Welcome to your Mana journey! As leaders in your organisation, you play a key role in bringing Mana to life at your centre. Setting things up properly now means less admin later, smoother workflows for your team and more time to focus on what matters most: supporting children’s learning and growth.

This guide will walk you through everything you need to get your centre Mana-ready.

To get the best out of training, we recommend you complete all actions in this guide before your centre’s training session.

To start, let’s bookmark the Mana help centre, your one-stop shop for all of your ongoing Mana support needs: https://help.makemana.com/en/

You will see these icons used throughout the guide:

✅ Green tick: key action to complete

📖 Book: read more for further support

💡 Light bulb: tips & tricks

⚠️ Exclamation point: take note

Set up your centre account and billing

Setting up your centre account and billing details is quick and easy. It helps us tailor the platform to your team, makes sure the right people have access, and keeps your subscription running smoothly without interruptions.

✅ Create your centre's account in Mana

Log into your Mana account and select your Profile Icon > 'Add new team
Enter your Centre's name and select 'Proceed to Payment'

✅ Add your billing information to Mana

After creating the account, you will be prompted to enter card details for billing. Add and confirm your payment method and any promotional codes provided to you by the Mana team to proceed.

Update your policies and communicate your Mana rollout

✅ Create or update your AI policy

Using Mana involves the usage of AI. As part of your activation process, you will need to examine your policies and create an AI policy or update your existing AI policy.

📖 Read more: View our sample AI policy to get started

📖 Read more: View Mana's privacy policy for more information

✅ Communicate with your teams about the Mana rollout

📖 Read more: Common FAQs about Mana

Communications templates for centres selected to pilot Mana

Communications templates for centres prior to rolling out Mana (coming soon!)

Obtain parent consent

At the heart of our approach is the belief that children learn best when teachers and families work together. Parent consent honours that partnership, protects privacy, and gives confidence in how Mana is used, enabling your centre to activate Mana fully and set every child up for success.

✅ Communicate the Mana rollout with your families and obtain parent and guardian consent

📖 If you are rolling out Mana Teachers only, check out our sample letter and consent form here: A letter to families and consent form (Mana Teachers)

📖 If you are rolling out Mana Teachers and Mana Families, check out our sample letter and consent form here: A letter to families and consent form (Mana Teachers & Mana Families)

Set up your team and children in Mana

Use the bulk upload option to add all children and educators to your account quickly and accurately. This saves significant time, ensures no one is missed and prepares your centre for immediate use of Mana.

⚠️ We recommend that this step is done by head office (or equivalent) for consistency and to save Centre Managers time. However, this can be delegated to centres if required.

✅ Add all of your children to Mana via a bulk upload

📖 Read more: How to bulk upload children into your centre

This includes a bulk upload csv template

✅ Add all of your educators/teachers to Mana

📖 Read more: Manage your team members in Mana

✅ Confirm your educators have accepted their invites to join Mana

📖 Read more: Manage team members

✅ Set up your centre’s rooms in Mana and assign children to rooms

📖 Read more: How do I create a room/group and add children?

✅ Set up your centre’s stages for journeys (note: 'journeys' in Mana signifies your cycle of planning, or individual learning plans)

📖 Read more: What are stages in a journey?

✅ Decide whether to assign children to educators, or ask educators to mark their key children themselves

💡If you decide to assign children to educators, you need to enable key educator management in Mana.

📖 Read more: Add children and mark key children

⚠️ Note: if you enable this, educators will not be able to assign children to themselves, this will need to be done by management. If you decide that educators should assign children to themselves, they will be guided on how to do this in their activation material.

Personalise your centre

✅ Finally, commence personalising Mana to your centre

This is where the magic starts to take place! Personalising Mana to your centre makes the platform more meaningful and effective. Every centre has its own routines, culture, and priorities: when Mana reflects that, educators see information that feels relevant, families feel more connected, and the Mana supports your way of working.

📖 Read more: Configure team settings