Navigating Conductly
Conductly is organized around a sidebar navigation that gives you quick access to every feature. This guide explains the layout, how to find things fast, and a few features that will save you time every day.
The Sidebar
The sidebar is your primary navigation tool. It's always visible on the left side of the screen and organizes Conductly's features into logical groups.
At the very top of the sidebar is the organization menu (your school's name), which holds Settings and Customize menu — the latter lets you reorder or hide sidebar items to match how you work. At the bottom is a Recent menu with the records you've viewed most recently.
Inbox
Your starting point — it's also where the app opens. The Inbox shows notifications and recent activity across your school. Think of it as your daily briefing — new form submissions, payment confirmations, and system alerts all show up here.
Families
Everything related to the people at your school.
| Section | What It Contains |
|---|---|
| Students | Your full student roster. Add, search, filter, and manage student profiles. |
| Guardians | Parents and guardians linked to students. Guardians are your billing contacts. |
| Groups | Organize students into custom groups for bulk operations, billing, or communication. |
Invoices
Your billing command center.
| Section | What It Contains |
|---|---|
| Active | Open and in-progress invoices. |
| History | Completed, paid, and voided invoices. |
| Payments | A log of all payments received, including payment method and status. |
| Purchases | Records of what students and families have bought. |
Schedule
The full calendar view of your school's lessons and events. Switch between month, week, day, and list views. Click any time slot to create a new event, or click an existing event to view or edit its details.
Teaching
Resources that power your lessons.
| Section | What It Contains |
|---|---|
| Instructors | Your teaching staff. View profiles, assigned courses, and schedules. |
| Locations | Buildings and rooms where lessons take place. |
| Catalog | Your courses and sessions — the core of what your school offers. |
| Earnings | Track and export instructor compensation for payroll. |
Marketing
Tools for growing your school.
| Section | What It Contains |
|---|---|
| Forms | Custom forms for lead capture, registration, auditions, and more. Embed them on your website or share direct links. |
| Store | Your online storefront where families can browse and purchase classes. |
Reports
Analytics and insights about your school's performance. Build reports from ready-made templates covering enrollment, revenue, and operations, and collect saved reports into dashboards.
Settings
Settings isn't a sidebar item — open it from the organization menu at the top of the sidebar. It's where you configure every aspect of how Conductly works for your school. See the Setup Guide for a walkthrough of each settings section.
Footer Pills
Two pills sit in the app footer:
- Setup — opens the Getting Started onboarding checklist.
- Ask Conductly — an AI assistant that can answer questions about your school's data (visible to owners and admins only).
News and Announcements
Next to the user menu at the top of the page is the News launcher — a megaphone icon with an unread dot when there's an announcement you haven't seen. Click it to open the News panel, a feed of product announcements from the Conductly team. Opening the panel marks the announcements as read.
The News launcher only appears once announcements have been published, so you may not see it right away.
For the full release history, visit the Changelog — the public page at /changelog on your Conductly domain, which anyone can read.
Search
Conductly includes a global search that lets you quickly find people (students, guardians, and instructors), locations, courses, and sessions from anywhere in the app. Invoices aren't searchable — find them from the Invoices pages or from the customer's detail page.
How to Use Search
- Click the search bar at the top of the page, or use the keyboard shortcut (see below).
- Start typing a name.
- Results appear instantly, grouped by category.
- Click a result to jump directly to that record.
Search is the fastest way to navigate Conductly once you have a lot of data. Instead of browsing through lists, just search for the person or course you need.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Conductly supports keyboard shortcuts to help you move through the app quickly. These work from anywhere in the application.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
/ or Cmd+K / Ctrl+K | Open global search |
Esc | Close modals, drawers, and popovers |
Some list pages add their own shortcuts — for example, on the Students page, C opens the add-student drawer and S focuses the list search. Look for shortcut hints in tooltips and menus throughout the app.
The Notification Inbox
The Inbox (the first item in the sidebar) is where Conductly surfaces important activity so nothing slips through the cracks.
What Appears in the Inbox
- New form submissions — When someone fills out a lead capture or registration form.
- Payment notifications — When a payment is received or fails.
- System alerts — Important updates about your account or configuration.
Managing Notifications
- Click a notification to view its details or navigate to the related record.
- Mark notifications as read or unread, archive them (there are Inbox and Archive tabs), or delete them.
- Configure which notifications you receive under Settings > Notifications.
Light Mode and Dark Mode
Conductly supports both light and dark display modes to match your preference and reduce eye strain.
Switching Modes
- Go to Settings > User Profile and find the Appearance setting.
- Choose Light, Dark, or System (which follows your operating system's setting).
Dark mode applies across the entire application, including the calendar, invoices, and all data tables. Your preference is saved to your account and persists across sessions and devices.
Page Layout Patterns
As you use Conductly, you'll notice consistent page patterns that make the interface predictable and easy to learn:
List Pages
Pages like Students, Guardians, and Invoices show a grouped list (not a spreadsheet-style column table) with:
- Search and filter controls — narrow down by status, instrument, instructor, and more.
- Sort options — pick the sort field from the display menu (e.g., Last updated, Name, Age, Status) rather than clicking column headers.
- Grouping options — many lists let you group rows by a field (e.g., students by status, instructor, or instrument).
- Bulk actions — select multiple rows, then use the three-dot menu in the list header to act on the selection (update status, export, delete, and more).
The Students page can also switch to a Board view — a status-pipeline board — from the Display menu. See Managing Students.
Detail Pages
Click into any record (student, invoice, instructor, etc.) to see its detail page, which typically includes:
- Breadcrumbs at the top for easy navigation back to the list.
- A header section with the record's key information and action buttons.
- Tabs or sections organizing related data (e.g., a student's schedule, invoices, and enrollment history).
- Inline editing — Click on many fields to edit them directly without opening a separate form.
Drawers and Modals
Some actions open in a drawer (a panel that slides in from the side) or a modal (a centered dialog). These keep you in context while you complete a task, like creating a quick invoice or adding a note.
Tips for Getting Around
- Use search first. It's almost always faster than navigating through menus.
- Customize your sidebar. Use Customize menu in the organization menu to reorder or hide items you rarely use.
- Breadcrumbs are your friend. They always show where you are and let you jump back to parent pages.
- Bookmark your most-used pages. If you spend most of your time on the Schedule or Invoices page, bookmark them in your browser for one-click access.
- Try dark mode. If you spend long hours in Conductly, dark mode can be easier on your eyes.