Getting started

Getting started

This guide follows the logical order of setting up a Cadencia account: first the data that rarely changes (your courses, your observation templates), then, every school year, creating the academic year and the students' schedules. Follow both parts in order the first time.

1. Before the school year

Two things are set up once (or updated occasionally): your courses and your observation templates. Both live under Configuration, reachable from the "Configuration" tile on the home screen.

Create your courses

A course (called "Curse" in some technical places, but always shown as "Cours"/"Course" in the app) is a subject you teach: Piano, Music theory, Ear training, etc. It is a deliberately simple piece of data — it is later attached to a school year.

1. Open Configuration → Courses

   First link in the Configuration menu.

2. Click the add button

   A small window opens with two fields: the course's name and an active checkbox.

3. Repeat for every subject you teach

   A teacher who gives both piano and music theory creates two separate courses: "Piano" and "Music theory".

Create your observation templates

During a lesson, the journal lets you jot down quick observations about the student (attitude, a difficulty encountered, a positive remark…). An observation template is a pre-written text, tied to a type (neutral, positive or negative), that you can pick in one click from the journal instead of typing it out every time.

1. Open Configuration → Observation templates

2. Click the add button

   Choose the type (Neutral, Positive or Negative) and write the default comment.

3. Build yourself a small library

   A few useful examples: "Lacks regularity in home practice" (negative), "Nice progress on rhythmic reading" (positive), "To revisit: left-hand fingering" (neutral).

2. Starting the school year

Every school year, three creations follow one another: the school year itself, attaching a course to that year, then the weekly schedules of each student on that course.

Step 1 — Create the school year

An academic year only carries three pieces of information: a label, a start date and an end date. It does not yet contain any course or student — that is deliberate, see the next step.

1. Open Configuration → Academic Years

2. Click the add button

   Fill in the label (for example "2026-2027"), the start date and the end date.

3. Save

   The same popup lets you edit an existing year by clicking its pencil icon in the list.

Step 2 — Create the course(s) of the year

This is where the course created above ("Piano") joins the school year ("2026-2027"): this pairing is called a course of the year. It — not the year alone — is what will carry the students' schedules next. A teacher who teaches both piano and music theory creates two "courses of the year" for the same year: one for Piano, one for Music theory.

1. Open Configuration → Courses of the Year

2. Click the add button

   A popup offers two dropdowns: the academic year (created in step 1) and the course (created in part 1). Pick both.

3. Repeat for each course of the year

   Same year, different course each time.

4. Open the row you just created

   Click the "2026-2027 — Piano" row in the list: this screen, specific to that course of that year, is where you create schedules (next step) and manage the concerts/auditions tied to this course.

Step 3 — Create the students' schedules

On a course-of-the-year screen, the Schedules card shows one tab per day of the week. Each schedule represents one recurring weekly slot for a student: a day, a time, optionally a level ("Degree") and an "exam" checkbox.

1. Select the day

   Click the tab for the weekday the student comes on (Monday, Tuesday…).

2. Click the add button on the Schedules card

3. Choose the student, or create one on the fly

   The dropdown lists existing students. If they don't exist yet, the add button next to the dropdown opens student creation directly, without leaving the window.

4. Fill in the day, the time, and optionally the level

   The weekday is pre-filled from the active tab. Time is picked in 10-minute steps. The Degree field and the exam checkbox are optional.

5. Save, then repeat for each student

   The same student can have several schedules on different days if they come more than once a week.

To go further on each of these screens, see Configuration and Class journal.