Learn How to Use AthenaStar

How to access your school's AthenaStar workspace for the first time and every day after.

1. Go to your school's address (e.g. yourschool.athenastar.org) or the main login page.
2. Enter the email or username and password your Administrator gave you.
3. First time in? Use "Forgot Password" on the login page to set your own password.

A quick tour of the dashboard, sidebar navigation, and the controls you'll use every day.

1. After logging in you land on your Dashboard — it shows only the cards relevant to your role.
2. The left sidebar groups every module you have access to — Students, Finance, Academics, Operations.
3. Your name, role badge, and a Logout option are always available from the top bar.

How to add new students one at a time or in bulk, assign them to classes, and manage their profiles throughout their school career.

1. Students → Admissions to add one student at a time, with a full profile form.
2. Students → Bulk Import to admit many at once from a spreadsheet — download the template first.
3. Use Promote Students at the end of a term to move a whole class up in one action.

Collecting school fees, issuing receipts, tracking defaulters, and understanding the fee summary reports.

1. Finance → New Receipt to record a payment against a student's fees.
2. Finance → Fee Summary gives a class-by-class view of who has paid and who is owing.
3. Assign Fees lets you set what each class owes for the term before collection starts.

Entering scores, generating end-of-term report cards, and managing grading scales and remarks.

1. Academics → Edit Results to enter scores for the classes/subjects assigned to you.
2. Academics → Report Cards to generate and review the finished report for any student.
3. Attendance is recorded the same way — pick the class and date, then mark each student.

Setting up staff salary records, generating monthly payslips, managing deductions and allowances, and exporting payroll reports.

1. Staff → Payroll → New Payslip to generate a payslip for any staff member.
2. Staff records (salary, bank details, department) live under Staff → Staff Directory.
3. Use Bulk Pay to process an entire department's payroll in one action.

Using the Parent Portal to check your child's fees, view report cards, read announcements, and pay online.

1. Log in with the email/phone your school registered for you, then open the Parent Portal.
2. Each child linked to your account shows as a card — tap it for Fees, Report Card, or Profile.
3. Announcements and the School Calendar keep you updated without needing to contact the school office.

The first things to configure after your workspace is activated: school profile, terms, classes, and user accounts.

1. Settings → School Profile — add your logo, motto, address, and contact details.
2. Settings → Terms — create your academic terms and set the current one as active.
3. Settings → Classes — create the class structure (e.g. KG1, KG2, Class 1 … Class 6).

Sending bulk SMS to parents, staff, or specific groups — announcements, fee reminders, and event notices.

1. Communications → SMS → Compose to type your message and select the recipient group.
2. Filter by class, student type, or custom list — or send to all parents at once.
3. SMS history shows delivery status for every message sent through the system.

Managing staff profiles, leave requests, appraisals, disciplinary records, and staff transfers.

1. Staff → Staff Directory to view all staff profiles and their key details at a glance.
2. HR → Leave Requests to approve or decline staff leave — staff submit from their own profile.
3. HR → Appraisals to record performance reviews for any staff member.

Setting up canteen rates, recording daily sales, tracking collections, and producing canteen revenue summaries.

1. Canteen → Canteen Settings to define meal rates per student type or class.
2. Canteen → Record Daily Sales to post each day's collection for a class or group.
3. Canteen → Analysis shows revenue trends and top-paying classes over any period.

Cataloguing books, managing borrowing and returns, tracking overdue items, and generating library usage reports.

1. Operations → Library to access the full library catalogue.
2. Add Book to register a new title with ISBN, author, category, and number of copies.
3. Issue a book to a student — the system tracks the due date and flags overdue returns.

Registering school assets, tracking their location and condition, recording assignments to staff or rooms, and managing stock.

1. Operations → Assets to open the asset register.
2. Add Asset to register a new item with its category, serial number, purchase date, and value.
3. Assign an asset to a specific staff member or room — the system logs who holds it.

Managing hostel rooms, assigning boarders, tracking occupancy, and handling hostel-related fees.

1. Operations → Hostel to view all dormitories and rooms.
2. Add a Dormitory then create Rooms within it — set the capacity per room.
3. Assign Boarders by linking students to specific rooms for the term.

Setting up transport routes and vehicles, assigning students to routes, and tracking transport fees.

1. Operations → Transport → Routes to create each route with its stops.
2. Operations → Transport → Vehicles to register the buses and their drivers.
3. Assign students to a route from their profile or the bulk assignment screen.

Recording sick visits, managing medications, tracking student health conditions, and generating infirmary reports.

1. Operations → Infirmary → New Visit to log a student's sick bay visit.
2. Record diagnosis, treatment given, and medications dispensed.
3. Student Health Profiles store chronic conditions, allergies, and emergency contacts.

Managing leave requests, appraisals, disciplinary records, staff contracts, and HR reports.

1. HR → Leave Requests to review and approve/decline staff leave.
2. HR → Appraisals to record annual performance reviews.
3. HR → Disciplinary to log formal warnings or actions.

Managing visitor appointments, school mail, inquiries, complaints, and front desk operations.

1. Front Desk → Appointments to schedule and manage visitor meetings.
2. Front Desk → Mail Log to record incoming and outgoing correspondence.
3. Front Desk → Inquiries to log and follow up on parent or visitor inquiries.

Logging visitor arrivals and departures, managing gate passes, student pickup authorisations, and security reports.

