User Guide

I – Institution

After logging in, you land on the dashboard: enrolment, payments, recent activity and setup progress. The left menu follows the order of work: Schooling, Staff, Finances, Information.

Each step below builds on the previous ones. Following them in order, you will not have to redo anything.

Step 1 Academic year and periods

1. Open Academic years.
2. Enter the label (e.g. 2026-2027) and the start date; the end date is set one year later.
3. Only one year is active at a time. At the end of the year, Zaame offers to create the next one and to carry your students over automatically.

The year’s periods (terms or semesters) are used for report cards: an assessment counts in the period containing its start date. If the Report cards page says that no period is defined, contact support.

Step 2 Buildings and rooms

1. If your institution has several buildings, create them in Buildings.
2. Then add your Rooms (name, capacity, building).
3. A room can be assigned to a class and appears in timetables.

Step 3 School cycles

1. Open School cycles and click Add a cycle.
2. Give its name (Pre-school, Primary, Middle school, High school…) and tick the classes it includes. A class belongs to one cycle only.
3. The cycle determines the report card template and the subject settings of its classes.

Step 4 Subjects and grading per level

1. In Subjects, create a single subject per discipline for the whole institution (one “Mathematics”), with its default scale and coefficient.
2. If grading changes with the level, click “Set per level” on the subject’s card.
3. Then set the scale and coefficient per cycle (for instance out of 10 in primary, out of 20 with coefficient 3 in middle school), and an exception for a class if needed. The “Applied” column shows the result.

Grades already entered keep the scale in force when they were entered: moving from /10 to /20 does not change their value.

Step 5 Classes

1. Open Classes then Add.
2. Enter the name (e.g. Grade 9C), the cycle, the room if needed, and tick the subjects taught in the class.
3. Each class card shows its cycle and its enrolment.

Step 6 Teachers

1. In Teachers, click Add and fill in the form (required fields carry an asterisk *).
2. Assign their subjects and classes.
3. These links determine what they see, the slots offered in the timetable, and the name printed under the subject on report cards.

Step 7 Students and parents

There are three ways to add students:

1. Form: in Students, click Add and fill in the record. You can create the parent’s account at the same time.
2. Excel file: click Import and follow the instructions (XLSX, ODS or CSV).
3. Registration link: click Registration link, name it, save it and send it to families. Each request arrives in Pending registrations, where you review, approve or reject it.

Then add the Parents and link them to their children: they will follow grades, report cards, assignments and payments from their own space.

Step 8 Account credentials

Once a student, teacher, parent or staff member is saved, open their user account (icon at the end of the row) to find the username to give them. Passwords are not kept in plain text: use “Regenerate password” to create a new one and share it.

For the Administrative team, tick the member’s permissions at the bottom of the form: ticking “Students” gives them student management, an empty box denies access to that section.

Step 9 Timetable

Before you start: the class, its subjects and the teachers (with their subjects and classes) must exist.

1. In Timetables, click Add.
2. Enter the period covered, then choose the class. Only classes without a timetable are offered.
3. Add one slot per lesson: day, start and end times, subject and teacher. Only the class’s subjects are offered, then the subject’s teachers who have the class. Two slots on the same day cannot overlap.
4. Save: sessions are created automatically with the current year’s students.

Step 10 Lessons and sessions

Sessions created from the timetable appear in Course. Opening a session gives access to the Students tab (with each student’s last grade and attendance), the class assignments, the learning materials, the roll call and the live class.

Step 11 Report card settings

1. Open Report cards → Settings.
2. School template: click “Set up” and start from a preset (primary out of 10 with ranks, or secondary out of 20 with coefficients).
3. Templates per cycle: “Customise” applies other rules to a cycle. Each card’s summary shows the rules applied.
4. Set the subject groups (Language, Sciences…) and the subject order on the report card if needed.

In the template you choose, among other things:

• the overall average: weighted by coefficients, simple average of subjects, or average of groups;
• the grade of each subject when assignments are linked: half assignments / half exam, or all grades weighing the same;
• the columns: assignment details, assignments average, teacher, coefficients and points, ranks, statistics;
• the annual average and rank on the last period’s report card;
• the automatic remarks and the pass mark.

Step 12 Assessment and grade entry

1. In Report cards → Evaluations, click New evaluation: name (e.g. First term exam), dates and classes involved. The start date links the assessment to its period.
2. Open the assessment with Access: filter by student, class, subject or entry status.
3. Enter the grades, or let the teachers do it. Decimals are accepted (7.5) and each grade is checked against the subject’s scale for the class.
4. Leave a subject that was not assessed empty: it shows “N/E” and does not count in the average, whereas a 0 would.

Step 13 Assignments linked to the assessment

1. Teachers create their assignments from the session or the Class assignments tab, then grade them.
2. From the assessment, open “Manage linked homework” and link the term’s assignments that must count.
3. The subject grade then combines the exam and those assignments, according to the report card template’s rule.

Step 14 Report cards and publication

1. Open Report cards → Term report cards, choose the class and the period, then click Show.
2. The table ranks the students: average, rank, remark and pass status.
3. The eye opens a student’s report card as it will be printed; the print icon produces its PDF, and “Print whole class” generates one report card per page.
4. Check, then click “Publish report cards”: students and parents view them in “My report cards” and are notified.
5. A published report card is frozen. After a correction, a warning invites you to publish again; “Unpublish” hides it from families.

Step 15 End of year: annual transcript and resit

1. Choose “Annual transcript” in the period list: one column per period, each subject’s yearly average and the annual average.
2. Set the weight of each period if terms do not count the same (1 everywhere, or 1, 2, 2 for instance).
3. Open Resit: students not promoted on the annual average are listed. Enter their resit average; the decision is suggested using the pass mark and stays editable.
4. Publish the last period’s report card again so families see the decision.

Step 16 Finances, communication and information

• Accounting: Zaame uses the monthly fees entered when each student was registered. You track payments month by month, record a payment and print the receipt.
• Online payment: set up your provider (bank card or Mobile Money depending on the country) so that parents can pay from their space. Funds arrive directly in your account.
• Financial reports: an overview of the year’s income.
• Messaging, requests and events: talk with families and staff, handle incoming requests, publish your events.
• General information: the institution’s name and status, the person in charge, contact details, presentation, logo and signature, which appear on documents and report cards.