BatchFlowSetting up takes about an hour and you only do it once. The order below matters, because each step fills in the dropdowns the next one needs. Doing it out of order means a lot of going back.
1. Settings first, before any data
Settings → General. Institute name, phone, address, and two that matter more than they look: timezone and currency.
The timezone is not decoration. It decides when an exam starts, when an assignment closes, and what "today" means on the attendance register. Set it to Sri Lanka and everything lines up with the clock on your wall.
Settings → Organization. Academic year, working days, and the hours you run. Then the two lists everything else picks from: subjects and grades. Add every subject you teach and every grade you take. Two minutes here saves a lot of typing later.
2. Teachers
Name, subjects, phone. You do not have to give them a login yet — a teacher record and a staff account are different things, and you can add the login when they are ready to use it.
3. Batches
A batch is one class. Name it something you would say out loud — "Grade 10 Maths, Tuesday evening" — then pick the subject, the grade, the teacher, the weekly schedule and the monthly fee.
Give every batch a subject even when it feels obvious. Exams take their subject from the batch, and a batch without one cannot have an exam created for it.
Once the schedules are in, the timetable has already built itself.
4. Students
Add them, then put each one into their batches from the batch's Roster tab. A student can be in more than one batch and gets the work, the exams and the register for all of them.
If you already have a list, add the batches first so the batch picker is ready when you start.
5. Parents
Add the parent, then link their children with a relationship — mother, father, guardian. One parent can have several children; one child can have several guardians, and both can have their own login.
6. Start using it
Now mark a register, set an assignment, schedule a term test.
Leave the student and parent portals until last. Get your own week working first, then switch the portals on for ten families who ask the most questions, get the habit going, and widen it from there. Two hundred logins handed out in one evening is a hundred support questions in one evening.
A sensible first week
- Day 1 — settings, teachers, batches.
- Day 2 — students and batch rosters.
- Day 3 — start marking attendance. Nothing else.
- Week 2 — parents, then your first assignment.
- Week 3 — your first exam, then the gradebook once it has finished.
- Week 4 — invoices for the month, then portal logins for a few families.
If you get stuck
Raise a ticket from Support inside the app — subject, category, priority and a description, with a screenshot attached. A screenshot is usually worth more than a paragraph. Replies come back in the same thread.