How to create an exam and enter marks

An exam in the system has three parts: the exam itself (a name and dates), which classes are sitting it, and how each subject is marked. Most of that third part is already handled if you've set up Subject Defaults — this exam-setup screen is only for the classes or subjects that need something different from your school-wide default.

Budget most of the twenty minutes here on the first exam of the year — a Half-Yearly or Annual you duplicate later takes a fraction of the time.

Before you start

Your classes, subjects, and the students in them need to exist already — this screen assigns and configures, it doesn't create any of those. If you haven't set your school-wide marking scheme in Subject Defaults yet, do that first; every exam you create afterwards starts from it automatically.

Step 1 — Create the exam

Go to Exams and click New Exam. Fill in:

• Exam Name — required, at least 2 characters. "Unit Test 1", "Half Yearly", "Annual Exam" — whatever your school actually calls it.
• Description — optional.
• Start Date / End Date — optional.

Save. The exam is created as a Draft — nothing is visible to parents or students yet, and nothing about it can be seen outside the admin screens until you publish it in Step 5.

Step 2 — Assign classes

Click Setup next to the exam you just created. On the left, tick every class sitting this exam, then click Assign N class(es).

This step matters beyond bookkeeping: only students in an assigned class will have a row to enter marks against in Step 4.

Step 3 — Set marking overrides (only where needed)

On the right, Subject Configuration shows any class-specific overrides already set for this exam — empty at first, with a note that tenant defaults are being used. You only need to touch this if something about this particular exam differs from your Subject Defaults — a unit test that's out of 20 instead of 100, say.

Click Add Class Override. You have two ways to set marks:

One subject in one class — pick a Class, then a Subject (only subjects actually assigned to that class will appear), then Total Marks and Pass Marks.

The same marks across many subjects at once — tick Apply this configuration to all subjects (bulk override). This is for cases like a unit test where every subject shares the same total, e.g. 20 marks each. Optionally tick specific classes; leave none ticked to apply it to every class already assigned to this exam.

Either way, set Components — how the total splits, e.g. theory: 70, practical: 20, ia: 10. Add or remove component rows freely; component values must add up to 100 or less. Save with Save Override (single) or Apply Configuration (bulk).

Two validation rules worth knowing before you hit save: pass marks can't exceed total marks, and component weightages can't sum past 100 — both are rejected with an on-screen message rather than silently accepted.

Step 4 — Teachers enter marks

Teachers (or admins) go to Marks Entry and pick Exam, Class, then Subject — the subject list only appears once a class is chosen. What a teacher sees here depends on their Teacher Assignments: a teacher only sees classes and subjects they're actually assigned to, unless they're a class teacher and your school has turned on class teachers entering marks for every subject in their class.

Once all three are picked, every student in that class appears in one table, sorted by roll number, with one input box per component (matching whatever you configured in Step 3 — theory/practical/internal, or a single box if there's no split). A running Total column updates as you type.

Three ways to fill it in fast, beyond typing cell by cell:

• Tab and Enter move between boxes without touching the mouse.
• Paste directly from Excel — copy a two-column roll number/marks range and paste into the table; it matches by roll number or name automatically.
• Download Template, fill it in a spreadsheet, and Import CSV — the file needs a roll_number column and a column with "marks" or "score" in its name.

Mark a student Absent with the checkbox in that row — this excludes them from the marks columns (they show "AB") without needing a zero entered. Trying to enter a mark higher than a component's maximum is rejected immediately with the limit shown.

Click Save Entered — it saves only the students who actually have something entered or are marked absent, so you can save partway through and come back later without affecting anyone else's row. Award List downloads an Excel sheet (roll number, name, father's name, marks, grade) for the class/subject you're viewing, useful for notice-board printing.

Step 5 — Publish the exam

Once every subject for every assigned class has marks entered, go back to Exams (or the exam's Setup page) and click Publish — the setup page's button is labelled Publish Results. This is what makes results visible to parents and in Marks Overview.

If you find a mistake after publishing, Unpublish and fix it — this doesn't erase any marks, it only hides the exam from parents again until you republish.

What to do next

Once results are in, Marks Overview gives you the class-wide picture — totals, percentages, and pass/fail calculated automatically from your grading scale, with an export to Excel. If this is a recurring exam type (a monthly unit test, say), use Duplicate on the Exams list next time rather than repeating this whole setup — it copies the class assignments and subject configuration, leaving only the dates and marks to redo.

Common problems

A teacher can't see a class or subject in Marks Entry. Check Teacher Assignments — they only see what they're assigned to, not everything in the school.

Subject doesn't show up when setting an override. The subject isn't assigned to that class yet — fix that from Subjects first.

"Pass marks cannot be greater than total marks." Exactly what it says — lower the pass marks or raise the total in Step 3.

A student is missing from the marks table entirely. They're not in the class you assigned to the exam in Step 2, or not in that class in Students at all — check there first.