The Sematime Academics quick start guide
With this quick start guide we aim to help you master all the Sematime Academics essentials in the shortest time possible.
Exiting demo mode
After familiarizing yourself with how the service works, it is now time to start adding your own school data. To do that, click the red 'Exit Demo' button as shown below.
The system will prompt you to confirm that you indeed want to exit demo mode and consequently delete the demo data; click 'Yes, remove' to proceed. This will launch the 'Sematime Academics' setup process where you will be expected to add the year groups and streams plus subjects taught in your school.
Year groups refer to the key learning stages offered in the school. For example, a kindergarten will have 3 year groups: playgroup, pre-primary 1 & pre-primary 2. While streams refer to subclasses offered for each main year group in schools where there are more students per class than one teacher can manage. e.g Form 3 West, Form 3 East etc
Admitting new students
This is the second thing you want to do after completing the setup process. Go to the 'Students' view and click the 'Admit New Students' button.
There are two ways to add new students: importing from an Excel file or adding manually one-by-one. If you choose to import from an Excel file, you need to have three columns: student ID(admission number), full name and parent's phone number. On clicking the 'Admit New Students', you will be prompted to select your Excel file then shown a preview of the students data. Make any necessary changes to this data and click 'Add Students' to save. Repeat this process for all the classes.
Adding teachers
Start by preparing an Excel file containing the full name and phone number of the teachers to add. Click on the 'Teachers' menu item on the topbar then click on the 'Add New Teachers' button. You will get a preview of the teacher details generated from your Excel file. You can make any desired changes then click 'Add Teachers' to finish.
Allocating lessons to subject teachers
This is very important as it allows to know who teaches what class. Subject teachers are also responsible for keying in marks for new exams or recording CBC formative assessment results.
Click on the 'Lessons' view on the topbar and choose the class whose lessons you want to allocate. Under the 'Subject Teacher' column choose the teacher to assign for each subject by clicking on the down arrow then save changes when done. Remember to do this for all the other classes.
You will find the students taking each subject have already been enrolled automatically. You may disenroll students not taking a particular subject by clicking on the blue 'X' button next to their names.
Specifying class teachers or supervisors
Every class needs a supervisor who is tasked with recording daily class attendance. To get started go to the 'Teachers' view and select the teacher you want to edit or search by their name. On the 'teacher details editor' choose the 'Classes Supervised' tab and select the relevant classes then 'Save Changes'
Importing past exam results
By importing past exam results into your account you can immediately begin analysing them to see how different classes performed over time. Please ensure your exam results are saved in an Excel file using the format shown below.
While the sample Excel file above has many important columns, Sematime only needs the following columns: student ID(admission number), student name, scores per subject & total marks or mean grade.
To get started, go to 'Home' view on the topbar, select the 'Exams' item from the menu then click 'Add New Exam'. You will taken to the 'Add exam' dialog window to upload your Excel file. Once uploaded, you will need to map the columns in your Excel file to the data columns that Sematime expects to pick from your file. Click 'Next' to see a preview of your data and to finish the importation.
Here is what you will get after completing the importation process. You may continue to import exam results for all the other classes as you wish.
Generating exam analysis reports
After importing your past exam results, it is now time to unleash the real magic of Sematime Academics - reports generation. Go to the 'Reports' view on the topbar, then select the report type and exam name as shown in the image below.
The exam overview report is a comprehensive collection of all the important insights you need to understand how your students faired in this exam. It contains 14 sub-sections: most improved, subject champions, grades distribution versus other exams etc.
You also get access to the other report types you are already accustomed to such as: the marksheet, the broadsheet, result slips, subject-grades distribution, exam irregularities etc. Click the 'Print' button immediately print your reports or the 'Download' button to get the report PDF format.
How to send exam results to parents via SMS
Go the 'Home' view, select the 'Exams' menu-item then choose the exam whose results you want to send. Under 'Exam Actions' menubar, choose 'Send Results'.
The results sender dialog window will show up from where you can add the classes whose results you want to send in the red box area. You also get a preview of how each SMS message will appear when received by the parents. Click 'Send Results' to finish.
After sending your message, you will get a delivery report summary. At first, all the messages will be in the 'Pending' status but will gradually get updated to either 'Delivered' or 'Failed' based on the delivery confirmation report we get from the mobile network operator e.g Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom etc.
You can then click on 'View Report' to see a detailed delivery report for each parent. Come with us to the next section to understand more about SMS message delivery reports.
Adding a new exam for marks entry by teachers
To get started, go to 'Home' view on the topbar, select the 'Exams' item from the menu then click 'Add New Exam'. Fill in the details of your exam such as name, type, academic year, term etc.
Then enroll all the students taking this exam by typing in the class names or even individual student IDs (admission numbers) or names in the red box as shown in this image. By default, the students will sit exam papers for all the subjects set for each year group but you can change this by clicking the 'Papers To Test' tab. Also, you may set a unique ranking criteria specific to this exam.
