Simulators depend on three things lining up: your plan includes the simulator (or you have a trial running), the simulator is turned on for the class, and the student is working in that class. When one of those is missing you'll see a padlock, a locked card, or an empty Simulators tab. This article explains each screen you might see on the teacher side, what your students see at the same moment, and how to get things moving.
Which plans include which simulators
Budget Simulator and Economy Simulator: Intertwined Core and up.
Investing Simulator (the stock market simulator): Intertwined Plus and up.
Startup Simulator and Business Simulator: Intertwined Pro.
Free and Intertwined Solo don't include simulators. Solo subscribers can try each simulator free for 14 days, once.
The Arcade isn't part of this lock; it's available on every plan. For a full comparison, see Intertwined plans explained: Free, Solo, and school licenses.
A padlock next to the simulator
In the sidebar's Simulators group, and in the Simulator menu on a class's Simulators tab, a small padlock means your current plan doesn't include that simulator. You can still open it to read about it. In the class, a locked card replaces the simulator's screens and tells you how to get it. What the card says depends on your situation:
"Your school's plan doesn't include this one. Your district administrator can add it." Your school or district covers your account, and its plan stops below this simulator. Your administrator can add it to the school's plan; you can't add it yourself.
Start a 14-day trial button: you're on Intertwined Solo and haven't used this simulator's trial. Click it to unlock the simulator right away. Each simulator has its own trial, so starting one doesn't use up the others.
"... comes with Intertwined Core, which schools and districts buy for their teachers." (or Plus, or Pro) and Ask about it for your school: simulators are part of school plans. The button opens a request form for your school in a new tab.
"Your ... trial has ended." or "That trial has already been used.": you've had this simulator's free trial. It can't be restarted, but your school can add the simulator. See School and district licenses: how coverage works.
While a trial is running, a banner at the top of the simulator shows how many days are left. More on trials is in Trying a simulator free with a 14-day trial.
When a simulator is locked for you, it's locked for your students too. On their Simulators page they see "Your class doesn't include the Budget Simulator right now. Ask your teacher if you'd like to try it." (with the right simulator's name).
You have access now, but it still shows a padlock
If your school's license started today, or you started a trial or a subscription in another tab, the page you're on may still be showing your old plan.
Reload the page.
If the padlock is still there, log out from My profile and log back in.
If your school says you're covered but Intertwined doesn't, check that the Institution on your My profile page is your school. See School and district licenses: how coverage works.
"The ... isn't on for this class yet"
Your plan includes the simulator, but it hasn't been turned on for this class. Each class has its own simulator setup, because each class plays its own game.
Open the class from Classrooms and click the Simulators tab.
Choose the simulator from the Simulator menu.
Click Open Setup, or choose Setup in the view switcher (Setup, Class, Students).
Follow the setup steps for that simulator. Standings, class results, and each student's progress appear under Class and Students once students start.
Each simulator's setup is different. The teacher guides cover them step by step: Personal Budget Simulator: teacher guide, Investing Simulator: teacher guide, Startup Simulator: teacher guide, Economy Simulator: teacher guide, and Business Simulator: teacher guide.
Until a simulator is set up, students can open it but have nothing to play yet. For the Budget Simulator, for example, they see "There is no Budget Simulation running in your classes yet. Ask your teacher to start one."
It works for most students but not one
Simulator games belong to a class. A student who is on more than one class roster sees one of their classes at a time in the Student Portal, so they may be looking at the other class's simulator, which might not be set up or might be a different game.
Use Find a student (⌘K on a Mac, Ctrl K elsewhere) to check whether the student is in more than one of your classes.
If they should be in only one, see Removing students and students in more than one class.
Have the student log out from My profile and log back in.
Also check that the student is logged in to the account on your roster; their username is on their My profile page.
You opened a student simulator page and it sent you to the login screen
The student simulator pages are built for student accounts. If you open one as a teacher, for example from a link a student shared, you may be sent to the login page or see a page full of zeros. You haven't been logged out. Run simulators from your class's Simulators tab, and use the previews to see the student side: Previewing a simulator before your students do.
The simulator won't load
Reload the page. Simulators load a lot at once, and a second try often works.
If you see a message such as "Could not load the simulation" or "Settings could not be loaded for this simulation," wait a minute and reload again. Our service may be temporarily unavailable.
If the Investing Simulator loads but its charts, market news, or company panels are blank, your network is probably blocking the market data widgets it uses. Send your IT team School networks, devices, and browsers: what Intertwined needs.
If only one device has trouble, try another browser there, or turn off browser extensions such as ad blockers for app.intertwinedfinance.com.
For anything else that hangs or shows "Something went wrong," see A page is stuck loading or looks broken.
Still stuck?
Message us from the chat bubble in the corner of any Teacher Portal page. Tell us which simulator, which class, what you see (a screenshot helps), and whether it affects you, your students, or both. See Getting help: chat, bug reports, and feature requests.