Purpose#
Create a student profile, assign the student to at least one program, and optionally add contact details, a photo, custom fields, and permanent groups.
Permissions#
- Organization admins can create students in any active program.
- Editors can create students in programs they can access and can assign permanent groups where they have editor access.
- Volunteers can create students in programs they can access, but cannot assign permanent groups.
- An active 14-day trial or paid subscription is required.
Prerequisites#
- At least one active program must be available to you. Without one, Create student is disabled.
- Have the student's legal or preferred name and birthday. All three are required.
- Know which program the student belongs to. At least one program is required.
- Have values for any required custom fields used by the selected programs.
- If adding a photo, use a JPEG, PNG, or WebP image no larger than 5 MB.
Steps#
- Open Students from the main navigation.
- Select Create student.
- Enter First name and Last name. Each field accepts up to 100 characters and cannot contain only spaces.
- Under Student programs, select at least one program.
- Enter the required Birthday using Month, Day, and Year. The date must be a real date from 1900 through today.
- Complete the other relevant profile fields described below. The selected programs determine whether some built-in fields and custom fields appear.
- If Student photo appears, select Take photo or Choose photo. Wait for Photo ready before submitting.
- If Student groups appears, choose one permanent group per listed program or leave No group selected.
- Select Create student.
Fields and Options#
| UI label | What to enter |
|---|---|
| First name | Required. Up to 100 characters. |
| Last name | Required. Up to 100 characters. |
| Student programs | Required for a new student. Select one or more available programs. |
| Birthday | Required month, day, and four-digit year. Future dates are not accepted. |
| Gender | Optional. Choose Male, Female, or leave Select gender unchanged. This field appears only when enabled for at least one selected program. |
| Phone number | Optional 10-digit US or Canadian number. This field appears only when enabled for at least one selected program. |
| Optional valid email address, up to 254 characters. This field appears only when enabled for at least one selected program. | |
| School | Optional, up to 200 characters. This field appears only when enabled for at least one selected program. |
| Grade | Optional. Choose No grade, K, or grades 1 through 12. |
| Student photo | Optional when the photo field is enabled for a selected program. Take photo uses an available device camera; Choose photo selects an existing image. |
| Notes | Optional, up to 2,000 characters. Intended for check-in volunteers. This field appears only when enabled for at least one selected program. |
| Custom fields | Organization-wide fields and fields belonging to selected programs. Fields marked required must be completed. Types may include text, long text, number, date, checkbox, and dropdown. |
| Student groups | Optional permanent group choices for selected programs that use groups. Available to organization admins and editors with assignment permission. |
Expected Result#
The drawer closes, Student added. appears, and the new student is added to Students. The student receives the selected program assignments, custom-field values, and any selected permanent groups. A successfully uploaded photo becomes the student's directory and check-in photo.
If an active student already has the same first name, last name, and birthday, creation still succeeds but Possible duplicate student appears with matching names. Use that warning to review whether both records should exist.
Troubleshooting and Important Notes#
- If Create student is disabled, confirm that at least one active program is available to you.
- If the form asks you to select a program, choose at least one option under Student programs.
- Changing Student programs can make program-specific fields appear or disappear. Complete all required fields shown for the final program selection.
- A phone number must be a valid 10-digit US or Canadian number; the first digit of the area code and exchange cannot be 0 or 1.
- If a photo cannot be prepared, choose a JPEG, PNG, or WebP file. The app crops supported photos to a square for the preview and stores uploaded photos as WebP.
- Student creation and photo upload happen in sequence. If the profile is created but the photo upload fails, return to Students and search for the student before trying to create another record. Open the existing student and retry the photo instead.
- Creating a student does not automatically merge a possible duplicate. CSV import has separate exact matching behavior described in Import Students from CSV.