Create a Student
You can create a student record manually from the Students list. Creating a student establishes the core identity record — personal details, contact information, and academic context — that all other modules reference. After saving, you are taken directly to the student's edit screen where you can add guardians, identifiers, documents, and addresses.
Before You Begin
To create a student manually you need the student.create or student.manage
permission. Your organisation's plan must also have the Students feature enabled and must not
have reached its student limit — the current usage is shown in the banner at the top of the Students list.
If programs, intakes, or curricula have not yet been configured in the Academic module, those fields will be unavailable on the create form. You can still create a student without an academic context and assign one later by editing the profile.
Create a Student
- Go to Students in the main navigation.
- Click New Student.
- Enter the student's First Name and Last Name. These are the only required fields.
- Optionally fill in any additional personal information fields (see Personal Information Fields below).
- Select a Program, Intake, and Curriculum if the student's academic context is known (see Academic Context below).
- Set the student's initial Status. Choose Draft if the record still needs to be reviewed before activation, or Active if the student should be enrolled immediately.
- Optionally enter a Status Reason to record why this status was selected.
- Review the Student Number field. If automatic numbering is active, the number is pre-filled and locked. If manual numbering is in use, enter a unique number or leave it blank to assign one later.
- Click Create Student.
After saving, you are redirected to the student's edit screen. From there you can add guardians, upload identity documents, record external identifiers, and enter address details.
Note: If you select a curriculum that does not belong to the selected program, the form will show a validation error and the student will not be saved. Always select a curriculum that matches the chosen program.
Personal Information Fields
The following fields are available on the create and edit forms. Fields marked as required must be present to save the record.
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Title | No | Accepted values: Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, Dr, Rev, Prof, Other. |
| First Name | Yes | The student's legal given name. |
| Middle Name | No | |
| Last Name | Yes | The student's legal family name. |
| Preferred Name | No | The name the student prefers to be addressed by. Displayed alongside the legal name on the profile. |
| Date of Birth | No | Must be a valid date in the format YYYY-MM-DD. |
| Gender | No | Free-text field to accommodate a range of gender identities. |
| Nationality | No | Selected from the standard ISO 3166-1 country list. Sets the student's nationality code automatically. |
| Residency Status | No | Local or International. See Residency Status for details. |
| Primary Email | No | Must be a valid email address. Must be unique across all students if entered. |
| Primary Phone | No | Must be unique across all students if entered. The international dialling prefix is selected separately. |
| Status | Yes | The student's current lifecycle status. See Student Statuses. |
| Status Reason | No | Free-text note explaining the current status. Stored in the audit trail. |
Academic Context
The academic context links a student to the specific program they are studying, the intake they were admitted under, and the version of the curriculum they are following. These three fields work together and have the following rules:
- A Program can be set without an intake or curriculum.
- An Intake can be set independently of a curriculum.
- A Curriculum must belong to the selected program. If the curriculum does not match the program, the form will reject the save.
- All three fields are optional at the point of creation. They can be completed later while the student remains in Draft status.
Important: Once a student moves out of Draft status, the Intake and Curriculum fields are locked and cannot be changed. Confirm these values before activating the student.
The form remembers the last program, intake, and curriculum you selected and pre-fills those values the next time you create a student. This saves time when registering multiple students for the same intake.
Student Number
The student number field behaves differently depending on whether automatic numbering is configured:
- Automatic numbering active
- The field is pre-filled with the next number in the sequence and is read-only. The number shown is a preview — it is only reserved when you click Create Student. The sequence is scoped to the calendar year and resets at the start of each new year.
- Manual numbering
- The field is editable. You may enter any alphanumeric value up to 255 characters. If you leave the field blank, the student is created without a number. A student number can be assigned later by editing the profile, but only while the student is in Draft status.
Note: When automatic numbering is active and you change the program or intake selection, the system recalculates the number preview in real time to reflect the new context — useful when your numbering pattern includes a program or intake code segment.
Unique Field Rules
The following fields must be unique across all student records in your organisation. Attempting to save a student with a duplicate value in any of these fields will produce a validation error:
- Student Number — must be unique if provided.
- Primary Email — must be unique if provided.
- Primary Phone — must be unique if provided.
Pro Tip: If you receive a duplicate field error when creating a student, use the search bar on the Students list to look up the existing record by email or phone before creating a new one. The student may already exist in the system under a different name or status.
Next: Student Profile