See Your School at a Glance: The Scholaris Home Screen Widget

Most of the questions a school owner asks in a day are small ones. Are the teachers in? How many students came today? How much did we collect this week? None of them need a full app session, but each one usually costs you a few taps: unlock the phone, open the app, find the right screen.

Parents have the same problem from the other side. "Was my child in school today?" and "Do I still owe anything?" are questions they ask on the bus, in a queue, or between meetings. They want the answer, not a tour.

The Scholaris home screen widget is built for exactly these moments. Put it on your home screen once, and the numbers you care about are there every time you pick up your phone.

What the widget shows

There is one widget, and it changes to suit whoever is signed in.

• School owners and admins see the number of students, a strip showing today's roll call of staff (on time, late or not in yet), and tiles for teachers and staff in.
• Teachers see their own students, a strip for today's shift (worked, late or still to come), and tiles for their subjects and their on-time record.
• Parents see their child's days present this month, a strip showing present, late and absent days, and tiles for the fee balance, the next fee due date and either a streak or the number of days absent.

It comes in two sizes. The small one carries the headline figure and the strip. The medium one adds the tiles. On iPhone there are also lock screen versions: a ring, a small rectangle under the clock and a one line version beside it, each showing the single figure that matters most for your role.

The parent widget: how many days their child has been in school this month, what is owed and whether anything is overdue.

For parents: two answers without opening anything

For a parent, the widget answers the two questions they ask most:

• Is my child attending? Days present, a strip for the month and the number of days absent. A run of three or more days in a row appears as a streak, which is a small, nice thing to see about your child.
• Do I owe anything? The balance, and a countdown to the next due date. The countdown only appears while something is actually owed. A settled account shows no deadline.

If a parent has more than one child at the school, the widget follows whichever child they last selected in the app.

This is also good for the school. Parents who can see their balance and due date every day are far less likely to be surprised by a reminder, and far less likely to phone the bursar to ask how much they owe.

For owners: the morning check

Owners tend to check the same few numbers, in the same order, several times a day. The widget puts them where your thumb already goes:

• How many students and teachers the school has
• Whether staff have clocked in, and how many are on time or late
• Where today's roll call stands

You do not need to open anything to know whether the school's day has started well. If the numbers look wrong, tap the widget and it takes you straight to your dashboard.

For teachers: your own day

Teachers see their own picture, not the school's. The strip shows where their shift is today, whether they are on time or late, and how many students and subjects they have. It is a quiet nudge to clock in, and a way to check your own record without asking the office.

When you do open the app: the Reports tab

A widget is for a glance. When you want the detail, the Reports tab in the app gives owners and admins the day on one screen:

• Staff, shown as staff on time out of staff expected
• Fees collected, compared with the day before
• Students, shown as present out of enrolled
• Attendance trend for the last seven school days, for staff or students
• Fee collection by class, with how many students have paid and how much has come in
• Action needed, a short list of what deserves your attention today, such as staff arriving late, a class with several absences, a class whose register has not been taken, or an overdue fee balance

Reports tab: the day's numbers, and a list of what needs you.

Switch between today, this week and a longer range to see how things are moving, not just where they stand right now. Teachers get the same screen scoped to their own classes.

How fresh are the numbers?

This is worth being straight about. The widget does not run in the background. It updates when you open Scholaris and a number has changed, and every widget says when it was last updated, in the footer.

So think of it as "the school as of the last time you looked", not a live scoreboard. For most checks that is exactly what you want. If you need the very latest, one tap opens the app, and the widget refreshes with it.

We kept it this way on purpose. A widget that does not refresh in the background also does not use battery or mobile data while you are not looking, and an honest timestamp seemed better than pretending to be live.

A few other details that matter:

• It speaks your language. The widget follows the language you chose inside Scholaris, including right to left Arabic, not just your phone's setting.
• It follows your phone's light or dark mode.
• It never shows a number it does not have. If the figures have not loaded yet, the widget says so instead of showing a confident zero. If you sign out, the widget is cleared straight away, so nobody picking up a shared phone sees your school's numbers.

How to add it

1. Update Scholaris to the latest version and sign in.
2. Press and hold an empty space on your home screen.
3. Add a widget (the plus button on iPhone, or Widgets on Android) and search for Scholaris.
4. Pick a size and place it where you will see it.

Open the app once after adding it, so the widget has your school's numbers to show.

Why this matters

Schools run on small decisions made quickly: calling a parent, following up on a late teacher, noticing that a class has not been marked. The faster the facts reach the person who can act on them, the more of those decisions get made. A number on your home screen is not a replacement for the app, but it does turn "I will check later" into "I already know".

Try it with your school

The widget comes with Scholaris, alongside attendance, results, fees, CBT and parent communication, at ₦450 per student per term, with no setup fee and no contract.

There is a 30-day free trial with every feature unlocked and no card required. Create your school's account, sign in on your phone and put the widget on your home screen today.

Want to know what Scholaris would cost for your school? Read our guide to school management software costs in Nigeria, or contact the Scholaris team.