Alutra is deliberately small: a circle, the people in it, and the day in front of you. This page walks through setting it up, getting your family in, and what to do once they are. If something here does not match what you see on your screen, tell us — that is a bug in the writing, not in you.
Creating a Circle takes four screens and about two minutes. You do not need anything prepared — no medical records, no list of medications, no meeting with your family first. You can add all of that later, or never.
Your first and last name. This is the name your family sees beside everything you do in the Circle, so use the name they call you.
The person being cared for. You can set up a Circle for someone else — a parent, a partner, a friend — or for yourself. The whole app shapes itself around this answer, so it is worth getting right, but you can change it afterwards.
This is where your Circle stops being a solo app. You get a join link to share. Our strong advice: send it to one person before you leave this screen — the sibling you talk to most, not the whole family at once. A Circle with two people in it works. A Circle with one person in it is a very tidy to-do list.
You can skip this and come back to it, and the link is always waiting for you under Circle.
Turn on notifications so you hear the moment someone asks to join, and when something needs you. Nobody should be left waiting on your approval because you did not know they had asked. You can change this any time in Settings.
This is the part that decides whether Alutra helps you or becomes one more thing you maintain alone. It is worth ten minutes of your attention.
There is no “send invitations” button, and that is deliberate. An email from an app your sister has never heard of gets ignored. A message from you, in the thread you already use, does not. So Alutra gives you a link and gets out of the way — you send it, in your own words, wherever your family already talks.
Open Circle and scroll to Invite people. There is your join link, with buttons to copy it or hand it straight to WhatsApp, email, or your phone’s share sheet.
The link belongs to your Circle, not to one person, so you send the same one to everybody. It keeps working — you are not racing an expiry.
Say why. “I’ve started using this to keep track of Dad’s appointments and medications — can you join so you can see what’s happening? It takes a minute.” That sentence does more work than anything we could have written for you.
When they open it they enter their name, confirm it is the right family, and ask to join. They can do that before they have an account — the account gets created as part of joining.
Most people use their email. But the family member you most want in a care circle is often the one least likely to have an email they actually read — so there is an I don’t have an email path that sets them up on the device in their hand.
You get a notification as soon as someone asks. Their request waits under Wants to join on the Circle screen. When you approve, you pick their role — see below for what each one can see.
Nobody sees anything in your Circle until you approve them. Asking to join reveals only the Circle’s name and who set it up.
If someone gets stuck: the most common cause is opening the link on a device already signed in to a different Alutra account — there is a Sign out at the bottom of the Circle screen, then open the link again. The other common cause is a messaging app breaking the link across two lines, so only half of it opens. The link has to arrive whole, ending in ?code= and eight characters; if in doubt, send it again on its own line with no text after it.
Everyone in a Circle sees a version of it that suits their part in the care. You choose someone’s role when you approve them, and you can change it later from the menu beside their name.
You, if you created the Circle. Everything an admin can do, plus the Circle itself — its join link, and closing it down. A Circle always has exactly one owner.
A second pair of hands you trust completely. Approves people, sets roles, and edits the full medical picture. Give this to the sibling who would step in if you were unwell.
The person doing most of the hands-on care. Sees and edits the full medical detail — medications, health readings, care notes — and runs the day.
Most of your Circle. Sees the day in front of them — check-ins, the plan, messages, memories, tasks they can pick up — and the safety basics of medications, without the full clinical record.
A support worker or similar. Sees the care picture they need to do their job and stays outside the family’s private conversations.
A GP or clinician. Sees the full medical picture, and again, not the family’s private messages.
The person being cared for, if they want their own view. Theirs is a different screen entirely — see Their own view below. They are deliberately kept out of the family group thread, so their family can talk about care without them reading every word of it, and they can still message anyone directly.
Change someone’s role from the menu beside their name in Circle.
Once your Circle has people in it, this is the rhythm. None of it is compulsory — a Circle that only ever holds a shared calendar is still doing its job.
