Welcome! This is the full getting-started walkthrough for Anni Planner. Fifteen unhurried minutes here sets up your whole year. Inside the planner, the same steps appear as a friendly bubble tour on your first login (every bubble has a Skip for now), and the Help guide answers everything else.
Step 1. Log in and look around
Sign in at anniplanner.com. The colored tabs across the top are your binder sections: Class Info, Lesson Plans, Today, Curriculum Maps, Notes, Student Checklists, and Calendars, plus the tool tabs (Print, Docs, Data, Settings, Search, Help, Share). There is no save button anywhere because everything saves itself the moment you pause typing. The little Saved bubble has an Undo button for anything you replace by accident.
Step 2. Set your school day (2 minutes, biggest payoff)
Open Settings. Under Your school day, enter when school starts, lunch, recess, and release. Under Your subject blocks, make the rows match your real day: rename the starters, add what you teach, remove what you do not. Every weekly page, the daily schedule, substitute packets, and the class timer build themselves from these two lists. If your school runs early-release days, fill in the Half Day Schedule too, and those dates will automatically show the short day.
Step 3. Link your calendar
Still in Settings: paste your district's calendar link under Live district calendar and your whole year fills with the real holidays, breaks, and early-release days, kept in sync automatically. Only have a file? Import my calendar takes a downloaded .ics from Google Calendar, Outlook, or the district site. You can also mark any single day by tapping it on a month calendar.
Step 4. Add your class
Open Class Info and type or upload your class list (a spreadsheet works, so does typing). Those names then power everything: Student Checklists rows, attendance pages, the Sign In/Out board, birthdays, and student game accounts. Add parent contacts, transportation, and medical lists the same way; checking an allergy even pops a printable door poster and a ready-to-send parent email.
Step 5. Write your first week
Open Lesson Plans and type into any box. Color text, resize it, add stickers from the box toolbar, and attach files with the paperclip. Bringing a year plan with you? Settings has Plan my curriculum to lay out units onto your Curriculum Maps. Teaching from last year's Anni planner? Turn on Last-year ghost view and your previous year's lessons appear faintly under each box, one tap to reuse.
Step 6. Put Anni on your devices
On your iPad or iPhone: open anniplanner.com in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. Anni opens full screen like an app and stays signed in. Do the same on the classroom iPad for the Today tab and the Sign In/Out board. On your computer, just bookmark it; your account works everywhere at once.
Step 7. Turn on two-step verification (recommended)
Settings, under Security: turn on two-step verification and Anni texts or emails you a 6-digit code when logging in on a new device. Tick Remember this device and your own devices skip the code for 30 days. Student records live in your planner, so this one is worth the minute it takes.
Step 8. Know where help lives
Three places, always: the Help tab inside the planner searches the full guide; the guide itself is one browsable page; and the round ? button at the bottom right answers questions on the spot and sends anything else to a real person, with replies landing right back in the same panel. Suggestions genuinely steer what gets built next, so send them.
When you need a sub
Worth knowing before the morning you need it: the + button builds a substitute packet from whatever is already in your planner for that day (schedule, lessons, class list, emergency procedures), plus your Sub Notes (helpful students, who to watch, the screen password, your morning and end-of-day routines). Share it as a private link by text or email; it expires on its own. A child out sick? Absent Work sends one family just their missed days. The first time, open Help and search "sub plans"; it walks you through.
The beta deal
Anni is in beta: your access code covers this school year free, no payment details collected, and your feedback shapes the product. The fine print lives at Terms, Privacy, and Security, written in plain English on purpose. Welcome aboard; make it a great year.