User guide

Your first week, day by day

The order that gets a school running without surprises.

1. Day 1, look and payments. Settings, Look: your logo, your colours and the language parents start in. Settings, Payments: your bank details and DuitNow QR, or your own Fiuu account for online payments.
2. Day 2, courses, teachers and classes. Set up, Courses: each course with its class fee and registration fee. Set up, Teachers: add each teacher. Then Classes: the days, the times, the room and the teacher.
3. Day 3, bring your people over. Students, Import: paste or upload your spreadsheet of students and parents, read the checks (nothing is written yet), then commit it. Families shows who has signed in and who is owed an invitation.
4. Day 4, agreements. Settings, Agreements: write your terms and privacy notice, starting from our plain-English text. Parents read and agree the first time they sign in.
5. Day 5, invite the parents. Send the invitations from Families. Help, Messages you can send has a welcome message and a how-to-install message to copy into your WhatsApp group.
6. Day 6, the first classes. Teachers open Today and take attendance. Do one class together so everybody knows what to tap.
7. Day 7, the first bills. Billing, Run the month: read the dry run first, then run it. Reminders go out by themselves before and after the due date.

The checklist on the administrator's home screen shows what is still left. The days can be done in any order, but billing needs courses and students first.

Getting started

Sign in with your email address. There is no password to remember.

1. Open the school's link on your phone and type the email address the school has for you.
2. We email you a six-digit code. Type it in. It works for ten minutes. If you do not see it, look in junk mail, or ask for a new one.
3. The Home screen shows what needs you first (a payment, an agreement to read), then a card for each of your children with their next class.
4. Tap a child to see their progress, their plan and what they owe, and their timetable.
5. Next time you open the app you are still signed in. If you share a phone, sign out under More.

Use the same email address the school has. If it is not recognised, ask the front desk to check it.

Put the app on your phone

It opens like any other app, in one tap.

1. iPhone: open the link in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
2. Android: open the link in Chrome, tap the menu (three dots), then Install app or Add to Home screen.
3. The app asks nothing more. Open it from your home screen any time.

The app works in the browser too. Putting it on the home screen just makes it faster to open.

Paying, and getting a receipt

Pay in the way that suits you. Every payment has a receipt.

1. Open Payments. You see what you owe, and the invoices.
2. If the school takes online payments, tap Pay online and choose the invoices. You are taken to the payment page and back to the app when you are done.
3. To pay by bank transfer or DuitNow QR, use the details on the Payments page (tap to copy), then tap I have paid and add the amount and a photo of the receipt.
4. A payment shows green and Paid once the school has checked it. Until then it shows orange: Paid, unverified. That is normal; nothing more is needed from you.
5. Your receipts and past payments are under Payments, All payments. The statement lists every invoice and payment in date order.

You pay for a child only if the school has made you a payer for them. If something looks wrong, ask the front desk.

Telling the school your child will miss a class

Three taps, and the teacher knows.

1. Open your child's page and tap the button that says your child will miss a class.
2. Choose the class and the days, and a short reason.
3. Send it. The teacher sees it before the class. If the school offers make-up classes, a class missed with notice may earn one: look under Make-up classes.

For a very short notice, or a long absence, tell the front desk directly as well.

Adding the other parent, or another child

The school confirms each one, so only the right people see your child.

1. Open More, then Family.
2. Choose Ask the school to add the other parent and type their email address, or Add a child and fill in the details.
3. The school checks the request and tells you. The other parent gets an invitation by email and signs in with their own address.

Reading the app in Bahasa Malaysia

Choose English or Bahasa Malaysia. It is kept for your account.

1. Open More, then Language, and tap Bahasa Malaysia (or English).
2. The whole app changes at once, and so do the emails the school sends you through the app.
3. On the sign-in page there is the same choice, before you sign in.

What the school writes itself, such as class names and announcements, is shown as the school wrote it.

Questions we are asked

The usual ones, with short answers.

1. The code did not arrive. Check junk mail, wait a minute and ask for a new one. Make sure the address is the one the school has.
2. I have two children in different classes. Both are on your Home screen; each has its own card, plan and invoices.
3. I paid but it still says unverified. The school checks transfers by hand. It turns green when they have. You can also send a receipt photo with I have paid.
4. Someone else needs to see my child's progress. Ask the school to add them, under More, Family.
5. I want to stop an email. Open More, Notices, and switch it off. Messages about your account and security cannot be switched off.

Your day in one page

Today, attendance, a note to a parent, a result.