One short note about how the day went — mood, what they ate, how they slept, a photo if there is one worth sharing. It takes a minute and it is the single thing that keeps the rest of the family genuinely in the picture rather than politely asking. Anyone in the Circle can write one.
The list, the schedule, and a tick when a dose is given, so the next person knows without having to ask. Family members see enough to keep someone safe; the full clinical detail stays with the caregivers and clinicians.
Appointments and visits on one calendar, so the GP appointment on Thursday is not a fact that lives in one person’s head. Everyone sees the same week.
Put down what needs doing without assigning it to anyone. People pick things up themselves — the pharmacy run, Sunday lunch — which is how help actually gets offered in real families.
A group thread for the family, and direct messages with any one person. Care decisions stop living in four separate text threads that nobody can find later.
The part that is not admin. Stories, photos and recorded voices worth keeping, and a place for the family to leave a note for the person they are caring for.
If the person you are caring for wants their own access, they get a screen built for them rather than a smaller copy of yours.
Today, in large type. A check-in they can answer themselves. A clear button to ask for a hand, which reaches the whole Circle without them having to decide who to trouble. And an emergency button that takes one press, then gives them six seconds to change their mind before anything is sent.
You can reduce what they see to the essentials as their needs change — fewer choices, larger targets, less to take in. That is a setting you control, under Settings, and it can be changed back at any time.
On purpose. Their family needs somewhere to talk honestly about care. They can still message anyone in the Circle directly, and anyone can message them.
Under Settings. Choose what you want to hear about and what you don’t. If you only keep one thing on, keep join requests on — someone waiting on your approval is the one thing that genuinely stalls.
Their name, their photo, their date of birth and the basics that appear on the emergency card — and how much of the app they see, if they have their own view.
Alutra is free for 21 days and asks for no card to start. A trial Circle holds up to ten people, which is more than most families need to get going.
After the trial it is one plan for the whole Circle, and the ten-person cap lifts. You are never charged per person — charging a family per sibling would be a strange way to encourage them to share the load.
Deleting your account: from Settings in the app, or from the deletion page on this site. If you are the last owner of a Circle, deleting your account also removes that Circle and everything in it. That cannot be undone, so export or save anything you want to keep first.
You share a link. Open Circle, scroll to Invite people, and copy the join link — or hand it straight to WhatsApp, email or your phone's share sheet from the same panel. Send it however you already talk to that person. Alutra does not email invitations on your behalf. When they open the link they enter their name, ask to join, and you approve them.
Because Alutra never sends one. Invitations are link-only by design: you send the join link yourself, from your own phone, in the conversation you already have with that person. An invitation that arrives from an app your family has never heard of gets ignored or filed as spam — one that arrives from you does not.
You get a notification the moment someone asks. Open Circle and their request is waiting at the top with Approve and Decline. When you approve, you choose their role, which decides what they can see. Nobody can see anything in your Circle until you approve them.
It depends on their role. Family members see the day-to-day picture — check-ins, the plan, messages, memories — plus the safety basics of medications. Primary caregivers and admins additionally see the full medical detail and can edit it. Professionals and healthcare providers see the medical picture without the family's private conversations. The person being cared for sees their own simple view.
No. A Circle works perfectly well with only the family in it. If they do want their own view, they get a deliberately simple screen — today's check-in, a large button to ask for a hand, and an emergency button — and you can simplify it further as their needs change.
It is free for 21 days and there is no card to start. A trial Circle holds up to ten people. After the trial it is one plan covering your whole Circle, with no per-person charge and no cap on who you bring in.
In the app, open Settings and choose to delete your account, or use the deletion page on this site. Deleting removes your account and, if you are the last owner of a Circle, that Circle and its contents.
Write to us and a person reads it. Tell us what you were trying to do and what happened instead — a screenshot helps more than an apology for not being technical.