Program is Mana's group planning space. It's where you create your weekly, fortnightly, or term programs for a room or home group, and where your individual planning and group planning connect into one clear picture.
Your centre can enable Auto add and tailor group docs to Journey in Settings → Program. Eligible saved group documents can then be tailored automatically for relevant focus children. The separate Do not auto add plans to Journeys setting excludes Plans from this automatic process. Check Follow Ups → Focus children and review any child versions before creating a manual copy.
How Program connects to Journeys
Program and Journeys work together. Journeys holds each child's individual planning cycle, their goals, observations, and learning stories. Program pulls from those goals to support your group planning, and plans you create in Program can flow back into a child's individual journey.
Because of this connection, it's worth setting up children and their goals in Journeys before you start building programs. The more context Mana has, the more useful the AI planning features become.
Setting up your rooms
The first step in Program is creating your rooms (or home groups). Each room becomes the container for your group program. Once a room is set up, you add children to it so Mana knows who the program is for.
Creating a new program
Follow these steps to set up the Room’s layout and begin planning.
Step 1: Set up the Program Template
Before creating a Program, set up the Room’s Program Template if you want to choose its columns, optional rows and order. This setup is optional but recommended.
Open the Room, then select Profile.
Select Program Template.
Choose and reorder the Room’s Program columns and Program rows.
If the template is read-only for you, ask a manager or owner to make changes. Changes apply to new Programs only; Programs already set up won’t change.
Step 2: Create the Program
Open Program, select the room, then select New program. If the room's Open filter is empty, there is no program in that view to open.
Check the filter
New program
On Create a program, check the Focus room and choose the required Review date for your planning period. Goal is optional; you can leave it as No goals. Weekly, fortnightly, monthly and term programs can all be used.
Focus room
Review date
Goal (optional)
Review date is the Program’s review/planning date, not the date a story’s learning happened. Choose a date offered by the Program’s picker; it may coincide with the learning day. Use the story’s Observed date for when the learning happened.
To change an existing Program’s review date, open Set Date → Set review date.
Review Date: open Current Review Date to choose a day.
Calendar: select a day, then OK. Select Update Date in the Review Date dialog to save.
Dates shown are examples from the demo Program.
To see the children included in an existing Program, select the child avatars beside its title. The Children in this Program panel shows the Program’s children, which stay in that Program if they later move rooms.
Step 3: Arrange plans
When the new Program opens, notice plans that are not yet marked done from child Journeys appear in it. You can click and drag to shift these across cells as needed or show them across multiple cells using the options (three dots) icon where relevant.
Step 4
Start creating plans. There are two ways to add plans to your program:
Option 1. Create manually: inside the program board, choose the document type beside Create document, then select Create document. Choose Plan for a plan or Story for a learning story. You can create a plan for the whole group or for an individual child. For a group plan, open Follow Ups, check Focus children and use Add child if someone is missing. Check whether each child already has a tailored version. Select Add to Journey beside an intended child when a manual copy is needed.
2. Use Suggest (AI-assisted): click Suggest and Mana reviews all the children's current goals from their Journeys. It then generates group activity ideas designed to address multiple children's goals at once. Use the "Why this?" button to see how each suggestion connects to individual children. Select a suggestion and click Create Plan to generate content automatically.
Plans can also be linked to source documents (such as an observation or group learning story) and follow-up documents, giving you a clear thread of evidence across the planning cycle.
→ How do I set up a Program Template for a Room?
→ Curricula just got smarter: Introducing Program--> group planning, tailored to each child
Group learning stories
Write one group learning story, then open Follow Ups and check Focus children. Automatic tailoring follows your centre’s settings described above. If a child’s version is not already available and a manual copy is needed, select Add to Journey beside that child. Review the tailored version in their Journey before using or sharing it. For this workflow and stories started in one child’s Journey, see Use one learning story for several children.
→ Curricula just got smarter: Introducing Program--> group planning, tailored to each child
Sharing with families
Once your program is ready, you have two sharing options:
Print: export in landscape format as a summary table, suitable for displaying in the room. You can exclude images or individual learning stories for a clean overview. If you've added educator reflections, use a vague title for them so nothing unintended appears on the printed copy.
Share via the Mana app: share the documents you want families to see individually. An available Program can appear in Mana Families without any related documents shared with that family. Seeing a Program does not mean every activity is shared. Check the intended audience of each document. An individual child’s plan should be shared only with that child’s family. Educator reflections stay unshared unless you choose to share them.
Educator reflections
After activities are implemented, you can reflect on each plan directly in the program, adding notes and ticking off what was completed. Reflections are not shared with families unless you choose to share them, so this is a safe space for honest professional reflection.
Important note: In your program, you can filter between "Plans" or "All docs" to easily view by preference. Ensure you're in the "All docs" filter to see learning stories, reflections and other types of documents added to the program.
Program setup checklist
Use this to make sure everything is in place before you start programming:
✓ Children added in the Journeys tab
✓ Goals set for each child in their Journey
✓ Rooms/homes created in the Program tab
✓ Children added to their rooms or homes
✓ Program Template set up in each Room or home (optional but recommended)
✓ New program created within the room for your planning period (weekly/fortnightly/termly)
✓ Plans added, manually or via Suggest
✓ Group plans linked to individual children's Journeys where relevant
✓ Intended Program documents shared individually with the right families, or the Program printed for room display
✓ Educator reflections added after activities are completed