Navigate the app

In this article

Get familiar with EMStudio's layout so you can move quickly between classes, lessons, and tools. A few minutes here will save you time every day.


The top bar

The top bar gives you quick access to key actions from anywhere in the app.

Left side:

  • Collapse sidebar — hide or show the sidebar to get more screen space.
  • Full screen mode — expand EMStudio to fill your entire screen.

Center:

  • Home — takes you back to the dashboard.
  • Feedback — opens the feedback page to report bugs, suggest features, or ask questions.

Right side:

  • Language — switch between 20 supported languages.
  • Guided tutorials — view your tutorial progress and jump to any tutorial to walk through it.
  • Send feedback — report bugs, suggest features, send praise, or ask questions.
  • Profile — opens your settings and preferences.
Top bar with left-side collapse/fullscreen buttons, center Home/Feedback links, and right-side language, tutorials, feedback, and profile icons

The sidebar

The left sidebar is your main navigation. It's organized into four groups:

At the bottom of the sidebar, you'll also see your trial status, AI credit usage, and storage usage.

Collapse the sidebar with Ctrl + \ to get more screen space.

Sidebar with all four groups expanded, showing trial status and usage meters at the bottom

Page layout

Most pages use a consistent layout with a class selector on the left and the main content on the right:

  • Left panel — class selector. Pick a class to filter everything else.
  • Main panel — the page content. Student list, gradebook grid, classwork list, attendance grid, etc.
  • Detail views — click into a row to open a detail panel or a focused modal (student profile, lesson editor, assignment viewer, etc.).

Panels resize as you interact with them. Click something in the main panel to drill into more detail.

Students page showing three-panel layout with class selector, student list, and student preview

Class-first vs feature-first

You can navigate EMStudio two ways:

  • Feature-first — click any page in the sidebar (Lessons, Grades, Attendance, etc.), then pick a class from the left panel.
  • Class-first — click into a class from My Classes to open the class page, then navigate to the section you need.

Same data, different entry point.

Teachers with one or two classes often prefer class-first. Teachers juggling many classes tend to prefer feature-first.

The dashboard

Click Home in the top bar to get here from anywhere. The dashboard shows everything you need for the day:

  • Today's schedule — your classes in a timeline view
  • Upcoming lessons — lessons scheduled for this week
  • Calendar — a mini monthly calendar
  • Tasks — your upcoming to-dos
Dashboard showing greeting banner, today's schedule, lessons this week, calendar, and tasks

Still have questions?

Chat with us— we're happy to help.