Setup Health
Setup Health checks, live, whether your school has configured what the rest of Mosaic depends on. Each item says what is missing and takes you to the screen where it is fixed.
Required Access
School Settings — Edit
Each check only appears to someone with permission over what it checks — most need School Settings, others the matching module permission (Cashier, Accounting, Scheduling and so on). The dashboard reminder goes to users with School Settings — Edit.
Open it from Settings ▸ School ▸ Setup Health. It is the first tab under School settings, because for a new school it is the place to start: work down the list and the school is configured.
A great deal in Mosaic depends on settings nobody sees day to day. A division with no grading scale accepts grades but never averages them; a grading scale with a gap leaves report card grades blank; a fee with no revenue account bills families but never reaches the ledger. None of these produce an error at the moment they go wrong — they surface weeks later as a blank report card or a ledger that does not match. Setup Health finds them in advance.
Reading the page
Section titled “Reading the page”The header counts three things:
- Verified — checks that pass.
- Needs attention — blocking setup gaps (red).
- Recommended — things that should be set up but are not urgent (amber).
Below it, the checks are split into two sections:
- Initial setup — done once, when the school is first set up. These settings carry over from year to year.
- Annual setup — redone for every school year, and checked against the year selected in the top bar. Work through these before the first day of class.
Within each section, checks are grouped by area (School structure, Grading setup, Staff, Year & calendar, and so on) and listed in the order a school would naturally do the work. The Show filter at the top narrows the list to Pending, Verified or Silenced items.
Each item shows:
- A status icon — see What the colors mean.
- A title and an explanation, the same text summarized in Every check, explained below.
- A count such as 3 affected, where the check finds specific records, with View affected to list them.
- A button that opens the screen where the item is fixed. Its label says what kind of work it is: Set up (nothing of this kind exists yet), Add (coverage that builds up over time, such as photos), Fix (the record exists but something it needs is missing), or Review (findings in real data that may be deliberate).
What the colors mean
Section titled “What the colors mean”| Icon | Level | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Red exclamation | Needs attention | A blocking gap. Something will fail, print blank, or post incorrectly until it is fixed. These are counted as “blocking” in the dashboard reminder. |
| Amber triangle | Recommended | Should be set up. Nothing breaks outright, but a feature is missing or degraded — letters print without a header, a class has nobody to take attendance. |
| Blue circle | Optional | A good practice, not a requirement. Shown on the page, but not counted in the header or in the dashboard reminder. |
| Gray empty circle | Waiting on an earlier step | The check depends on another item that is not done yet — grade levels cannot be checked until divisions exist. It runs on its own as soon as the earlier step passes. |
| Green check | Verified | The check passes. |
“Blocking” describes the consequence, not a lock: Mosaic does not stop you from using the rest of the system while a red item is open. The one exception is tuition billing — a school cannot switch billing live while any red item in the Tuition & Billing group is open, and neither a waiver nor a snooze gets past that.
Setting a check aside
Section titled “Setting a check aside”A checklist nobody can quiet is a checklist everybody ignores, so each open item has a menu (the arrow beside its button) with up to three ways to set it aside. They mean different things.
Remind me later — “not yet.” Hides the item for a number of days you choose, after which it comes back. Available on every check, up to 14 days for a red item, 60 for amber and 90 for blue.
We don’t use this… — “this feature does not apply to our school.” Offered only on checks for optional features — homerooms, letterhead, progress reports, photos and the like — never on something no school can go without, such as grading scales. You can record a reason. A waiver lasts up to a year and then the item asks again, so a decision made once does not quietly hide a real gap after the people who made it have moved on.
Reviewed — no change needed — “I read these findings and they are correct as they stand.” Offered on amber and blue checks that list specific records, such as two classes sharing a room. Mosaic remembers exactly which findings you reviewed: if one is fixed or a new one appears, the item comes back and says the findings have changed. A seventh room conflict is exactly what you want to hear about.
Red items can only be snoozed. Nobody can waive or review away something that is broken.
Set-aside items are left out of the counts and out of the dashboard reminder. Use Silenced in the Show filter to see them, and Put back on the list to undo.
How current the results are
Section titled “How current the results are”- Open items are checked live every time the page loads. Fix something on its own screen, come back, and it turns green.
- Passing items are re-verified automatically in the background, roughly once a month, since most of them describe setup done once in the life of a school.
- A snoozed or waived item is re-checked once a day, so fixing one can take a day to show green.
- To re-check everything immediately, open the Verification options menu at the top of the page and choose Force recheck now.