Your exam is now successfully created and teachers can begin to input raw student marks. The system shows marks entry progress for each subject as teachers keep on feeding data. You can click on the 'View Marks' button to see what has been entered, what's missing or to even input marks for your respective classes.
How to input student scores after marking your exam papers
There are two ways through which teachers can input marks - the web app or the mobile app. To input marks via the web app, click on this link, https://web.sematime.com/academics and input your login credentials.
When you were added as a teacher on your school's Sematime account, a text message was sent to your phone number containing your login credentials.
Under 'Exams in progress' choose the exams whose marks you want to input, select your subject and click 'View Marks'. The dialog window below shows up from where you can input the marks or add an exam irregularity such as copying other students' work or falsifying marks. Use the 'Tab ↹ key' or the ↑ ↓ (up and down arrow keys) on your keyboard to move to the next student then 'Save Marks' when done.
Open the Sematime mobile app or click this link to download and install it - http://sms.ke/app. Or search for the 'Sematime' app on Google Play Store. Upon launching the app, choose the 'Staff Login' option then input your login credentials - remember these were sent to you earlier by the school.
The image above shows the step-by-step guide of what you need to do after logging into the app. Start by click on the 'Exams' menu at the bottom navigation bar**(step 1)**. Then choose the exam**(step 2)** and subject**(step 3)** whose marks you want to enter and finally key-in the subject scores per student**(step 4)**.
After all the marks have been entered by teachers, the school admin or dean of studies needs to 'Publish Exam' so as to lock further entry of marks and for the system to produce exam analysis reports.
How to take class attendance or roll call
Select 'Attendance' from the 'Home' view menu. Click the 'Take Attendance' button as shown by the red arrow or click the 'View' button adjacent to the date and class name - in the red box area.
We provide a number of ways to record attendance. For starters, the red box area presents a way for you to take attendance for all students at one go while the green box area shows how to do it manually one student after the other.
How to add a new discipline case
Select 'Discipline' from the 'Home' view menu and click the 'Add New Incident' button. Proceed to enter the details of the new incident. You may check the 'Notify parents via SMS' option to allow Sematime to send a message to the parents of the infringing students.
At this point, you are now pretty good to go. We have covered the most essential functionalities you need to master to be super-good at using Sematime Academics. If what you were looking for is not covered in this quick start guide, consider checking or searching for it among our other 'how-to' articles on the Help Center.
Exiting demo mode
After familiarizing yourself with how the service works, it is now time to start adding your own school data. To do that, click the red 'Exit Demo' button as shown below.
The system will prompt you to confirm that you indeed want to exit demo mode and consequently delete the demo data; click 'Yes, remove' to proceed. This will launch the 'Sematime Academics' setup process where you will be expected to add the year groups and streams plus subjects taught in your school.
Year groups refer to the key learning stages offered in the school. For example, a kindergarten will have 3 year groups: playgroup, pre-primary 1 & pre-primary 2. While streams refer to subclasses offered for each main year group in schools where there are more students per class than one teacher can manage. e.g Form 3 West, Form 3 East etc
Admitting new students
This is the second thing you want to do after completing the setup process. Go to the 'Students' view and click the 'Admit New Students' button.
There are two ways to add new students: importing from an Excel file or adding manually one-by-one. If you choose to import from an Excel file, you need to have three columns: student ID(admission number), full name and parent's phone number. On clicking the 'Admit New Students', you will be prompted to select your Excel file then shown a preview of the students data. Make any necessary changes to this data and click 'Add Students' to save. Repeat this process for all the classes.
Adding teachers
Start by preparing an Excel file containing the full name and phone number of the teachers to add. Click on the 'Teachers' menu item on the topbar then click on the 'Add New Teachers' button. You will get a preview of the teacher details generated from your Excel file. You can make any desired changes then click 'Add Teachers' to finish.
Allocating lessons to subject teachers
This is very important as it allows to know who teaches what class. Subject teachers are also responsible for keying in marks for new exams or recording CBC formative assessment results.
Click on the 'Lessons' view on the topbar and choose the class whose lessons you want to allocate. Under the 'Subject Teacher' column choose the teacher to assign for each subject by clicking on the down arrow then save changes when done. Remember to do this for all the other classes.
You will find the students taking each subject have already been enrolled automatically. You may disenroll students not taking a particular subject by clicking on the blue 'X' button next to their names.
Specifying class teachers or supervisors
Every class needs a supervisor who is tasked with recording daily class attendance. To get started go to the 'Teachers' view and select the teacher you want to edit or search by their name. On the 'teacher details editor' choose the 'Classes Supervised' tab and select the relevant classes then 'Save Changes'
Importing past exam results
By importing past exam results into your account you can immediately begin analysing them to see how different classes performed over time. Please ensure your exam results are saved in an Excel file using the format shown below.
