Creating a Practiceathon
Practiceathons are created through a guided setup wizard that walks you through each key decision in order — name, dates, practice tracking rules, parent confirmation, students and leaderboard, fundraising, and the publi
The Setup Wizard
When you create a new Practiceathon, a step-by-step wizard opens. Each step covers one area of configuration. You don't have to get every detail perfect the first time — the wizard is designed to get you to a saved draft quickly, and you can adjust settings from the Practiceathon detail page afterwards.
Step 1: Name and Dates
Give your Practiceathon a clear name. This is the name families will see on the public page and on all related communications, so keep it descriptive and school-appropriate — for example, "Spring Practice Challenge 2025" or "Annual Musicathon".
Set the start date and end date for the campaign. These define the window during which students can log Practiceathon practice. Practice logging is only available within this date range — it opens on the start date and closes at the end of the end date.
Write a description for the campaign. This text appears on the public campaign page and on individual student pages, so write it for an outside audience — think families, grandparents, and community members who may not know much about your school. Explain what the campaign is for, how students participate, and (if fundraising is enabled) how supporters can get involved.
All campaign dates use your school's timezone.
Step 2: Practice Goal
Daily practice cap — this is the maximum number of minutes that can count toward the campaign per student per day. The default and recommended cap is 120 minutes per day. A cap prevents any single unusually long session from dominating the totals and keeps the competition fairer.
Allow manual time entry — when off (the default and recommended setting), students can only contribute Practiceathon minutes by using the built-in practice timer in the Hub. When on, students can also manually enter a number of minutes without timing the session. Manual entry is lower-friction but also lower-trust, making it less suitable for fundraising events, leaderboards, or situations where you want consistent, timer-based data.
Let students set a personal goal — when on (recommended), each student can set their own target for the campaign. This gives students a sense of ownership and a personal benchmark to work toward, separate from the school-wide competition.
Step 3: Practice Confirmation
Require parent confirmation — when on (recommended), each practice session a student logs must be confirmed by a parent or guardian before the minutes count toward the student's approved total and appear in leaderboards, public totals, and fundraising calculations. When off, sessions count immediately without any verification step.
When confirmation is required, parents receive a notification in the Hub prompting them to review and approve their child's logged session. They can approve or reject it. Only approved sessions count toward the student's totals.
Step 4: Students and Leaderboard
Make this a school-wide Practiceathon — when on (recommended for fundraising and public campaigns), all teachers in your school can add their students to the campaign, and the event is positioned as a shared whole-school campaign. When off, only the teacher who created the Practiceathon can add students, making it a smaller teacher-run event.
Show leaderboard — when on (recommended for school-wide events), students can see a ranked leaderboard of their progress against other participants during the campaign. This is visible on the public page and in the Hub. Turn it off for younger students, calmer habit-building campaigns, or situations where you want the focus to stay on personal progress rather than comparison.
Step 5: Fundraising
Enable fundraising — when off (the default), the Practiceathon is a practice challenge only. When on, supporters can donate or pledge support from students' individual public pages, and you get access to the fundraising dashboard and pledge collection tools.
If fundraising is enabled, two additional settings appear:
Fundraising goal — an optional total dollar amount that appears on the public campaign page as the school's target. A visible goal helps motivate supporters and gives context for why donations matter. Leave it blank if you prefer a softer approach or aren't sure of a realistic target.
Accept donations until — the date after which the donation and pledge payment window closes. This can (and should) be set a few weeks after the practice campaign end date to give time for pledge collection emails to go out and supporters to settle their pledges. A gap of two to four weeks after the end date is recommended.
Step 6: Public Page
Public page link (slug) — this becomes part of the URL for your campaign page, for example octavia.studio/yourschool/practiceathon/spring-challenge-2025. Choose a short, readable slug based on the campaign name. The slug is set here and can be adjusted later if the campaign hasn't been publicly shared yet.
Publish public page — leave this off until setup is complete. When you're ready for families and supporters to access the campaign page, turn this on. The page is not accessible to the public while it's unpublished.
Campaign banner — an optional image that appears at the top of the public page and student pages. A simple, welcoming image goes a long way toward making the page feel complete. You can add or update the banner from the settings page at any time. Supported formats are PNG, JPEG, and WebP.
Step 7: Review
The final step shows a summary of all your choices across every step. Review it before saving. If anything looks wrong, you can go back and correct it.
After saving, the Practiceathon is created as a draft. The next steps are to add students and, when everything is ready, publish the public page.
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