Troubleshooting & FAQ's

​Scenario 1: "Not Authorized" Error When Clicking Promotional Banners

When a Guardian clicks on the Download Cialfo Mobile App banner or the Follow Us on Instagram banner icon on the Cialfo platform, a warning message appears stating:"You are not authorized to access this page." This prevented Guardians from being able to interact with promotional content on their home screen.
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The issue has now been resolved. Guardian users can click on promotional banners without encountering the “Not Authorized” error.

Scenario 2: "Not Authorized" Error When Accessing the Student's Profile

In some cases, Guardians may still encounter the message:

“You are not authorized to access this page.”

This usually occurs due to a permission or role configuration issue within the Guardian account. Common causes include:

To help avoid this issue in the future:

If you or a Guardian is still encountering the "Not Authorized" message, please try the following steps:

For more information on setting up and navigating the Guardian experience, see Guardian View on Cialfo.

This error means your email address or phone number is linked to more than one Cialfo account. Common causes include:

This conflict is resolved by the Cialfo support team — you cannot fix it from within the platform. Do not attempt to delete your account and re-register with the same email, as this may not resolve the underlying conflict.

The support team resolves duplicate email or phone conflicts by:

Note: This process typically takes a few hours and does not affect your application data or progress on the platform.

Yes. If you submitted an account deletion request and want to cancel it, contact the support team immediately via Live Chat or email. The team can cancel a pending deletion request before it is processed.

The onboarding survey in Cialfo is designed exclusively for new student accounts as part of their initial setup flow. Counselors, admins and staff should never see this survey when logging into their accounts.

If you are logged in as a counselor and the student onboarding survey is still appearing, try the following steps:

When students sign up for Cialfo, they are asked to review and accept a consent form before proceeding with their profile setup. The "Accept and Continue" button on this form is the primary call-to-action that allows students to complete this step and move forward.

If a student reports that the "Accept and Continue" button is still unresponsive, try the following steps before raising a support ticket:

If a student is stuck on the consent form and cannot progress, counselors can assist by checking the student's account status from the Students List. Students who have not yet accepted the consent form will show as Unconfirmed. You can resend the activation/registration email from there to prompt the student to try again.

When a student attempts to add a course application through the Direct Apply modal, they may see a message indicating they are ineligible to apply. This typically occurs when required profile information is missing, preventing the system from determining eligibility.

But now the ineligibility message has been updated to provide clearer guidance. Previously, students saw a generic message suggesting their combination was “not supported via Direct Apply,” which could be misleading. The system now explicitly prompts students to complete their Country of Residence and Citizenship details before attempting to apply, making the required action more transparent.

Recommended Steps

If a student encounters this message, follow these steps:

Still Experiencing Issues?

If the message persists even after completing the profile, contact Cialfo Support via Chat with Cialfo and provide the student’s name, course name, and university for further investigation.

Some counselors may notice that Common App (CA) schools do not appear in a student’s Cialfo account even after clicking the Sync button. This can make it seem like the sync feature is not working as expected.

In most cases, this issue occurs due to one of the following reasons:

If Common App schools are not syncing, please try the following steps:

The Application Likelihood Report in Quick Reports helps counselors assess students’ chances of admission. If the report fails to generate or shows an error, follow the steps below.

1. Narrow Down the Filters
Reduce the scope of your report by selecting a smaller group of students (e.g., a specific graduation year, counselor group, or student list)

2. Check Student Application Data
Ensure that all students included in the report have at least one university added to their Applying list. The Application Likelihood Report relies on application data to generate results and missing data can cause the report to fail.

3. Refresh Your Browser Session
Clear your browser cache and cookies, then try generating the report again. Alternatively, open Cialfo in a new browser tab or switch to a different browser to rule out session-related issues.

5. Retry After a Few Minutes
If the report was just generated or edited recently, wait a few minutes and try again. Temporary delays can occur when the system is processing large datasets.

Cialfo uses filters across multiple pages including University Search, Scholarship Search, and Student Lists to help users refine results. It allows you to narrow down results using specific criteria, and you can apply one or multiple filters at the same time. Results update automatically as filters are added or modified.

The Reset (or Reset Filters) button clears all active filters and returns the page to its default state. It appears only when at least one filter is applied, and clicking it removes all filters and refreshes the results (this may take a moment depending on the page).

