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Getting Started

GRADR is a gym management platform built for martial arts academy owners and their staff. It handles everything from student enrollment and class scheduling to grading, payroll, and billing, all from a single owner portal.

The Owner Portal​

The portal is organized into sections that mirror how a gym operates day to day. For a high-level tour of every section, who uses each part of GRADR, and how a student moves through the system, see the Platform Overview.

Built-In Help​

GRADR includes several features designed to guide you through the portal without needing to leave the app.

Onboarding Checklist​

Start here

The first time you log in, a setup checklist appears on your Dashboard. It covers the 10 essential steps to get your gym fully operational: gym profile, billing, instructors, schedule, and your first student.

Before exploring the rest of the portal, work through the checklist from top to bottom. Each step links directly to the relevant section in GRADR. If you want a guided walkthrough with more detail on each step, follow the New Gym Setup tutorial.

Contextual Tooltips​

Throughout the portal, a green ? icon appears on key pages and features. Hovering over it opens a plain-English explanation of what that feature does. Tooltips are available across Settings, Schedule, Curriculum, Students, and Reports.

You can dismiss individual tooltips as you become familiar with the portal, or turn them off entirely. To manage tooltip visibility, go to Settings → General → Hints & Onboarding. You can also reset all dismissed tooltips from the same location.

Help Button​

A Help button appears at the bottom of the sidebar on every page. It links directly to the relevant page in this help center, based on where you are in the portal. If you're on the Grading page and click Help, you'll land on the Grading reference page here.

Putting GRADR on your phone​

GRADR installs onto your phone's home screen straight from the browser. There's no app store and no download. You open GRADR in Safari or Chrome, add it to your home screen, and it then opens like any other app.

There are two different apps, and it matters which one you install:

  • GRADR — the owner and instructor app. This is the one you want, and the one to point your instructors at.
  • GRADR Student — the student app. It opens on your students' own dashboard, showing their attendance, belt progress, and gym information.

If you run the gym and also train, install both. They sign in separately and don't interfere with each other.

Step-by-step instructions for iPhone and Android are at gradrjj.com/install-app. That page is public, so it's the link to send your students and instructors: nobody needs a GRADR login to read it.

tip

Students receive this link in their welcome email, so most will already have it. It's still worth mentioning in class. A portal sitting on the home screen gets opened far more often than one buried in a browser tab.

Using This Site​

This help center covers every section of the GRADR owner portal in detail. It is organized into three areas:

  • Owner Portal — one reference page per section, explaining every feature and workflow
  • Tutorials — step-by-step walkthroughs for common tasks like onboarding a student, setting up billing, or running payroll
  • FAQ — answers to common questions organized by topic

Use the sidebar to navigate, or use the search bar at the top right to find a specific topic.