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This guide covers institution-level setup at deandesk.com. See Institutions & Schools for how these levels relate.

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Video walkthrough

This walkthrough uses the real DeanDesk interface with the fictional Northstar Academy demo school and a calm, AI-generated English voice. Payments and outside services are not connected in the demo.
Screenshots use fictional Northstar demo data. Payment and integration screens illustrate the demo setup; no live transactions or connections are shown. The institution dashboard at deandesk.com/dashboard is where you configure the parts of DeanDesk that span all of your schools — your institution’s branding, public-facing landing page, schools, staff identities, and DeanDesk subscription.

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Open institution settings

From the institution dashboard, go to Settings → Institution. The page is organized into four cards: Profile, Portal Domain, Public portal navigation, and Branding. Click Save changes at the bottom of the page to save the Profile, Portal Domain, and Public portal navigation cards. The Branding card has its own Save branding button.

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Profile

The Profile card holds the core details used across your dashboards and communications.
Northstar demo: Institution

Northstar demo — Institution

Open full-size screenshot

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Branding

The Branding card on the institution settings page controls how your institution looks on deandesk.com and across its public pages. Click Save branding at the bottom of the card to publish branding changes. Save changes does not save branding. Branding edits don’t affect individual school portals — see School branding for those.

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Portal domain

The Portal Domain card provisions a public portal for your institution, where parents and students can see all of your schools and reach their portals. Staff continue to use deandesk.com/dashboard for institution management. Enter a Subdomain to publish the portal at yourname.deandesk.com. Use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, with at least 3 characters. DeanDesk checks availability as you type and shows an error if the subdomain is already taken. Leave the field blank if you don’t need a public portal. Click Save changes to provision the new address. Once saved, the card links to your live portal. If DNS provisioning fails, the save is blocked and your current domain stays in place. To use your own domain instead of a deandesk.com subdomain, contact DeanDesk support. The support team sets up custom domains for you.
After changing your domain, update published links and verify the new address. An old DNS record remaining in place is not a guarantee that the old address still resolves to your institution.

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Public portal navigation

The Public portal navigation card on the institution settings page controls which tabs and schools appear on your institution home page. All three toggles are on by default. Click Save changes to apply your navigation choices. Hiding the Membership or Donate tab also disables the corresponding public pages — visitors who open those URLs are redirected to your home page.

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Visible schools

When the Schools tab is on, a Visible schools panel lets you choose which schools appear publicly. Check or uncheck individual schools, or use Show all and Hide all.
Until you customize the list, all current and future schools are visible by default.

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Schools

Manage your schools from Platforms in the dashboard sidebar.

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Sales currency

When creating a school, choose its Sales Currency: USD - US Dollar (the default), CAD - Canadian Dollar, GBP - British Pound, or EUR - Euro. All of the school’s product prices use this currency. School cards and the platforms list display each school’s sales currency.
Sales currency is immutable after creation — the school edit page shows it disabled with an “Immutable” badge (“Set at school creation and cannot be changed”). Pick the right currency when you create the school.

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Subdomain provisioning

When you create a school, enter its DeanDesk web address, which is suffixed with .deandesk.com. DeanDesk validates the address (lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only) and checks that it’s available. DNS is provisioned automatically and the school is reachable at the new URL within minutes. After creation, the school edit page shows the Hostname as Immutable. To serve a school on your own domain, click Request custom domain under Custom Domain on the school edit page. The DeanDesk support team follows up with the DNS records to add at your domain provider.

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Admin Console quick-jump

Both the school cards on the institution dashboard home and each school’s detail page (/dashboard/platforms/[id]) include an Admin Console button that signs you straight into that school’s Admin Dashboard via SSO — no separate login required. See Institutions & Schools.

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Staff identities

Identities are institution-level accounts. Their roles determine staff management access, and they can link to accounts in your schools. Manage them in Identities. See Identities for managing identities, viewing AI insights, and using global search.

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DeanDesk subscription & billing

The Settings → Billing & Payments section covers your DeanDesk subscription — the plan you pay DeanDesk for the platform itself. The subscription status shown here reflects your live Stripe subscription in real time (for example Trialing, Active, Past due, or Canceled). Your subscription is billed once at the institution level and covers all of your schools. See DeanDesk subscription and billing for plan changes, payment methods, usage and overages, pause/resume, and scheduled cancellation. This is separate from Settings → Stripe, the account you connect to receive payments. Manage its transactions, subscriptions, catalog, and donations in Institution finance.