The Reset button should only appear when filters are active. If it shows without any filters applied, it may be a display issue.

If filters or the Reset button are not working as expected:

If you still see the Reset button without applying any filters, contact Chat with Cialfo and share the screenshot of the page where the issue occurs

If a student cannot log in and the password reset email does not arrive or does not work, follow these steps:

How to resolve it:

A known issue (resolved in January 2026) caused some newly uploaded staff members to incorrectly appear as Guardians due to a bulk upload classification error.

How to resolve it:

A separate issue affecting Course Search visibility was also resolved, where courses from regions with Direct Apply (DA) disabled were incorrectly hidden from search results.

If the Courses page gets stuck loading while in Student view:

If you need to refresh the browser while using Student view:

Refreshing directly while already inside Student view is what triggers this issue.

Previously, if Direct Apply was disabled for a specific region, courses from that region could disappear entirely from the Course Search page. This was incorrect behaviour because the courses should still remain visible even if Direct Apply is unavailable.

This issue has now been fixed. Courses from those regions will continue to appear in Course Search, but the Direct Apply option will not be shown.

If you are being logged out of Cialfo while actively using the platform — even when you are not idle- the issue may be related to a session management error. You may see a “Something went wrong” error before being redirected to the login page, forcing users to log back in and return to the page they were previously using.

If unexpected logouts continues, try the following:

If the issue persists, contact Cialfo Support via Live Chat and share:

This information will help the support team investigate whether there is another underlying cause.

Note: Standard session timeouts after a long period of inactivity are expected behaviour and are separate from this issue.

Cialfo allows students to select application rounds for universities directly within their applications. For Hong Kong universities, students should normally see pre-configured round options such as RD, First Round, and Roll in the Round dropdown when creating or editing an application.

In some cases, a student may not see any round options in the dropdown, even though other students at the same school are able to view them normally. This issue is usually related to the student's Application Year setting.

Pre-configured round options for Hong Kong universities are tied to the student’s Application Year. If the application year in the student’s profile does not match the current application cycle, the round options will not load correctly.

For example:

If the year is set incorrectly (past or future cycle), the Round dropdown may appear blank.

If round options are not appearing:

If the round options are still not appearing after updating the Application Year, contact Chat with Cialfo and share the student name, school name, Hong Kong university name and screenshot of the blank Round dropdown screen

Cialfo now supports fee waiver tags and filters for UK and Australian universities, bringing the same fee waiver discovery experience already available for US universities to more destinations. Counsellors and students can now quickly identify universities that offer application fee waivers directly within University Search.

Fee waiver tags appear on university cards and university profiles to indicate that a university offers an application fee waiver. This helps students identify cost-saving opportunities early in their university search process without needing to visit individual university websites.

To find universities offering fee waivers:

The universities covered are US, UK and Australian universities.

Students using University Search will also see fee waiver tags directly on university cards, allowing them to independently identify universities that may help reduce application costs.

If fee waiver tags or filters are not appearing as expected:

If clicking Sign Fee Waiver shows a previous year’s date and prevents a counsellor from signing the current year’s fee waiver for a returning student, it indicates that the fee waiver record is still tied to a prior application cycle.

This issue typically occurs when a student reapplies in a new cycle but already has a fee waiver signed in a previous cycle. In some cases, the system does not reset the fee waiver record correctly for the new application year, causing:

This issue cannot be fixed from the counsellor dashboard and requires support intervention.

To resolve it, please contact Chat with Cialfo and provide Student’s full name, Student’s email address, school name and screenshot of the fee waiver page showing the previous year’s date.

Once reported, the support team will reset the fee waiver record so the counsellor can sign the current year’s fee waiver.

For many students, managing university applications involves using a Cialfo-hosted application email (typically ending in @daapply.com). To streamline this, Cialfo provides a login shortcut directly next to the email address on your profile. This link acts as a "one-click" gateway to your webmail portal.

Earlier some students reported that the login shortcut had disappeared from its usual spot. This occured due to a technical regression in the frontend code accidentally removed the shortcut element from the user interface. While the application email address was still visible, the clickable link to the webmail portal was not available, forcing students to manually search for the login URL.

The issue was later identified and fixed and it is now back in its designated position. Clicking the link once again correctly directs users to the webmail login page at mail.daapply.com.

If you need to check your correspondence, follow these steps: