Find your way around — the sidebar and top bar

ADAdmin has a top bar across every page and a sidebar down the left. The sidebar only lists pages you're allowed to use, and some only appear when a feature is switched on for your school. If an item you expect isn't there, see Why an item might be missing.

The top bar

From left to right:

• Menu button (phones and narrow windows only) — opens the sidebar as a slide-in menu.
• Realsmart logo — takes you home: admins to the Dashboard, a mentor who may reset passwords to Reset passwords, and everyone else to My profile.
• School switcher — shows the school you're working in (or All schools in MAT overview). With one school it's just a label; with more it's a drop-down, with a search box once you can reach six or more. The first option is MAT overview — all schools. A small red dot on it means the school you're in has unresolved sync errors. See Switch school context.
• Search bar (centre; windows 768 pixels wide or more; not for learners) — finds users, groups, pages and help guides, and asks the assistant. ⌘K / Ctrl K jumps to it. See Using global search.
• Notification bell (admins) — the short list of things needing attention. See Notifications.
• Apps launcher — the panel of Launchpad apps (including Beacon where it's on).
• Appearance menu (a sun, moon or half-circle icon; windows 640 pixels wide or more) — Light, Dark or System, and your Colour theme.
• Help (? icon; not for learners; 640 pixels or more) — Browse help or Ask the assistant. See Using Help.
• Your avatar and username — My profile and Sign out.

A small bug icon near the bottom-right corner of every page is Report a bug, and for admins Switch back to version 1. See The new admin area, reporting a bug, and switching between v1 and v2.

The sidebar

On a computer, the chevron at the top of the sidebar collapses it to a narrow strip of icons and back; it stays that way for the rest of your browser session. On a phone, the menu button opens it. Items with a small arrow open into a sub-menu — select the heading to expand it.

Items sit under headings: Users & Groups, Admin, Data, Platforms, Engagement — plus Platform (Realsmart's own staff only), with the top items (such as Dashboard) and the bottom ones (Help, My cohorts, My profile) unlabelled. A heading only appears if you can see at least one item under it.

What a full admin sees in a school

School settings has a few more tabs on the page itself than the sidebar lists (such as Launchpad and Sync services). Entra, Active Directory, Apple and Google each have their own group once that platform is on, with Status, Settings and related pages inside it.

What you see in MAT overview

In MAT overview the sidebar lists the cross-school tools instead: Dashboard, End of year, Users & Groups (Find a user, User log trace, Merge users, Merge history, Creation history, Groups, Admin permissions), Platforms (Sync status and its pages, Sync preview, Match cloud accounts, Sync settings, Subjects, App defaults, and AD, Entra, Apple, Google and Calendar settings, Recent activity), Admin (Audit trail, 2FA defaults), Data (MIS preview, and API if any school in the trust has it) and Help. See Understanding MAT and school context.

What other roles see

• Mentors — Reset passwords (only if the school lets them, or they're on its allow list), Cover access (only where it's available to them), Add parent notice (only where Smart Parents is on), Help, My cohorts and My profile.
• Learners — My cohorts and My profile. No search and no Help.
• Observers, governors and Ofsted — Help and My profile.

Why an item might be missing

• Your role doesn't include it. Admin pages never appear for other roles. See Roles and permissions.
• Your admin access has been reduced. Each page needs a particular switch on your Access tab (for example View logs & audit trail for Logs, Recent activity and Audit trail, or Change sync, platform & API settings for Sync under School settings). A reduced admin keeps day-to-day user and group tools and sync status. Ask an admin who can manage others' access. See Reduced admin access.
• The feature is off for your school. Active Directory, Entra sync, Apple sync and Google Workspace only appear once that platform is switched on; Classroom parents needs parent import on; API needs the school to be registered for it.
• You're in the wrong context. Per-school pages (such as Users) aren't in MAT overview, and cross-school ones (such as Find a user) aren't in a school. Use the school switcher.
• It's Realsmart-only. The Platform group and Advanced data are only for Realsmart's own staff.

Every page is also checked when it opens, so typing an address you can't use gives a You don't have access to this page (Your account doesn't have permission for this page. If you think it should, your school administrator can sort that out for you.) rather than the page itself. A link to a school you can't switch into says You don't have access to this school and leaves you in the school you were working in.

Where each area is explained

• Users, Merge users, Rename user, Move users: Create a user, Edit a user, Merge duplicate user accounts, Rename a user, Move users between schools; Holiday pauses: Holiday pauses; Reset passwords: Reset passwords.
• Groups: Create a group, Add a user to a group.
• Sync status, Logs, Recent activity: Sync status and logs, Recent activity; the Audit trail: Admin audit trail.
• Apps: Add and manage your school's own apps.
• Import and Export: Import users and cohorts, Export data.
• School settings: School details, Password settings.
• Smart Parents: Smart Parents settings; Cover access: Cover access.
• MAT overview pages: MAT overview dashboard.

Related

• Using global search
• Using Help
• Roles and permissions
• Understanding MAT and school context