While the sample Excel file above has many important columns, Sematime only needs the following columns: student ID(admission number), student name, scores per subject & total marks or mean grade.
To get started, go to 'Home' view on the topbar, select the 'Exams' item from the menu then click 'Add New Exam'. You will taken to the 'Add exam' dialog window to upload your Excel file. Once uploaded, you will need to map the columns in your Excel file to the data columns that Sematime expects to pick from your file. Click 'Next' to see a preview of your data and to finish the importation.
Here is what you will get after completing the importation process. You may continue to import exam results for all the other classes as you wish.
Generating exam analysis reports
After importing your past exam results, it is now time to unleash the real magic of Sematime Academics - reports generation. Go to the 'Reports' view on the topbar, then select the report type and exam name as shown in the image below.
The exam overview report is a comprehensive collection of all the important insights you need to understand how your students faired in this exam. It contains 14 sub-sections: most improved, subject champions, grades distribution versus other exams etc.
You also get access to the other report types you are already accustomed to such as: the marksheet, the broadsheet, result slips, subject-grades distribution, exam irregularities etc. Click the 'Print' button immediately print your reports or the 'Download' button to get the report PDF format.
How to send exam results to parents via SMS
Go the 'Home' view, select the 'Exams' menu-item then choose the exam whose results you want to send. Under 'Exam Actions' menubar, choose 'Send Results'.
The results sender dialog window will show up from where you can add the classes whose results you want to send in the red box area. You also get a preview of how each SMS message will appear when received by the parents. Click 'Send Results' to finish.
After sending your message, you will get a delivery report summary. At first, all the messages will be in the 'Pending' status but will gradually get updated to either 'Delivered' or 'Failed' based on the delivery confirmation report we get from the mobile network operator e.g Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom etc.
You can then click on 'View Report' to see a detailed delivery report for each parent. Come with us to the next section to understand more about SMS message delivery reports.
Adding a new exam for marks entry by teachers
To get started, go to 'Home' view on the topbar, select the 'Exams' item from the menu then click 'Add New Exam'. Fill in the details of your exam such as name, type, academic year, term etc.
Then enroll all the students taking this exam by typing in the class names or even individual student IDs (admission numbers) or names in the red box as shown in this image. By default, the students will sit exam papers for all the subjects set for each year group but you can change this by clicking the 'Papers To Test' tab. Also, you may set a unique ranking criteria specific to this exam.
Your exam is now successfully created and teachers can begin to input raw student marks. The system shows marks entry progress for each subject as teachers keep on feeding data. You can click on the 'View Marks' button to see what has been entered, what's missing or to even input marks for your respective classes.
How to input student scores after marking your exam papers
There are two ways through which teachers can input marks - the web app or the mobile app. To input marks via the web app, click on this link, https://web.sematime.com/academics and input your login credentials.
When you were added as a teacher on your school's Sematime account, a text message was sent to your phone number containing your login credentials.
Under 'Exams in progress' choose the exams whose marks you want to input, select your subject and click 'View Marks'. The dialog window below shows up from where you can input the marks or add an exam irregularity such as copying other students' work or falsifying marks. Use the 'Tab ↹ key' or the ↑ ↓ (up and down arrow keys) on your keyboard to move to the next student then 'Save Marks' when done.
Open the Sematime mobile app or click this link to download and install it - http://sms.ke/app. Or search for the 'Sematime' app on Google Play Store. Upon launching the app, choose the 'Staff Login' option then input your login credentials - remember these were sent to you earlier by the school.
The image above shows the step-by-step guide of what you need to do after logging into the app. Start by click on the 'Exams' menu at the bottom navigation bar**(step 1)**. Then choose the exam**(step 2)** and subject**(step 3)** whose marks you want to enter and finally key-in the subject scores per student**(step 4)**.
After all the marks have been entered by teachers, the school admin or dean of studies needs to 'Publish Exam' so as to lock further entry of marks and for the system to produce exam analysis reports.
How to take class attendance or roll call
Select 'Attendance' from the 'Home' view menu. Click the 'Take Attendance' button as shown by the red arrow or click the 'View' button adjacent to the date and class name - in the red box area.
We provide a number of ways to record attendance. For starters, the red box area presents a way for you to take attendance for all students at one go while the green box area shows how to do it manually one student after the other.
How to add a new discipline case
Select 'Discipline' from the 'Home' view menu and click the 'Add New Incident' button. Proceed to enter the details of the new incident. You may check the 'Notify parents via SMS' option to allow Sematime to send a message to the parents of the infringing students.
At this point, you are now pretty good to go. We have covered the most essential functionalities you need to master to be super-good at using Sematime Academics. If what you were looking for is not covered in this quick start guide, consider checking or searching for it among our other 'how-to' articles on the Help Center.
Updated on: 04/04/2024
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