Tutor: first steps and setup

Who this is for. A tutor who has just signed up and wants to know where to start and what to fill in first.

Sign up on the "Sign up" page in whatever way suits you (see "Basics"). The tutor account is created immediately, with nothing to confirm in advance: neither email nor phone number is required at the start.

After signing in you land in "Home". If you are in the pilot group, a card appears once at the top thanking you for being with us early and inviting you to write if anything gets in the way. It is shown a single time.

The "First steps" checklist

Above the schedule there is a "First steps" card saying "6 steps, three of them required" with a counter like "1 of 6". In order:

"Fill in your profile", with the note that you need subjects and an hourly rate, because without them a lesson cannot be scheduled. The "Open profile" button. The step counts as done once there is at least one subject with a rate.
"Add your first student", with the note that you can create the card yourself or send an invitation link. The "Add student" button.
"Create your first lesson", a single lesson or a whole series over several weeks. The "New lesson" button.
"Connect Google", marked optional: Meet links and calendar events will start appearing by themselves, and it works without them too.
"Confirm your phone number", also optional: needed only for payouts and account recovery.
"Install the app on your phone", with instructions for Safari and Chrome.

The first three steps are required: without a subject with a rate, without a student and without a lesson there is nothing to work with. Once all three are closed the card collapses by itself. You can also collapse it manually or dismiss it for good.

Steps are ticked automatically, by fact: you add a student and the tick appears. Nothing has to be marked by hand.

Sections of the workspace

At the bottom of the screen on a phone, and in a row in the header on a computer, there are five sections, in one order:

"Home" is the schedule, the students, the "Balance" card and recent messages;
"Media" is your file library;
"Messages" is the conversations and the notification bell;
"Finance" is money, pricing and payout settings;
"Profile" is you, your subjects and your account settings.

Profile: your details

The first card in "Profile" is called "Profile". In view mode you see a photo (or a circle with your initials), your name, phone and email, then the "About" text, and at the very bottom the "Log out" button.

To change something, press "Edit" in the top right corner of the card. All the fields of that card open at once: photo, first name, last name, middle name (optional), email (optional) and "About". "Save" and "Cancel" appear at the bottom, and "Log out" disappears while you are editing.

Worth knowing:

Photo. Press the circle or "Upload photo". The note under the button says "JPG/PNG, up to 2MB". A file above two megabytes is rejected. The photo is saved as soon as you pick it, without waiting for "Save", so "Cancel" restores the text fields but not the photo.
The phone number cannot be changed. Underneath it says that the number identifies your account and is how invitations find you, and that it cannot be changed. The support address is right there in case it really has to change.
First and last name are required. Clear one of them and saving tells you both are required.
"About" allows up to 2000 characters, with a counter under the field. This is your shop window: students read it.
The details and the "About" text are saved by two separate requests under one button. If one part fails, the workspace says which one, and the card stays open.

Services: subjects and rates

The second card is called "Services". No lesson can be created without it, so this is where to start.

Press "Edit", then add a subject. A row has two fields: the subject name and the hourly rate in KZT.

The rules:

the name cannot be empty;
every subject needs a rate;
the rate runs from 500 to 200,000 tenge;
two subjects cannot share the same name.

About an empty rate. A subject without a rate cannot be saved, and only subjects with a rate reach the lesson forms. That is deliberate: the price of a lesson must not come out of nowhere.

Under each subject there is a "Lesson packages" block with buttons for 5, 10 and 20 lessons. A package holds from 2 to 100 lessons and costs from 500 to 5,000,000 tenge. Next to the price the workspace shows the discount as a percentage, when there is one.

Until payments through the platform go live, packages work only as your price list: a package cannot be sold through the site (see "What is not live yet").

The other profile cards

The profile is laid out as tiles, two cards per row, and a single column on a phone. The order is: "Profile" and "Services", then "Education and experience" and "Google Calendar", then "Reviews" and "Social networks", then "Notifications" and "App on your phone", and account settings at the very bottom.

