Setting up an institution
An institution is a school, a coaching centre or a class that buys Bandzen Pro for its students. It is run from Coach, a separate site at coach.bandzen.com with its own sign-in. (Not to be confused with Bandzen Coach, the tutor candidates chat to inside the student app.)
Students never open Coach. They practise in the student app like any other candidate, with Pro paid for by you.
Your staff account
Sign up at Coach with the email you will run the institution from. That account is a staff account, and staff and student accounts are kept apart:
- A staff account cannot practise. Opening the student app with it signs you out there and sends you back to Coach's sign-in, which says why.
- A student account cannot become staff. An account that holds a seat, has its own Pro, or has practised at all is refused when it tries to set up an institution or accept a staff invite.
Want to practise too? Use a second email
If you also want to try the product as a student, sign up in the student app with a different email. One account is one or the other, never both.
The split is what keeps the two sides honest: staff take no seat and never appear in a report, and a student's own account is never one a colleague can administer.
Creating the institution
From Coach, choose Set up an institution, then:
- Enter the institution's name.
- Choose how many seats to buy — one per student, at least 5 and at most 1000. You and your teachers do not use a seat.
- Pay at checkout. Payment is handled by Polar, our payment provider, and the price is shown there.
When the payment goes through you land on the Billing page, and the institution is live: the join link works and invites can be accepted. Until then nobody can join. If you leave checkout without paying, the institution still exists — Finish checkout on its Students page takes you back.
You become the institution's owner. There is exactly one.
If you were invited instead
Someone else already runs your institution? Wait for a staff invite link from them. Opening it signs you up or in at Coach and brings you back to accept. A fresh staff account with no institution and no invite just shows "No institution yet".
What to read next
- Roles — what an owner, an admin and a teacher can each do.
- Inviting students and staff — filling the seats you bought.