> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zionapp.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> Answers to common questions about parent and student access, meetings, billing, data import and export, and roles in Zion

Answers to questions that come up most often from administrators, teaching staff, and parents. For step-by-step instructions, follow the links to the relevant feature page.

## Getting started

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How does a school sign up?">
    Sign up on the Zion site and add a card. Nothing is charged, and you get the complete product free for 30 days. Zion then walks you through a short setup wizard that creates your school, its first learning centre, and your academic term. You do not need to wait on the Zion team to open an account for you. See [Getting started](/features/onboarding/getting-started) and [Billing](/features/billing/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can we use our own school logo?">
    Yes. An administrator uploads it in Settings, under School, and Zion uses it across the app in place of the default mark. See [School settings](/features/school-settings/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="We are starting mid-year. Can we record work students already finished?">
    Yes. Grading has a Prior PACE path for exactly this, so a student who joins partway through the year arrives with their completed PACEs already on record and their reports read correctly from the start. You can record these one at a time or in bulk. See [Score entry](/features/grading/score-entry).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Parent and student portals

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Is the parent portal available now?">
    Yes. The parent portal is a read-mostly area where a parent sees a per-child view of progress, attendance, homework, behaviour, grades, and report cards, plus a way to book meetings with staff. See [Parent portal overview](/features/parent-portal/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is the student portal available now?">
    Yes. A signed-in student gets a read-mostly view of their own homework, goals, grades, progress, attendance, calendar, activities, and notifications. See [Student portal overview](/features/student-portal/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does a parent get access to a child's record?">
    Access comes from an accepted parent invitation linking the parent's account to a specific student, not from an email address matching a student record. A pending or rejected invitation grants no access. If a child is missing from a parent's dashboard, the school needs to check the invitation status.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can a student see another student's data?">
    No. Zion works out which student is looking from the account they signed in with, so a student only ever sees their own record.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does a family get invited in the first place?">
    A staff member sends the invitation by hand from the parent's record. Zion never links a family automatically. An invitation that has not been accepted yet can be revoked, and a parent who has already accepted can be detached from a student if the link was made in error. See [Parent portal overview](/features/parent-portal/overview).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Meetings

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Who can book and manage meetings?">
    A meeting is an in-person conversation between a parent and their child's supervisor or monitor. Parents, supervisors, monitors, and administrators all work with meetings. Teaching staff accounts other than the assigned supervisor or monitor, and student accounts, do not have access to this area. See [Meetings overview](/features/meetings/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What are the two ways a meeting gets booked?">
    A parent can claim an open slot that staff published in advance, which books immediately with no waiting on a response. Or a parent and staff member can negotiate a time back and forth as a request. See [Availability](/features/meetings/availability) and [Booking and requests](/features/meetings/booking-and-requests).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Billing

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Who processes payment for Zion subscriptions?">
    Zion bills schools through Polar, which acts as the merchant of record. Polar collects payment and remits tax in every market Zion sells into. Prices are quoted and charged in USD with no currency conversion applied at checkout. See [Billing overview](/features/billing/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What do the plans cost?">
    Starter is $199 a month for up to 50 students, Lite is $399 for up to 150, Standard is $799 for up to 400, and Enterprise is $4,000 for an unlimited roster. Paying yearly costs the same as ten months. Every new school starts on a 30-day free trial of the complete product. See [Billing overview](/features/billing/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Who manages billing inside Zion?">
    Administrators manage subscriptions from Settings, under the Billing tab. Supervisors and monitors see a read-only summary of the same status. Parents and students do not see billing screens, except for a notice if a school's subscription lapses.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Data import and export

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Can I bring in students and grades from the system we used before?">
    Yes. Go to Import, under Administration, which administrators can reach. It reads a spreadsheet, walks you through matching your columns to Zion's, shows you a preview of exactly what will change, and then applies the whole thing at once or not at all. It covers students, PACE progress, and grades. Attendance history is not something you can import, because attendance records from older systems are too inconsistent to bring across reliably. See [Importing data](/features/data/importing-data) and the [spreadsheet templates](/reference/csv-templates).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I bulk-add anything else from a spreadsheet?">
    Yes. Learning centres, staff invitations, library books, and PACE booklet stock each take a spreadsheet directly from their own screen, with a template you can download first. See [Spreadsheet templates](/reference/csv-templates).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What if my old data needs more help than the wizard can give?">
    See [Migration concierge](/features/data/migration-concierge) for what a guided migration covers.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do I get my school's data out of Zion?">
    Settings has a Data Export tab that builds a downloadable bundle of your school's records. Each request produces a spreadsheet per kind of record plus a PDF snapshot, and it prepares in the background so you can carry on working. Administrators and supervisors can request one. See [Exporting your school data](/features/data/exporting-data).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Behaviour

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What does behaviour tracking record?">
    Merit, demerit, and incident events logged against a category catalog that an administrator defines. Each event carries signed points, and Zion computes a running net balance and timeline per student. See [Behaviour overview](/features/behaviour/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Who can log and see behaviour events?">
    Administrators, supervisors, and monitors log and review these events. Parents see the same balance and timeline for their own linked children, with private staff notes removed from what they can read.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Homework

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What is a homework assignment in Zion?">
    A home-study assignment tied to a specific PACE page range, not a graded file upload. A supervisor or monitor assigns a page range from one of a student's active PACEs, the family marks it done at home, and the teacher confirms it was actually completed before it counts as verified. See [Homework overview](/features/homework/overview).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## The PACE catalog

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Which PACEs come with Zion?">
    Every school starts with the shared ICCE Africa catalog. It covers the core subjects numbered from 1001, Bible Reading, and the elective and Lifepac range. Elective and Lifepac courses carry a course code rather than a PACE number, so they sit outside the numbered progression. See [PACE catalog](/features/paces/catalog).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can we add our own subjects, or fix a booklet that does not match ours?">
    Yes. An administrator can add your school's own subjects and PACEs in Settings, under PACEs, and can correct a PACE's page count and level when the printed booklet differs from what Zion has.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Report cards

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What is a Progress Card, and how is it different from a report card?">
    A report card covers one term. The Supervisor's Progress Card covers the whole year on a single page, showing each PACE the student has worked through with completed ones colour-coded by the term they finished in. It downloads as a PDF and can be emailed to a parent. See [Progress cards](/features/progress-cards/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What goes into a report card?">
    A student's per-term data compiled into a single PDF: PACE grades, test scores, attendance, Goal Check completion, and parent-safe character notes. See [Report cards overview](/features/report-cards/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Who can generate and distribute report cards?">
    Administrators generate report cards for any centre and manage templates. Supervisors and monitors generate and distribute report cards for their assigned centre or centres. Parents view and download the ones published to them.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Roles

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What roles exist in Zion?">
    Administrator, supervisor, monitor, parent, and student. "Teaching staff" is the label Zion uses for administrators, supervisors, and monitors together, not a separate role in its own right. See [Roles and permissions](/reference/roles-permissions).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What's the difference between a supervisor and a monitor?">
    Both are scoped to their assigned learning centres and both work directly with students and parents day to day, covering meetings, Goal Check, attendance, grading, homework, behaviour, and report cards for their centres. Consult [Roles and permissions](/reference/roles-permissions) for the exact breakdown by feature.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can a supervisor or monitor be assigned to more than one learning centre?">
    Yes. Everything a supervisor or monitor sees is scoped to the learning centres an administrator has assigned them to, whether that is one centre or several.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Still have questions

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Contact support" icon="life-ring" href="/support">
    Get help from the Zion team.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Terminology reference" icon="book-open" href="/reference/terminology">
    Look up a specific term used across the app.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>