Setting Up Your Studio — Overview
When you first log in to Octavia, the setup guide walks you through the essential steps to get your studio ready for real use. Most steps complete automatically as you fill in the relevant information. This article expla
The Setup Guide
The setup guide is a panel inside the app that tracks your studio's readiness. You can open it any time from the sidebar — it stays accessible even after you've completed all steps, so it's useful as a quick navigation shortcut too.
The sidebar shows your progress as a count (for example, 3/7 complete), so you can see at a glance how far along you are. Steps that are auto-detected update immediately as you make changes — you don't need to return to the guide to mark anything done.
The Setup Steps
| Step | How It Completes | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Add your school details | Auto — once your school profile has the required fields | School Details and Branding |
| Upload your logo | Auto once uploaded, or skip for now | School Details and Branding |
| Configure your billing settings | Auto — once billing settings are filled in | Configuring Your Billing Settings |
| Set up lesson pricing | Auto — once lesson types with pricing exist | Setting Up Lesson Pricing |
| Review your attendance settings | Manual — you confirm once you've reviewed them | Reviewing Your Attendance Settings |
| Add your first student | Auto — once at least one student exists | Adding Your First Student |
| Connect Stripe | Auto once connected, or skip for now | Connecting Stripe for Online Payments |
What "Auto-Complete" Means
Most steps complete automatically as soon as the relevant data is in the system. For example, the billing settings step marks itself done as soon as your billing settings are filled in — you don't need to explicitly tell the guide you're done. If you remove or clear that data later, the step will go back to incomplete. The guide always reflects the real state of your studio.
The Attendance Settings Step
Attendance settings require a manual confirmation. This is because the system can't automatically verify that you've reviewed your attendance statuses and are happy with how they're configured — it can only know that settings exist, not that they're correct for your studio. Once you've reviewed them and clicked to confirm, the step is marked done. You can undo this if you want to revisit later.
Octavia creates a default set of attendance statuses when your school is set up — statuses that are commonly used in music studios. You are not required to keep these. You can review, edit, rename, or remove them, and add your own. In particular, it's worth reviewing the settings around whether absences entitle students to makeup lessons, and what reasons you use to categorise why a lesson was missed. These defaults are a starting point, not a prescription. See Reviewing Your Attendance Settings for a full walkthrough of what to check.
Skippable Steps
Two steps can be skipped for now: uploading your logo and connecting Stripe. Neither is required to start using the core features of the app. You can return to either at any time, and the guide will mark them complete automatically once done.
Suggested Order
If you're setting up from scratch, this order tends to work well:
- School details and branding
- Billing settings
- Lesson pricing
- Attendance settings review
- Add your first student
- Connect Stripe (when you're ready to accept online payments)