1. Sign in with your email and the six-digit code. Today lists your classes for the week.
2. Open a class. Everyone starts as here. Tap a name to change it (late, absent, excused), then Save. Attendance opens about half an hour before the class.
3. No signal in the studio? If the school has turned it on, your marks are kept on the phone and sent when you are back online. A banner tells you what is waiting.
4. A short note to a parent or an achievement: open the child from the class, then Progress. A note stays a draft until you publish it.
5. Results: open Results, choose the assessment and mark each child. Publish when you are happy, and the family is told.
6. A parent's notice that a child will be away shows on the class sheet before the class.

Allergy and health icons next to a name are for you only. Do not share them.

A special class, and writing to a class

Make an extra class, announce it so families register, and take its register.

1. Classes, New special class: a name, the day and the times, how many weeks it repeats, and the places. It is a class like any other, with its own register.
2. Open it and choose Announce this class. Choose the class whose families you are writing to, and send. Each family says Coming or Can't come for each child.
3. A child who says Coming has a place in the class. When it is full the next child joins the waiting list, and is told if a place opens.
4. On the class you see who has a place, who is waiting, who cannot come and who has not answered. Remind asks those who have not answered again, once a day at most. Close the names stops new registrations.
5. On the day the class is in Today like your other classes: take the register there. Only the children who registered are on it.
6. If it will not happen, Call this class off tells every family who had a place and cancels its sessions.

You write only to the families of your own classes. A special class you make is free; the office can give one a fee. New message on a class writes to its families without a registration.

Away, or covering a class

Ask for time off, take a class that needs a teacher, or join and leave a class you host.

1. Time off: More, then Ask for time off. Choose the days, the kind and a word. The office decides, and tells you.
2. A class that needs cover shows in Today. Open it and choose Take this class.
3. Hosting a class you do not usually teach: open it and tap Help in this class. When you are done, tap Leave this class. The families are told once who is teaching.
4. You can tell the school which hours you can teach under More, The hours I can teach. They are a guide for the office; nothing is blocked.

Setting the school up

The checklist on the dashboard tells you what is left.

1. Settings, Look: your colours and logo, and the language parents start in.
2. Set up, Courses: a course, its class fee and registration fee. Then Classes: the days, the time, the room and the teacher.
3. Settings, Payments: your bank details and DuitNow QR, or your online payment account. A parent sees these on the Payments page.
4. Settings, Agreements: write your terms and privacy notice (start from our plain-English text and change it). Parents read and agree on first sign-in.
5. Settings, Email: send from your own address if you wish. Settings, Address: use the school's own web address if you have one.
6. Settings, Team: invite the front desk, finance and branch managers, each with a role.

A school with one studio sees no branch words anywhere. Add a second studio under Settings, Studios when you need it.

Adding students and families

One at a time, or the whole school from a spreadsheet.

1. Students, Add student: the child's details and a parent with an email address. Choose the class.
2. From a spreadsheet: Students, Import. Paste or upload it, read the checks (nothing is written yet), then commit it.
3. Families lists each family: who has signed in, who has not, and who is owed an invitation. Send invitations from there.
4. Two records of one child: open the student, Merge, and choose which to keep. This works only while the extra record has no history.
5. Parents asking to add the other parent or a child arrive under Requests. Approve or decline each.

Running the week

Cancelling or moving a class, a notice to everyone, and who needs cover.

1. Cancel or move one class from its page in Classes. Every parent and teacher in it is told once, in their own language.
2. Announcements: write it, choose who it is for, publish. Everyone in the audience gets it in the app and by email.
3. Time off: approve a teacher's request and their classes are marked as needing cover. Choose cover knowing who is free.
4. Enquiries: new messages from the Join page. Book a trial class, then convert the enquiry to a student with one tap.
5. Events and class files (music sheets, letters) have their own pages under Classes and Events.

Enquiries and trial classes

From a family's first note to a student with a place in a class.

1. Every school has a public Join page. A family that is not a student yet sends a short note, and can ask to try a class first.
2. Enquiries lists every note, the new ones first. Reply by email or phone, and write down what happened.
3. Book a trial class from the enquiry, and the family is told when and where.
4. When they decide, turn the enquiry into a student with one tap: it makes the student, the parent and a place in the class, and can send the invitation at the same time.

An enquiry never creates anyone by itself. The same family asking again within a week is not added twice. Reports, Enquiries shows how your enquiries are doing.

Messages to families

Announcements in the app and by email, and WhatsApp or text if you want them.