The dashboard reminder
Section titled “The dashboard reminder”Users with School Settings — Edit see a School setup needs attention reminder on the home dashboard while any red or amber item is open. It turns red when at least one item is blocking, and goes away once every item passes or has been set aside.
The reminder’s count refreshes once a day. Opening the Setup Health page, using Force recheck now, or setting an item aside refreshes it immediately.
It cannot be dismissed permanently — an unconfigured school is exactly where a permanent opt-out would let a problem sit for a year. It can be snoozed, or claimed with I will handle this, which hides it from the other administrators for two weeks.
Every check, explained
Section titled “Every check, explained”Checks for a module your district does not have — Accounting, Point of Sale, Budget, Tuition & Billing, group email — do not appear at all.
Initial setup checks
Section titled “Initial setup checks”School structure
Section titled “School structure”School language and time zone
Section titled “School language and time zone”Needs attention · Set up
The school’s primary language, date formats and time zone. Everything that stamps a date or sends email on a schedule reads these: attendance cut-offs, the time on a payment receipt, when an automated email goes out. A wrong time zone means anything done in the evening can be recorded on the next day.
School or district logo
Section titled “School or district logo”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
The logo printed on report cards, transcripts and letters, and shown in the family portal. A school without its own logo uses the district’s, so this matters most where several schools share one district and each needs to be recognizable.
Print letterhead image
Section titled “Print letterhead image”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
The banner across the top of printed letters and form letters. Without one, letters print with no header at all. Waive it if your school prints on pre-printed letterhead paper.
Email header image
Section titled “Email header image”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
The banner at the top of every email Mosaic sends to families and staff. Without it, email goes out with a plain header that families are less likely to recognize as coming from the school.
Send a test group email
Section titled “Send a test group email”Optional · Set up · can be waived · only with Group Email
Send at least one group email. It is the quickest way to prove the whole channel works end to end — sender address, recipient selection, and translation if your school sends in two languages — well before the day you need to reach every family at once. Mosaic can confirm a message was queued for delivery, not that it arrived, so send the first one to a few staff members and confirm it reached them.
Divisions
Section titled “Divisions”Needs attention · Set up
The divisions the school is organized into — for example Preschool, Primary and Secondary. Grade levels, grading rules and report cards all hang off divisions, so most of the grading checks wait on this one.
Grade levels
Section titled “Grade levels”Needs attention · Set up · waits on Divisions
A grade level for every grade the school offers, so students can be enrolled. Each grade also names the grade students move up into (or is marked as graduating), which is what the annual student rollover follows.
Grade levels assigned to a division
Section titled “Grade levels assigned to a division”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected grades
Every grade level must belong to a division. A grade without one inherits no grading scale and no report card settings, so its students’ grades cannot be averaged or printed. View affected lists the grades to fix.
Rooms & Locations
Section titled “Rooms & Locations”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
The rooms and other spaces in the school, each with a unique short name. Rooms are what make room schedules and double-booking detection possible, and three of the annual checks — classes with a room, room conflicts and home base rooms — wait on this one. Waive it if the school does not schedule by room. See Rooms and Locations.
Grading setup
Section titled “Grading setup”Grading scales
Section titled “Grading scales”Needs attention · Set up
At least one grading scale — percentage or letter — that tells Mosaic what each mark means. No grade can be recorded until one exists. See Getting started with grade reports.
Grading scales cover every score
Section titled “Grading scales cover every score”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected scales
Each scale’s ranges must run from 0 to 100 with no gap. A gap is easy to create — 80–89 followed by 91–100 — and silently leaves the report card grade blank for any score that falls in it, with no warning to the teacher. View affected names the scales with gaps.
Report card definitions
Section titled “Report card definitions”Needs attention · Set up
What a report card and a progress report contain: which grades, comments and conduct marks are required on each. Grade entry tracking and the printed report card are both built from this definition.
Each division has a grading scale
Section titled “Each division has a grading scale”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected divisions
A division with no grading scale accepts term grades normally, so everything looks fine during the term — but it can never average them into semester or final grades, and nothing warns the teacher. Set the scale on each division listed.
Each division has a report card
Section titled “Each division has a report card”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected divisions
Without a report card definition, a division has no conduct scale, no grade entry tracking and no report card to print. Assign a report card definition to each division listed.
Each division has a progress report
Section titled “Each division has a progress report”Recommended · Fix · can be waived · lists affected divisions
Progress reports are the mid-term check-in with families. A division without one cannot issue them. Waive this if the school does not send progress reports.
Staff records
Section titled “Staff records”Needs attention · Set up
The school’s staff, so they can be assigned to classes, roles and homerooms. Several later checks wait on this one.
