You just accepted the invitation to your school's dashboard. There's a lot on the screen and not a lot of guidance about what to touch first. This article is the order we'd recommend if it were our own school — five days, escalating from "log in and look around" to "ready for families to find you."
The numbered days aren't strict — most schools do day 1+2 in a single afternoon, then come back across a week to finish the rest. The order matters more than the timing.
Day 1 — Orient yourself (30 minutes)
Don't fill anything in yet. Just walk through the dashboard tabs and get a mental map.
What to look at, in order:
- Overview tab. The dashboard home. You'll see a Setup Wizard checklist on the right — that's the operational TODO. Note it, don't click into it yet.
- Profile tab. The public-facing version of your school — description, photos, programs, locations, team. This is what prospective families will see. Right now it's mostly empty or already filled with what we could source from your school's own published material.
- Inquiries tab. Where new family inquiries land. Empty until you point notifications at the right inbox and families start writing.
- Bookings tab. Tour requests + confirmed visits. Also empty.
- Settings tab. Configuration — your inquiry form, booking calendar, notifications, billing, team. Where most setup happens.
One thing to actually do on day 1: invite your second team member. Most schools work the dashboard as a 2-3 person operation (head's office + admissions lead, sometimes + comms person). Doing this on day 1 means they discover the dashboard at the same time you do, not two weeks behind. Settings → Team → Invite member.
Day 2 — Profile basics (1-2 hours)
A complete profile is what converts an anonymous visitor into a real inquiry. Without it, your dashboard will sit empty.
Minimum-viable profile:
- School name + tagline + hero image. The hero is the single most important visual — it appears on every search-result card and at the top of your school page. Use something that conveys your school's character: a campus shot in good light, students working (not a group photo), the entrance gate at golden hour. Avoid the "smiling students looking at a laptop" stock-photo aesthetic — families read past it.
- Description (200-400 words). Three paragraphs is the sweet spot: who you are, what's distinctive, what kind of family fits. Avoid marketing-speak ("excellence in education", "world-class") — say what you actually do.
- Programs. Tick the ones you offer (IB, Swiss Matura, A-Levels, etc.). This is what makes you show up in filtered searches.
- Locations. Address + canton. Even if it's one campus, fill this in — it powers the map and proximity searches.
- Fees. Whatever you can disclose. Schools that hide fees get fewer inquiries but better-qualified ones — your call. We have a full article on this (see [Building a profile that converts] in the pipeline).
The Setup Wizard walks you through checking the facts we already publish — contact details, programs, fees, then your logo and photos. The description is the one to write yourself, when you have time to do it well: the Profile tab shows ideas to start from, and your checklist keeps it open until you have.
Day 3 — Inquiry inbox setup (1 hour)
This is the operational core. Get this right and your dashboard will work for you; get it wrong and inquiries will silently fail to land.
Three things to configure:
- Inquiry form custom questions. Settings → Inquiry form. The default form has the basics (name, email, message). Add 1-3 custom questions specific to your school — things like "current year level," "intended start date," "boarding or day." Don't overload it; families bounce on long forms.
- Notification destinations. Account → Notifications. Verify the email address for "New inquiry" notifications is the right inbox. Default goes to the admin account that accepted the invitation — often that's the head's email, which they don't check for inquiries. Route it to the admissions lead instead.
- Reply-from address. When you reply to a family from the dashboard, the email goes out from your school's contact address. Confirm this is set correctly in Profile. A wrong reply-from address is easy to miss and quietly breaks every reply you send.
A note on the inquiry inbox: every reply you send and every reply the family sends back syncs into a single thread. You don't need to copy/paste between dashboard and Gmail. More on this in Family CRM basics.
Day 4 — Booking calendar + first tour slot (45 min)
If you offer tours, open your booking calendar early — otherwise families asking about visits get an awkward "we'll get back to you" instead of picking a slot there and then.
Minimum setup:
- Meeting type and duration. Bookings → Settings. Pick a default meeting type (in person, video or phone) and a visit length — 60 minutes suits most campus tours.
- Weekly availability. Block out the slots when tours are possible. Most schools do Tuesday & Thursday afternoons + Saturday morning. Don't open every weekday — scarcity helps families prioritize.
- Reminder email. Off by default — turn on Bookings → Settings → Send automatic reminder email. The system then emails each family the morning before their visit. A booking made weeks ago is a soft commitment; the reminder is what turns it into an attendance.
Don't worry about virtual visits or info sessions yet — add those in month 2 once the live tour flow is humming.
Day 5 — Review (30 min)
Your page has been findable all along. This is the pass that makes it worth finding:
- Walk your public profile. Open your dashboard in an incognito window and visit your school's page as a visitor would. Read the description. Click the inquiry button. Send a test inquiry to yourself. Does it land in the dashboard? Did the auto-reply email arrive?
- Test a tour booking. Same window — book yourself a tour. Did the confirmation email arrive? Does the booking show in your dashboard?
- Verify billing. Settings → Billing. Confirm your billing mode is what you expected (card or invoice/PO). If you're on invoice billing, you can add or edit your PO number right here in Settings → Billing — it appears on your next invoice. To change the billing-contact email or billing mode, contact us. Article: Billing and invoices.
- Work through the control checklist. A short, focused pass over what to correct, add and switch on now that the page is yours. Article: Taking control of your school page.
If everything passes, your page is doing its job. Inquiry volume follows the season (peak is September-November and February-March).
After week 1 — what changes
The dashboard shifts modes from setup to operations. You stop spending time on the Settings tab and start spending time in the Inquiries and Bookings tabs. Daily rhythm becomes:
- Morning: triage new inquiries (target: under 4 hours response time)
- Mid-day: confirm tour bookings, reply to in-flight conversations
- End of week: review pipeline in the CRM, move stale entries
If your school is on Premium, this is also when you'll start using Admissions, Broadcasts, and Analytics — but none of those are urgent in week 1. Use them when the underlying inquiry/booking flow is steady.
Common week-1 mistakes
- Trying to fill the whole profile on day 1. Profile is a marathon. Get to "minimum viable" by day 2, then iterate. A 70% profile shipped on day 2 beats a 100% profile shipped in month 2.
- Routing notifications to a personal inbox. Inquiries are operational — they need to go to a shared inbox or a role-based address (admissions@yourschool.ch), not a personal one. Otherwise your team is dependent on one person being online.
- Skipping the test inquiry. "Inquiries aren't coming in" is almost always a routing problem you can catch in two minutes by sending one to yourself. Do it early.
- Writing news before anyone has asked for it. News broadcasts go only to families who asked for your news, and that list starts empty. It grows from the "Send me news" checkbox on your inquiry, visit and open-day forms and the Get news button on your page. Give it a few weeks before your first news broadcast.
Where to go next
After week 1, the article that delivers the most value next is usually Family CRM basics — pipeline management is where the dashboard pays off operationally.
If you're on Premium and intend to use admissions this year, The admission form builder is worth reading before September (admissions cycle for the following September starts in September-October).
If something doesn't make sense or breaks, email admin@swissprivate-schools.ch — we read every message and respond within 2 business days.