Windows Hello, which is Windows' built-in biometrics system. Windows Hello can store your face ID, fingerprint, or PIN. Windows also has some information on:

If you use a password manager such as 1Password, you can set up a passkey for Cliniko and then use that passkey via 1Password when logging into Cliniko on your web browser. 1Password can securely store your login details for all sorts of accounts, so if you add Cliniko to your 1Password "vault", you will be able to set up a passkey! 1Password has some instructions on how to set up passkeys here:

You can give your passkey whatever name you want, but Cliniko will offer some default names (such as "iCloud Keychain" if you're setting up your passkey on an Apple device). The name of the passkey can be used to help you remember which device it's linked to.

Press the Save button, and you'll see that your passkey has been saved with the relevant name:

If you use different types of devices and operating systems (maybe you use a Mac computer, but an Android phone), you will need to set up a passkey for each device, because Apple iCloud Keychain passkey won't "talk" to an Android passkey.

To do this, head to back into My info, and select the Manage passkeys button:

On the next page, press the Create passkey button:

Add your passkey (have a look at step five to learn about the process for different operating systems and devices), and save it. Cliniko will then show you a list of each passkey you have, and when it was created:

In the example above, we can see that there are four different passkeys:

Each of these passkeys is tied to your Cliniko account and relevant device. You will have the option to use any of them to sign into Cliniko when you're using the linked device (i.e. iCloud Keychain on a Mac/iPhone or Google Password Manager on an Android).

Once you have your passkey set up, you will simply be prompted to use it upon logging in—that's it! 🙌

Now that you've created your passkey, you can use it to log into Cliniko!

On your Cliniko login page, select the Log in with a passkey button:

You will then be prompted to log in with your passkey. It will look different depending what type of device you're on, but as an example, here's what an Apple Mac computer presents when asking for Touch ID (your fingerprint):

If you have other passkeys set up and don't wish to use the option shown, you can press the Cancel button in the upper-right. This will then show you options for any other devices you might have set up a Cliniko passkey on (in the example below, as well as iClould Keychain, there's also a passkey set up on an Android phone):

Once you log in with your passkey, you'll be in your Cliniko account! 🙌

Below are some tips on troubleshooting common issues with passkeys. If you're still having trouble, you can definitely reach out to our support team for help! 💬

Below are some of the most common reasons you might be having trouble with passkeys, and what to look for:

If you've checked out the list above and are still having trouble, reading on for additional passkey help!

If you're setting up a passkey for the very first time on Cliniko, you'll need to log into your account first and create your first passkey. If you press the Log in with a passkey button before creating a passkey, you may see a QR code. This pops up because your device is "reading" the passkey request, but doesn't yet know that you haven't set up a passkey for Cliniko. Scanning the QR code won't work.

Simply log in as you normally would, and create your first passkey. After that, when pressing the Log in with a passkey button, you should experience the process outlined here.

If you're unable to log in with a passkey that you've created, there are a few things to check.

If you normally use a Mac to log into Cliniko during the day, and have set up your passkey on that Mac, you will be able to log into Cliniko with an iPhone or iPad as well, using that same passkey. However, if you have an Android phone, or a PC at home, and you're trying to access Cliniko with a passkey, you will need to set up different passkeys for those devices. Check out the information for how different devices handle passkeys right here.

Each device and operating system has its own ways of handing passkeys. If you have multiple passkeys set up, sometimes your browser might try to default to a certain one, and it might not work if a passkey has been deleted.

Let's say that you set up a passkey in both 1Password and your Mac (iCloud Keychain), but you deleted the 1Password passkey, either from Cliniko or 1Password. (Deleting it from one place will not delete it in the other; you will have to delete it in both places.)

Your browser might try to "remember" the passkey from 1Password and prompt you to sign in with it, but if the passkey has been deleted, it won't work. If you experience something like this, it's a good idea to check 1Password to see if it's been deleted, and also check in Cliniko to see if it's still there or not. A passkey needs to be "active" in both Cliniko and your device, so if one gets deleted somewhere, it won't work to log in. You would need to recreate the passkey.

If you're trying to add a new passkey and get a message that looks like this at the top of the screen:

This is because Cliniko is detecting that you already have a passkey saved for the system you're using to log in. For example, if you set up a passkey on an Android phone, it would save the passkey to Google Password Manager. If you are logged into your Google account on another device (like a tablet or computer), your passkey will be saved across your Google "profile". So if you try to add a new passkey from that "profile", you won't be able to, since it's already been created.

In this case, rather than trying to create a new passkey, you will be able to log in with the existing one that's already been set up.