Staff have a supervisor
Section titled “Staff have a supervisor”Recommended · Fix · can be waived
Every active staff member should have a supervisor. The chain of command decides who can see a staff member’s journal entries, who approves their requests, and who reviews their access. For the head of school, or anyone else with no supervisor, mark them as intentionally having none rather than leaving the field blank — a blank looks like something nobody got around to.
Photos
Section titled “Photos”Staff photos uploaded
Section titled “Staff photos uploaded”Optional · Add · can be waived
Photos for at least half of your staff. Photos appear beside names throughout Mosaic — rosters, directories, substitute lists. The count shown is how many more are needed to reach half; once half the school has one, the rest tend to follow on their own.
Student photos uploaded
Section titled “Student photos uploaded”Optional · Add · can be waived
Photos for at least half of your enrolled students. Teachers learn names faster, and staff covering an unfamiliar class can put a face to a roster. How often you refresh them afterwards is up to your school — Mosaic will not ask again once half are in.
Accounts & Access
Section titled “Accounts & Access”Staff accounts created
Section titled “Staff accounts created”Recommended · Add · can be waived
Mosaic logins for at least half of your active staff. Until someone has an account they cannot take attendance, enter grades or see their classes — everything else you have configured is invisible to them. See Managing user access.
Family credentials sent
Section titled “Family credentials sent”Recommended · Add · can be waived
Login credentials emailed to at least half of your families. This is the moment the family portal actually opens: until credentials go out, no parent can see the grades, attendance or documents you have published.
Course catalog
Section titled “Course catalog”Subjects
Section titled “Subjects”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
Subjects such as Mathematics, Language or Science, which group courses for transcripts and reporting.
Course catalog
Section titled “Course catalog”Needs attention · Set up · waits on Divisions
The courses the school teaches. Each year’s classes are created from this catalog, so the annual “Classes created” check waits on it.
Accounting
Section titled “Accounting”These checks appear only where the district has the Accounting module (or Point of Sale, for the POS checks). Most of them catch a setting that lets every individual transaction look correct while the ledger quietly disagrees — the kind of problem that otherwise surfaces at year-end.
Cashier accounts are mapped
Section titled “Cashier accounts are mapped”Needs attention · Fix
The cashier posts to your chart of accounts through named roles: a receivable, an unearned-revenue account, and undeposited funds. Until each role points at an active account, contracts bill correctly but nothing reaches the ledger.
No accounting role points at an inactive account
Section titled “No accounting role points at an inactive account”Recommended · Fix · lists affected roles
A role still pointing at an account that has been switched off. Nothing breaks today — the role still resolves — but an inactive account usually means it was replaced and the role was never moved with it.
Every fee has a revenue account
Section titled “Every fee has a revenue account”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected fees
A fee with no revenue account recognizes no income. The contract still bills the family and the charge still appears on their statement; only the accounting side is silently skipped.
Every fee books to an account that can hold it
Section titled “Every fee books to an account that can hold it”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected fees
A fee normally books to a revenue account. A liability account is right only for money the school has not earned yet — card credit, or fees collected on someone else’s behalf — and only when the fee is set to be earned on charge. Any other pairing recognizes income out of an account nothing was ever put into, and because every total still balances, nothing else will report it.
No setting points at a deleted account
Section titled “No setting points at a deleted account”Needs attention · Fix
A fee, discount, bank account or POS center that refers to an account no longer in the chart. The entry that would use it is refused whole, so the revenue never posts and nothing on screen says why.
Bank accounts link to asset accounts
Section titled “Bank accounts link to asset accounts”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected bank accounts
A bank account or petty-cash float must be linked to an account in the Assets section. Linked to a revenue or expense account instead, every deposit into it would be recorded as income twice.
The cashier drawer has a cash account
Section titled “The cashier drawer has a cash account”Needs attention · Set up · waits on Cashier accounts are mapped
A receipt has to debit something. The main drawer needs a cash account in the district’s primary currency before any payment can reach the ledger.
Income recognition months are set
Section titled “Income recognition months are set”Recommended · Set up
The months of the year in which tuition income is earned — ten for a school that recognizes August to May, twelve for one that spreads it across the whole year. Left unset, Mosaic assumes twelve, which is silently wrong for every school that does not.
POS centers have income and expense accounts
Section titled “POS centers have income and expense accounts”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected centers · only with Point of Sale
Each cafeteria or store needs the accounts its sales and its purchases book to, or nothing it sells can reach the ledger.