1. Operations → Visitor & Security → Log Visitor to record anyone entering the school.
2. Gate Pass prints a timed visitor badge with the visitor's name and purpose.
3. Pickup Authorisation logs who is authorised to collect specific students.

Sending bulk SMS to parents, emailing parent groups, and using the unified message log to track all outbound communication.

1. SMS → Compose to type a message and pick the recipient group (all parents, a class, etc.).
2. Email Parents → New Email to send an HTML email to parent accounts.
3. Filter recipients by class, student type, or a custom phone/email list.

Creating and sending email newsletter campaigns to subscribers, managing the subscriber list, and tracking open rates.

1. Newsletter → New Campaign to compose a newsletter using the built-in rich text editor.
2. Select your subscriber list or filter by segment before sending.
3. Preview the email before sending to check layout and links.

Enabling the parent portal, linking parents to wards, managing parent accounts, and explaining what parents can see.

1. Go to Settings → User Accounts → New User, set the role to Parent, and link the parent to their child(ren).
2. Parents receive login details by email or SMS — they log in at the school's address.
3. Enable the parent portal in Settings → General Settings → Parent Portal tab.

Configuring grade scales, entering scores, generating PDF report cards, and managing remarks and class positions.

1. Settings → Grading System to define grade boundaries (e.g. A=80+, B=70–79).
2. Academics → Edit Results to enter class and exam scores for each subject.
3. Academics → Report Cards to preview and download the report for any class.

Setting up fee types, assigning fees to classes, recording payments, issuing receipts, and managing defaulters.

1. Finance → Fee Types to define what you charge (Tuition, Building Fund, PTA, etc.).
2. Finance → Assign Fees to set amounts per class for the active term.
3. Finance → New Receipt to record a payment and issue a receipt immediately.

Running monthly payroll, generating payslips, managing allowances and deductions, and distributing payslips to staff.

1. Set up each staff member's salary under Staff → Edit Staff → Payroll Details.
2. Staff → Payroll → New Payslip to generate a payslip for any staff member.
3. Add or remove allowances and deductions per staff member each month.

Managing the school store, creating invoices for items sold, tracking inventory, and generating sales reports.

1. Finance → Stock Items to add products the school sells (uniforms, books, stationery).
2. Finance → Store / POS → New Invoice to create a sale invoice for a student or parent.
3. Add items to the invoice and set quantities — stock decrements automatically.

Uploading and managing the KYC and compliance documents required by the platform for your school's account.

1. System → Compliance Documents to see the list of required documents.
2. Click Upload next to each document type to submit the required file.
3. Documents are reviewed by the platform team — status updates appear on the same page.

Reviewing the school's activity log — who changed what, when, and from which IP address.

1. Compliance → Audit Log to open the full activity trail for your school.
2. Filter by date range, user, or action type to find specific events.
3. Each entry shows: timestamp, user, action, and the affected record.

Creating and editing user roles, assigning permissions, and controlling access to each module.

1. Settings → Roles to see all roles in your school.
2. New Role to create a custom role with a specific set of permissions.
3. Edit any role to toggle individual permissions on or off.

Drafting, submitting, and reviewing weekly lesson plans for approval.

1. Lesson Plans → New Plan to draft a plan for a class, subject, and week.
2. Fill in objectives, teaching/learning materials, activities, and evaluation.
3. Submit for review — a Head of Department or Head Teacher can approve or request changes.

Building your school's weekly class timetable and letting teachers view their own schedule.

1. Timetables → New Timetable to build a weekly grid for a class.
2. Assign a subject and teacher to each period/day slot.
3. Teachers see only their own periods under My Timetables.

Setting up the classes, streams, and subjects your school teaches before you start admitting students or entering results.

1. Settings → Classes to add every class level your school runs (e.g. Basic 1 – JHS 3).
2. Settings → Subjects to define the subject list your school teaches.
3. Class Setup to link which subjects are taught in which class, and set up streams (e.g. 3A/3B).

Applying scholarships or fee discounts to individual students, and managing standard class-wide bills.

1. Finance → Scholarship / Bonus to apply a discount or waiver to one or more students.
2. Academics → Class Bills to manage the standard bill template each class is charged.
3. Discounts apply automatically to future receipts once saved.

Tracking school events on the shared calendar and chatting with colleagues through the built-in Messages tool.

1. Calendar shows school-wide events — term dates, exams, holidays, meetings.
2. Admins/Head Teachers can add new events for everyone to see.
3. Messages (chat bubble in the sidebar) lets you message any colleague directly.

Reading the Analytical Dashboard and the per-module analysis screens (attendance, academic performance, canteen, payslips).

1. Analytical Dashboard gives a school-wide overview: enrolment trends, fee collection, attendance.
2. Each module also has its own analysis screen — Att. Analysis, Academic Analytics, Canteen Analysis.
3. Use date-range filters on any analysis screen to compare terms or spot trends.

Uploading your school's logo, setting your address/contact details, and configuring general system-wide preferences.

1. Settings → Appearance to upload your logo and pick your school's theme color.
2. Settings → General Settings for school name, address, contact details, and SMTP mail setup.
3. Settings → Platform Billing to see your subscription plan and invoices.

Asking the platform to unlock a premium module or feature that isn't included in your current plan.

1. Settings → Request Premium Features to see modules locked to your current plan.
2. Submit a request describing which feature you need and why.
3. The platform reviews and approves or follows up — you'll be notified either way.