Depending on your device and passkey setup, you may need a different passkey for each device. For example, if you've set up an Apple iCloud Keychain passkey, you won't be able to use that on an Android device. You'd have to set up an additional passkey for Android (or log in using your email address, password, and 2FA if you've got that enabled).

Passkeys are one of the best steps you can take to protect your Cliniko account and the sensitive patient data within it. Traditional passwords have weaknesses: they can be stolen, guessed, or hacked. Passkeys are immune to all these threats, as they prevent anyone besides you from gaining access to your account through your device and greatly reduce the risk of a security breach. Because passkeys use your device's built-in security features (such as your fingerprint), you're the only person who can log in to your account using a passkey. If someone else got ahold of your computer and tried to log in using their fingerprint, it wouldn't work, because your passkey (and therefore your computer) only recognises your fingerprint.

Passkeys are also excellent protection against phishing attacks, as they’ll only work on the real Cliniko login page.

Even if you have 2FA set up, we strongly advise using passkeys. Having as many layers of security as possible to protect your account is important. Plus, if you have 2FA turned on, a passkey will also allow you to bypass that step upon login as your device will recognise you as "you" with your existing credentials plus the passkey.

It's not, but we strongly recommend that you do.

Only if you also have 2FA enabled. You can use your email, password, and 2FA to get logged in even if you no longer have the device that you originally set your passkey up on. If this happens (you lose a device), we recommend deleting the passkey associated with that device once you've logged in using 2FA, and setting up a new passkey.

If you do not have 2FA enabled on your profile, an administrator of your Cliniko account will be able to delete your passkey so that you can log in. If you are the only administrator on the account, please contact our support team for help.

No. Only you can set up a passkey, and it has to be done when you're logged in to the device you use Cliniko on.

No. Sharing passkeys doesn't work, because passkeys work by using your specific device's built-in security features (such as face ID or fingerprint). It wouldn't be possible to share your passkey with someone else because your passkey is unique to you, and you alone.

Yes. If you need to delete a passkey, go into My info, and press the Manage passkeys button:

On the next page, press the Delete button:

You'll see a little box pop up asking you to confirm if you want to delete the passkey—select yes/okay, and then your passkey will be deleted.

The answer to this one is a bit odd: sort of. Let's say you use only Apple devices—maybe you have a MacBook, an iPhone, and an iPad. If you set up a passkey on any of those devices, the passkey will be saved in your iCloud Keychain, which is linked across all of your Apple devices. So if you initially set up your passkey on your MacBook, and then you want to log into Cliniko using that passkey on your iPhone, you will be able to because the passkey is saved within your iCloud Keychain's unique security settings.

If you use different types of devices (such as a MacBook and an Android phone), you would need different passkeys, simply because Android doesn't offer support for iCloud Keychain (since that's unique to Apple), and vice-versa. Once you've created passkeys on different devices, you would have the option to select one of them to use when logging, though—let's say you've set up a passkey on your Android phone (the passkey would be saved in Google Password Manager), but you're logging into your MacBook. When entering your email address on the login page, you'd see an option to select which passkey to use:

If you were on a MacBook and selected the Google Password Manager option, you would then need to have your Android phone on hand to verify the passkey (as the phone would give you a prompt to "approve" logging in on the MacBook).

That's just one example of how passkeys work for different devices, and everyone's experience will be unique depending on what type of computer you're using, what type of phone you have, and even what browser you're on.

The section above this one outlines this a bit more, but basically, different types of devices have different built-in security features. Android's default is Google Password Manager, and Apple's is iCloud Keychain. It's simply not possible to set up an Apple passkey on an Android device, and vice-versa.

No. Passkeys are unique to every account and every website. If you use a passkey to log into your email account, that passkey won't work to log you into Cliniko. Your email account's passkey may be stored in the same way on your device (i.e. Apple's iCloud Keychain), but a passkey will only work for the specific account and website it's set up for. You could have 100 passkeys saved in your iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager, but only the Cliniko one will work for logging into your Cliniko account. (On the flip side, you wouldn't be able to use your Cliniko passkey to log into your email!)

No. Your passkey is unique to you and your device. If someone had your phone and tried to log into Cliniko with a passkey, it wouldn't work. When the phone asks for a passkey, it will only accept the unique information that you have saved within the built-in security features (such as your fingerprint or face ID). Even if your phone prompted the passkey login for someone else, they wouldn't be able to access your account because they are not you. This is why passkeys are so secure—they prevent anyone who isn't you from accessing the sensitive patient data within your Cliniko account.

If you still have questions about passkeys, our support team is here to help—just reach out using the chat button and we'll get back to you shortly! 💬