POS center accounts are the right kind
Section titled “POS center accounts are the right kind”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected centers · only with Point of Sale
A center’s income account must be in the Revenue section and its expense account in the Expenses section. Booked to the wrong kind, the day’s sales still balance against the cash counted, and the only sign is a sales total that quietly disagrees with the ledger.
Discounts book to their own account
Section titled “Discounts book to their own account”Optional · Fix · can be waived · lists affected discounts
A discount with no account of its own is simply netted off the fee, so the ledger cannot report how much was given away in scholarships and discounts. Some schools prefer tuition reported net; waive this if yours does.
Discounts book to a revenue account
Section titled “Discounts book to a revenue account”Recommended · Fix · lists affected discounts
A discount reduces what was earned, so its account belongs in the Revenue section alongside the fees it comes off. Pointed at an expense account instead, scholarships inflate income and costs by the same amount and the books still balance.
Tuition & Billing
Section titled “Tuition & Billing”These checks appear only where the district has Tuition & Billing. They are also the readiness gate for going live: billing cannot be switched on at a school while any red item here is open. See Tuition and billing setup.
Card balance fee
Section titled “Card balance fee”Needs attention · Set up · only with Point of Sale
Once billing is live, every deposit onto a student’s card balance is billed under this fee. Without it, every deposit is refused at the counter.
A cashier drawer
Section titled “A cashier drawer”Needs attention · Set up
Receipts are numbered from a cashier drawer, so the first payment needs one.
Tuition scales
Section titled “Tuition scales”Recommended · Set up
Tuition is priced per scale. Payment contracts cannot be generated without one.
A payment plan
Section titled “A payment plan”Recommended · Set up · waits on Tuition scales
A plan splits a contract into installments. Payment contracts cannot be generated without one.
Annual setup checks
Section titled “Annual setup checks”These are checked against the year selected in the top bar, and start fresh each school year.
Year & calendar
Section titled “Year & calendar”Term start and end dates
Section titled “Term start and end dates”Needs attention · Set up
Every term needs a start and an end date. Grading periods, attendance totals, report card timing, the withdrawal tool and the reminders on the dashboard all read them, and several of those fail silently when they are missing. Progress report (mid-term) dates are optional — set them only if the school issues progress reports. Set them under Settings ▸ School Years.
Master school calendar
Section titled “Master school calendar”Recommended · Set up
The master calendar holds the holidays, breaks and no-school days that attendance and scheduling rely on. See Calendar: getting started.
Calendar events entered
Section titled “Calendar events entered”Optional · Set up · can be waived · waits on term dates and the master calendar
Holidays, breaks and key events for this school year, so families and staff see an accurate calendar. Last year’s recurring events can be copied forward with Rollover Events.
Email blackout periods set
Section titled “Email blackout periods set”Optional · Set up · can be waived · waits on term dates
Pause automated email over holidays and breaks, so absence reminders and past-due notices do not go out while the school is closed. Blackouts are set per year — last year’s do not carry over.
Students & families
Section titled “Students & families”Students enrolled
Section titled “Students enrolled”Needs attention · Set up
Students enrolled in this school year. Everything academic follows from enrollment. For returning students this is the student rollover.
Students linked to a guardian
Section titled “Students linked to a guardian”Recommended · Fix · waits on Students enrolled
Enrolled students with no guardian linked. Such a student’s family gets no family portal access and no email from the school.
Classes & schedule
Section titled “Classes & schedule”Classes created for this year
Section titled “Classes created for this year”Needs attention · Set up · waits on Course catalog
This year’s classes, created from the course catalog.
Classes have a teacher
Section titled “Classes have a teacher”Recommended · Fix · lists affected classes
A class with no teacher assigned has nobody who can take attendance or enter grades for it.
Classes have a room
Section titled “Classes have a room”Recommended · Fix · lists affected classes · waits on Rooms & Locations
A class with no room is missing from room schedules and cannot be checked for room conflicts.
Rooms are not double-booked
Section titled “Rooms are not double-booked”Recommended · Review · can be marked reviewed
Two classes scheduled in the same room, in the same period, on a shared weekday. Sometimes this is deliberate — a split class or a co-taught block — so read the list rather than assume an error, and mark it Reviewed — no change needed if it is correct. A new conflict brings it back.
Classes have students
Section titled “Classes have students”Recommended · Review · can be marked reviewed
An academic class with no students enrolled. This is almost always an unfinished roster, but a class created for next semester may legitimately be empty for now.
No inactive students left in classes
Section titled “No inactive students left in classes”Recommended · Review · can be marked reviewed
A student who is no longer enrolled but is still on a class roster keeps appearing in gradebooks, attendance and class counts. Remove them from the class, or mark the list reviewed if they are meant to stay.