1. Announcements, New: write it, choose who it is for (everyone, parents, or one class) and publish.
2. Everyone in the audience gets it in the app and by email, each in their own language. A family that has switched on alerts on their phone gets one there too.
3. To ask families to register for a special class, write the announcement from the class itself (see Announcing a special class).
4. WhatsApp and text messages go through your own Twilio account: Settings, Messages. Without one, only the app and email are used.

Teachers can write to the families of their own classes. By default, emails wait through the quiet hours (9 pm to 8 am) and go out in the morning.

Announcing a special class

Make the class, then announce it with a registration for families.

1. Classes, New special class: a name, the day and times, how many weeks it repeats and the places. Choose the studio and teacher, and a fee if it has one (without one it is free). It is a class with its own register, on the timetable and in each family's calendar.
2. Open it and choose Announce this class, or Announcements, New, then Ask families to register for a class. Choose who it is for: everyone, parents or one class. You can also choose a class you already run, if it has a fee plan.
3. Send. Families are told in the app and by email, with the time, the place and the fee. Each parent says Coming or Can't come for each child. Coming gives the child a place in the class, or a place on its waiting list if it is full.
4. The announcement shows how many have a place, how many wait, how many cannot come and how many have not answered. Who is coming lists the names, and Open the class goes to its register. Remind asks again, once a day at most, those who have not answered.
5. Close the names to stop new registrations; those who registered keep their place. Call the class off tells the families who had a place and cancels its sessions. Withdrawing the announcement only closes the names.

Teachers can do the same for their own classes from the class page, without a fee. A special class is not rolled over into next term and gives no make-up class, and it closes by itself after its last session.

Starting next term

One guided page carries this term's classes into the next: who stays, who moves up, and the first bill.

1. Classes, Set up next term (or Teaching, Next term). Check the dates: the first and last day of the new term, and the last day of this one.
2. Tick the classes that carry on. Each becomes a new class with the same course, fee, weekly time and room. Change its name, its places, and whether the teachers come with it.
3. Choose what happens to each student: stays, moves up to another class, or leaves. Students who are ready to move up are suggested. A class that cannot hold everyone puts the rest on its waiting list.
4. Check everything. Nothing has changed yet: you see every class, who waits and who cannot be carried on, and what the first month's bill would be.
5. Start next term. The new classes open with every lesson of the term and each family is told what happens to their child. Everyone keeps their place in this term's classes until its last day.
6. Create the first month's invoices as drafts, or do it later from Billing. Nothing is sent to a family until you issue the invoices.

A class is carried on once. If you left one out, go through the page again: the classes already done are not offered.

A trial place is not carried on, and a paused place stays paused. A student's own fee and an agreed amount stay with them when they stay in the same class.

What each part of Settings is for

Look, Email, Messages, Payments, Discounts, Rules, Agreements, Team, Branches, Levels, Plan, Address.

1. Look: your logo, colours and the language parents start in.
2. Email: send from your own address, and change the wording of the emails the app sends for you.
3. Messages: WhatsApp and text through your own Twilio account.
4. Payments: bank details, DuitNow QR, and your own Fiuu account for online payments.
5. Discounts: money taken off a fee, shown to parents as its own line on the invoice. A sibling discount applies by itself; a scholarship is given to a student by hand.
6. Rules: how long class files and leavers' papers are kept, how many minutes after the start count as late, what a certificate says and who signs it, and how make-up classes work (when a family earns one, how many days to use it, how much notice).
7. Agreements: your terms and privacy notice. Team: who works here and what each person may do. Branches: your studios. Levels: your levels, grades or belts.
8. Plan: your package and how much of it you use. Address: your school's web address, and your own domain if you have one. Support: who from the platform team has looked into your school, which you can end at any time.

A school with one branch sees no branch words anywhere. Add a second under Settings, Branches when you need it.

Reports, spreadsheets, activity and privacy

The numbers, the files for your accountant, and who did what.

1. Reports has a tab each for Students, Attendance, Money, Branches and Enquiries. Choose the dates and read it on screen.
2. Spreadsheets takes your lists and reports away as files that open in Excel or Google Sheets, for example for your accountant.
3. Activity is the record of who did what, and when. It cannot be changed or removed.
4. Privacy handles what a family may ask of you about their information: seeing it, correcting it or having it removed.
5. Events and Certificates: recitals, gradings and the other things the school puts on, and the certificates for them, which anyone can check online with the code on the certificate.

Each school's records are kept apart from every other school's, and people see only what their role needs.

The month-end, step by step

Bill, check the money, chase, close.

