SimpleGrader has few settings, and most of them belong to one of seven ideas. Each page below says what the idea is, how the app uses it, the rules it follows, and what happens when you change it. Read them in order if the school is new. Skip to the one you need if it is not.
Terms
The school year, cut into grading periods. Terms decide where assignments go, how term and final grades roll up, and when the dashboards call a day a school day.
Categories
How a classroom weighs its work. Default categories give every new classroom the school's starting split, and teachers adjust from there.
Grading scales
One table turns a percentage into a letter and a GPA. It shows up in the gradebook, on the student page, and on report cards and transcripts.
Sections
The periods a school runs. Sections give students a schedule, tell teachers which class is meeting now, and file attendance by period.
Collaboration
Every way a teacher reaches a family: shared comments, announcements, notifications, and the family dashboard on the web and the phone.
Terms and sections describe the calendar: when the year is in session, and when each class meets. Categories and grading scales describe the arithmetic: how work is weighed, and what a percentage is called. Collaboration and permissions describe who sees what. Billing describes what the school pays, which depends only on how many students it keeps active.
Set up in that order. Terms first, because classrooms and assignments attach to them. Then the grading settings, so the first grade entered is already right. Then sections, once the timetable is known. Invite teachers, tune the Teacher role if the defaults do not fit, and bring families in last, after there is something for them to see.