"Education and experience". Two lists: education (institution, field, years) and experience and courses. Each is added with its own button. Every education row needs an institution, every experience row needs a title.
"Social networks". Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp. All optional. In view mode only the filled ones are shown.
"Reviews". Read only: you cannot write them (see the chapter on chat, media and reviews). While there are fewer than three reviews, the average rating is not shown.
"App on your phone". A short card with a "How to install" button. It disappears once installed.
Account settings. The "Mode" switch (if you have several roles), the list of your sign-in methods and the "Delete account" block.

The "How a lesson runs" explainer moved from the profile to the main screen of the workspace: it sits under the "Balance" card and expands when pressed.

Each card is edited on its own: "Edit" opens the form only there, the rest stay in reading mode.

Google Calendar

The "Google Calendar" card explains what connecting gives you: lessons appear in your Google Calendar, and every lesson gets a Google Meet link.

Below are three separate status lines, and they are different things:

"Sign in with Google": connected or not. This is a way of signing in to Ustazym and has nothing to do with the calendar. You can sign in by phone and still use the calendar, and the other way round.
"Google Calendar": "access granted" or "no access". Only this line decides whether lessons travel to the calendar. If access existed once and stopped working, the line says it was revoked and has to be connected again.
"Google Meet video links": "created automatically" or "unavailable, calendar access needed". A meeting link is issued together with the calendar event, so this line always follows the previous one.

There are two buttons: "Connect calendar" and, once access exists, "Disconnect calendar". Disconnecting removes calendar access only: signing in with Google stays, so even if Google is your only sign-in method you will not lose it. That is written under the button as well.

What connecting gives you:

lessons appear in your Google Calendar by themselves and update when you move a lesson;
every lesson gets a Google Meet link (see the chapter on lessons);
if a lesson is cancelled, the event is removed from the calendar.

Without it there is no video link at all: it cannot be typed into the lesson card by hand. That is worth knowing in advance.

If Google access breaks one day (for example, you revoke the permission in Google settings), a notification tells you the access expired, the "Google Calendar" line says it was revoked, and syncing stops until you connect again. The lessons themselves stay where they are, they simply stop travelling to the calendar.

Settings in "Finance"

"Finance", below the feed of operations, holds three cards. Each one shows its values first, and editing starts with the "Edit" button.

"Payments through the platform"

Until payments go live the card configures nothing and shows a "Not connected yet" mark with the text explaining that students currently pay you directly and you mark payments with one button, and that paying on the site with a hold until the lesson will come later. In that state the card has no "Edit" button.

When payments are switched on, the card gains a "Accept payments through the platform" switch and a field for payout details.

"Taxes"

Until the platform is connected to the tax service systems, a "Not connected yet" mark sits at the top explaining that automatic payment of the single payment will start working after that connection, and that for now you pay it yourself in e-Salyq Business, with the amount for the receipt shown in the monthly report.

What is available now: "Taxpayer status", with a choice between self-employed and sole proprietor. The note explains that the status decides how much the platform will withhold and which receipts will be issued.

The line about automatic social payments and the tax number field will appear later, together with the launch. The tax number, when its time comes, is exactly 12 digits.

"Lesson cancellation"

A single setting: how many hours before a lesson a cancellation counts as late. From 2 to 48 hours, 24 by default. The note explains that if a student cancels later than that, the lesson counts as held and is paid for, and that the charge can be returned with one button.

This is your own rule, and every tutor has their own. How it works is explained in the chapter on lessons.

How saving works

"Edit" opens the form in one card only. "Save" and "Cancel" appear at the bottom. "Cancel" restores the saved values. The card closes only after a successful save: if the server refuses, the form stays open with the reason.

When you need to confirm your phone number

The number is not needed to use the workspace: the schedule, students, homework and chat all work without it.

It is needed in one case: when you touch money, that is when you turn on payments or enter payout details. A "Confirm your phone number" block then appears right in the card, explaining that a confirmed number is required for the payment gateway and payout details, so that you can be reached in a dispute and recover access. You enter the number, get a code by SMS, confirm, and the setting is saved.

No confirmation is needed through profile settings: if you signed in by phone, the number is already confirmed.

There is one more place where the number matters: when payout details are changed again, the workspace may ask you to confirm it is really you, offering Telegram, Google or an SMS code. That is protection: substituted payout details would mean money going somewhere else.

The first sign-in