Skip to content

Online exams · with Proctly

How to proctor an online exam

Try Proctly About Proctly

The short answer

Sign up at proctly.com for the 14-day free trial (no card). In Sessions → Create New Session, enter your test’s web address and the URL pattern to watch, choose what to capture, and save. Send students the 8-character session token and the download page. They take the test inside the Proctly app while you watch on Live Monitor, then review each student afterwards.

Before you start

  • A Proctly account. The 14-day free trial needs no card and covers up to 50 student sessions.
  • The web address of your test, on your LMS, a quiz tool or your own exam website.
  • Students with a webcam and a Windows PC, a Mac with Apple silicon or a Linux computer. Proctly is a desktop app; there is no phone or tablet version.

Step by step

  1. Create your account

    At proctly.com, click Sign Up, enter your name, email and a password, then confirm your email. The free trial starts when you confirm.

  2. Create a session

    In the dashboard, open Sessions and click Create New Session. Give it a title students will recognise, such as “Midterm – Mathematics 101”, and paste your test’s full address into Test Link.

  3. Set the Monitored URL Pattern

    Enter the part of the address your test pages share, for example lms.school.edu/quiz. Proctly captures screens only while the student is on a matching page; the webcam runs for the whole session. Separate several patterns with commas.

  4. Choose what to capture

    Under Proctly Settings, choose Restrict Copy/Paste, Capture Screenshots, Capture Webcam Images and, if you need it, Record Audio. Then set how often each is captured, from every 5 seconds to every 10 minutes. New sessions start with copy/paste blocked, screenshots and webcam on, and audio off.

  5. Save and share the token

    Click Create Session. The session gets an 8-character Session Access Token, with a Copy button on the session page. Send it to your students with the download page, proctly.com/download. To email them from Proctly, add them under Students (one by one, from an Excel or CSV file, or pasted in) and use Settings → Bulk Email.

  6. Watch, then review

    During the exam, open the session and click Live Monitor. It refreshes every few seconds with who is active, violations and suspicious flags. Afterwards, open a student under Students Who Joined to see their screenshots, webcam photos, audio, violations, copy/paste and URL activity. Download All builds a ZIP of their files with a PDF report and emails you a link when it is ready.

Check that it worked

  • Before the real exam, join your own session from the Proctly app with a second email address. You should appear under Students Who Joined.
  • Open your test page in the app. If screenshots appear for that visit, your Monitored URL Pattern matches.
  • Each student who joins counts as one session on your plan. The dashboard banner shows how many you have used.

Checked October 2026 against each provider’s own help pages. Menus move — if a label differs on your screen, look for the nearest match.

Problems and questions

Create New Session shows “Session Exists”
Your plan keeps one session at a time. Open it, click Edit Session, change the title, Test Link and pattern for the next exam, then click Update Session.
Screens were not captured
Screen capture only runs while the student is on a page that matches the Monitored URL Pattern. Open the test yourself, look at the address once the test has loaded (some sites redirect), and use a part of that address as the pattern.
Students see “Invalid or expired token”
Check that they typed all 8 characters, and that the session is Active, not Inactive or Deleted.
You run out of student sessions
On the trial, click Request 50 More Sessions on the dashboard banner, or Upgrade Now to buy sessions.
Which exam platforms does Proctly work with?
Any test that opens in a web page: your LMS, a quiz tool or your own site. Proctly opens the Test Link in its own window and watches the address against your pattern, so there is nothing to install on the exam platform.
Does Proctly record video?
It takes screenshots of every screen and photos from the webcam at the interval you choose, as often as every 5 seconds, plus short audio clips if you turn audio on.
How much does it cost?
The 14-day trial is free, with no card, for up to 50 student sessions. After that, the Pro plan is $3.00 per student session (choose 50 to 950), and Enterprise takes 30% off from 1,000 sessions. Current prices are at proctly.com/site/payment.
How long are recordings kept?
Proctly deletes them automatically at the end of your account’s retention period and emails you a day before. You can also delete one student’s files at any time with Purge All.
Does it work with ClassTrack?
Yes. For colleges linked to ClassTrack, the Sessions page adds Assign Students and Assign to all students, so you can require the Proctly app for chosen students.

Sources: proctly.com/site/payment, proctly.com/download

Built and run by Workaholic Developers, with EduWeb Consulting.

More Proctly guides

Exam proctoring

Proctly

Online exam proctoring that records every screen, the webcam and the room.

Exam integrity

Prevent cheating in online exams

For students

Take an exam with Proctly

All guides

Every how-to guide