1. Billing, Run the month: choose the month and read the dry run first. It shows one invoice per student and the exceptions. Run it, and running it again changes nothing.
2. Check the money that came in. Billing, Proofs: a parent's transfer receipt waits there. Confirm it, or reject it with a reason.
3. Bank statement: Billing, Import a statement. Matched lines are applied to invoices; the rest wait in Unallocated for you to place.
4. Verify: a payment by cash, transfer or QR shows orange (Paid, unverified) until you tick it off. Online payments are green at once.
5. Chase: Reports, Money shows who owes and for how long, by age. Reminders go out by themselves before and after the due date. Use the WhatsApp button to nudge a parent personally.
6. Reductions: a credit note or refund over the limit needs a second person to approve. Late fines are drafted for you to check, never charged on their own.
7. Hand over: Spreadsheets (Exports) gives your accountant the invoices, payments and balances for the month.

Receipts and invoice numbers are gap-free and never change once issued. To correct one, issue a credit note.

What green and orange mean

The same two colours everywhere money is shown.

1. Green, Paid: the money is confirmed. The payment gateway confirmed it, the bank statement matched it, or finance verified it.
2. Orange, Paid, unverified: cash, a transfer or a QR scan that nobody has checked yet. The family sees it as paid, with the note that the school is checking.
3. Waiting for the school: a proof was sent and nothing has been recorded yet.
4. To turn orange green: Billing, Verify. Tick the payments you have seen in the bank.

Signing in to the console

The console is for the people who run AcademyOS. It has its own sign-in and its own address.

1. Open console.academyos.my/console (the console address is the platform's address with console in front).
2. Type your email and password, then Continue.
3. Type the six-digit code from your authenticator app, then Sign in.
4. The first time, you are shown a secret to put into an authenticator app, and recovery codes. Save the recovery codes somewhere safe: they are shown once.
5. Schools, Usage, Billing, Support and Enquiries are along the top. Sign out is at the right.

Nobody signs in as a school's administrator, and nobody shares a password. There is no screen to change an operator's password yet.

Enquiries from the home page

Schools that asked to start, from the form on academyos.my.

1. Enquiries lists every school that filled in the form, the new ones first. Each shows what they teach, the package they looked at, roughly how many students and branches, and their message.
2. Reach them by email, phone or the WhatsApp link.
3. Set where it has got to: New, Contacted, Setting up, Live or Not now. It is saved as you choose, and your name is kept as the one who last handled it.
4. Keep a note of what was said, then Save note.
5. When a school is ready, add it under Schools (see Adding and looking after a school) and set the enquiry to Setting up, then Live.

Every package is free, so the package on an enquiry is only a guide to the size. A new enquiry has no automatic email yet: look here each day.

Adding and looking after a school

One screen per school: its plan, its limits, its addresses, and whether it is running.

1. Schools, Add a school: the school's name, its address (the first part of its web address, for example sutra-academy), the kind of school, the plan, and the owner's email (optional).
2. The owner is emailed an invitation to sign in as the school's administrator. If you leave the email out, you can invite the first administrator later.
3. Open a school to see how much it uses, to change its plan and limits, and to set an agreed price a month.
4. Suspend a school with a reason when it must stop (its pages then show a plain notice). Resume it when it is fine again.
5. Addresses: add a school's own domain, check it, and remove it. In production a school's own domain is switched off for now, so schools use their address under the platform's domain.

A school's records belong to the school. When a school leaves, Take the school's data on its page gives everything it owns as spreadsheets in one zip.

Usage and billing

Who is close to a limit, and what each school owes.

1. Usage lists each school beside its plan, with the ones near or over a limit first, and which limit it is: branches, students, files or emails.
2. Billing, Run the month makes one invoice for each school on a plan with a price. Every package is free today, so nothing is invoiced until a plan is given a price.
3. To price a plan, set its price on the Billing screen; to price one school differently, set an agreed price on its page.
4. Nobody is charged from the console. When the money arrives, open the invoice and mark it paid with a note. Void an invoice only with a reason.

Looking into a school's problem

Nobody looks into a school alone.

1. Open the school and choose Ask for support access: a ticket number, a reason and how long you need (15 minutes to 8 hours).
2. Support lists every request. A different operator chooses Approve (or Decline) there. You cannot approve your own request.
3. While it is active, open the school's overview from Support: counts, failed emails and jobs, address problems. Never a child's name, a contact detail or a health record.
4. It is read-only and ends by itself. The school's administrator is told when it starts, sees every grant in Settings, Support, and can end one early. End it now closes it yourself.

Everything is written to the school's activity record.