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School-level feature — managed within your school portal at yourschool.deandesk.com. For institution-wide branding defaults, see Institution settings.
Each school can have its own logo, color palette, and visual identity. Settings live under Admin Dashboard → School Configuration → Branding.

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Logo and favicon

Upload PNG or SVG files. SVG is recommended for crisp rendering at all sizes.

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Color palette

Set the colors that DeanDesk uses across the portal: In addition to color, you can control the size of the navigation links in the top bar. Set Top Bar Link Size to any value between 8 and 48 pixels. Larger sizes work well for schools with short menu labels; smaller sizes are best when you have many nav items or nested dropdowns.

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Top bar navigation

The top bar links shown to public visitors and signed-in users are configured under Branding → Top Bar Navigation. Each item has: Dropdowns can be nested up to five levels deep, so you can build hierarchical menus like Programs → Summer Camps → Sports → Soccer.
Use nested dropdowns sparingly. Two or three levels is usually enough for a school’s public site — deeper menus can be hard for visitors to navigate.

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Login and signup branding

Your color palette automatically drives the look of your login and signup pages. The Auth Branding Pane is a decorative left-side panel on the login and signup screens that displays a gradient generated from your Primary and Header colors, along with your logo. You don’t need to upload anything separately — DeanDesk derives the gradient from your color palette every time you change it.
1

Set your colors

Go to Branding and update the Primary and Header colors.
2

Preview

Open your school’s /login page in another tab. The branding pane reflects the new colors immediately.
Use distinct Primary and Header colors to give the gradient visual interest. Two near-identical colors produce a flat-looking pane.

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Apply Now intent through login

When a visitor clicks Apply Now on your public site without being signed in, DeanDesk preserves their cycle/track choice and routes them through the login or signup screen. After authenticating, they land directly inside the application workspace they were trying to enter — they don’t have to re-pick the cycle. This is automatic; no configuration is required. See Admissions for details.

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Custom page theme

If your school uses the Pages module to build public landing pages, program pages, or staff pages, you can set a school-wide page theme that applies to every page. Go to Admin Dashboard → Pages → Page Theme to configure: Per-page typography (set inside the page editor) overrides the school-wide theme for that page only. See Pages for details.

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Custom domain

Schools can be served on a custom domain (e.g. enroll.yourschool.org) instead of the default yourschool.deandesk.com. Configure this under School Configuration → Custom Domain. DeanDesk validates the hostname format and checks DNS availability before activating the custom domain. Setup is guided end to end:
1

Enter your domain

Type the domain you want to use. DeanDesk validates the hostname format and checks that the domain is available.
2

Create the DNS records

School Configuration shows the exact DNS records to create at your DNS provider. Add them in your provider’s DNS settings.
3

Provision the domain

Click the provision button. DeanDesk verifies your DNS records and starts provisioning automatically. If the records haven’t propagated yet, use the re-check button to try again.
Custom domains require a CNAME or A record pointed at DeanDesk. DNS changes can take time to propagate — if verification fails right after you add the records, wait a few minutes and re-check.