Students have a homeroom
Section titled “Students have a homeroom”Recommended · Fix · can be waived
Homeroom drives daily attendance, report card distribution and many reports. Waive it if the school does not use homerooms.
Home base rooms are current
Section titled “Home base rooms are current”Recommended · Review · can be waived or marked reviewed
A staff member’s home base is where Mosaic says to find them between classes, and nothing updates it when their teaching moves. This check lists a staff member only when every class they teach this year is in one other room, so the right answer is already named. Sometimes the current home base is correct — a counselor or coach keeps an office and teaches elsewhere — so review rather than assume an error.
Grading & reporting
Section titled “Grading & reporting”Term grades roll up to semester averages
Section titled “Term grades roll up to semester averages”Needs attention · Set up · waits on Classes created
Classes where term grades were entered but no semester average was produced. This is the signature of a grading configuration gap — usually a division’s grading scale or report card definition — where grade entry looks fine while the report card comes out blank.
Year released to families
Section titled “Year released to families”Recommended · Set up · can be waived
Until the year is released, families cannot see this year’s grades, schedules or report cards in the family portal. Release it once schedules and class rosters are largely final.
Accounting
Section titled “Accounting”Accounting periods cover this year
Section titled “Accounting periods cover this year”Needs attention · Set up
The ledger records entries into monthly periods, and each fiscal year needs its own. Without them, income recognition refuses every contract generated that month, and reports it only in the system log.
No posting run is stuck
Section titled “No posting run is stuck”Needs attention · Fix · lists affected runs
A posting run that never finished is still holding the charges it claimed, and no later run can post them until it is released. The ledger quietly stops moving forward while everything else looks normal.
Last month’s charges reached the ledger
Section titled “Last month’s charges reached the ledger”Recommended · Fix
Charges from a month that has already closed and never posted. The month-end run is scheduled, so this usually means it did not run; the cashier and account statements stay correct, and only the ledger falls behind.
Every expense account posts somewhere
Section titled “Every expense account posts somewhere”Recommended · Fix · can be waived · only with Budget
An expense account with no general-ledger account behind it stops the whole month’s expense posting: an entry with nowhere to go is refused rather than booked to whatever is nearest. Fixing it here is a setup task; finding out at month-end is a support ticket.
Fees that fund a budget point at an account that can use it
Section titled “Fees that fund a budget point at an account that can use it”Recommended · Fix · can be waived · only with Budget
A fee that raises a budget account’s spending cap is checked when the link is made, but the account can later be retired or given sub-accounts. The fee keeps being charged and keeps raising a cap nobody can spend against. Nothing in the ledger is wrong — only the figure the teacher sees.
Budget accounts point at the right kind of accounting account
Section titled “Budget accounts point at the right kind of accounting account”Optional · Fix · can be waived · only with Budget
An expense budget must be linked to an expense or asset account, and a fund account to a liability. When this is wrong every entry still balances, so nothing fails; a purchase simply debits the wrong kind of account, and the ledger reads as though the school spent its own money. Most cases are older accounts that predate the fund type.
Every expense payment method in use has an account
Section titled “Every expense payment method in use has an account”Recommended · Fix · can be waived · only with Budget
Expenses paid by a method with no ledger account cannot be posted, so they wait indefinitely while everything else posts normally. Only methods that actually have entries waiting are listed — an unused method is meant to be blank.
Expense payment methods credit the right kind of account
Section titled “Expense payment methods credit the right kind of account”Needs attention · Fix · only with Budget
A payment method is where the money came from, so its account must be an asset the school spent or a liability it took on. Pointed at an expense account, a purchase is recorded as a cost and a negative cost at once: the entry balances, and the month’s spending is understated by everything paid that way.
Tuition & Billing
Section titled “Tuition & Billing”Rates for this year
Section titled “Rates for this year”Recommended · Set up · waits on Tuition scales
Contracts use this year’s rates. With none set, they are generated at zero. See Annual rates.
I fixed an item but it is still red.
Reload the page: open items are checked every time it loads. If the item had been snoozed or waived before you fixed it, it can take up to a day to turn green; use Force recheck now from the Verification options menu to check immediately.
The dashboard reminder still shows the old count.
The reminder refreshes once a day. Open the Setup Health page and it updates straight away.
A colleague sees different items from me.
Each check is shown only to people with permission over what it checks. An accountant sees the accounting checks; someone with only School Settings does not. The page and the reminder count only what you can see.
Why can I not waive a red item?
Red items describe something that is broken, not a feature you may not use. They can be snoozed for up to 14 days while you work on them, but not waived or marked reviewed.