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Deploying Goodnotes Education with Admin Console [Checklist]

Updated

Setting up Goodnotes Education with Admin Console for your school is straightforward and completely self-serve. This checklist will guide admins through each step to get your institution running with our free, fully-featured education solution.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure your school has:

  • 1:1 iPad Deployment
  • Ability for your staff and students to log in to services with an OIDC (Microsoft, Apple or Google) or SSO login.
  • Apple School Manager and MDM if you are also deploying the app for your users 
  • Make sure you have completed our contact form and have received your confirmation of setup. 

Step 1: Deploy the Goodnotes App

If your users need the app deployed for them because they do not have access to the App Store, start by deploying Goodnotes to all managed devices:

  1. Access Apple School Manager
  2. Obtain the app tokens for Goodnotes
  3. Deploy Goodnotes to managed iPads through your MDM solution in the normal way (No app config is needed here, if you previously used License Key, please remove this!)

Both teachers and students will use the same Goodnotes app—role-based features will be enabled through the Admin Console.

Step 2: Set up your Goodnotes Organization and Invite Users

Set up your organization and enable Education features:

Set up your Admin Console and Organization

  1. Access the Goodnotes Admin Console via the link in the email you were sent from our Sales Team
  2. Create your Goodnotes Account and input your Access Code to get started
  3. Configure your basic settings (school name, language preferences)
  4. Configure your school's chosen login method from the following options: 
    1. Apple 
    2. Microsoft 
    3. Google
    4. Edlink SSO

Invite Users

Recommended Method - Email Invitations:

  • Navigate to User Management
  • Click "Invite Users"
  • Send email invitations to teachers and students
  • Recipients can accept via link or QR code in the email
  • Works with any email domain (no domain verification required)

Alternative Method - CSV Upload:

  • Prepare a CSV roster with user information
  • Use the bulk upload feature in User Management
  • Ideal for onboarding entire classes or schools at once
  • The system automatically assigns appropriate roles

You can read more about inviting users here: Create and Add Teachers and Students

Note for previous users of Goodnotes Classroom: Refer codes (T-XXXXXX for teachers, S-XXXXXX for students) are deprecated. Use email invitations instead.

Step 3: User Access

Once your organization is configured and users are invited via email, they will need to accept your invite through the link in their email and sign in with a Goodnotes Account using your school's login method. 

They'll then experience different features based on their assigned roles.

For Teachers

Teachers who accept email invitations and are assigned the Teacher role will discover comprehensive educational tools within Goodnotes. This includes Class Folder creation, Lesson creation features, Student Navigator, and access to all premium Goodnotes features without restrictions except for Marketplace. 

For Students

Students will have full access to Goodnotes, excluding Marketplace. Students will have access to Class Folders after accepting their email invitations and being added to a Class by a Teacher. They can be added to a Class in two ways:

Via Email Invitation: Students accept the invitation sent by administrators to join the organization and access all assigned classes.

Via Class QR Codes: Teachers can share QR codes directly from their Class Folders. When scanned, students automatically join that specific class. If your admin has enabled "Join School when joining Class," scanning a class QR also adds the student to your organization—eliminating the need for a separate invitation.

Both teacher and student experiences require signing in with school-provided accounts to ensure proper access to your institution's educational environment.

What next?

You are now pretty much set up and running. Your users should have their Goodnotes Accounts set up and roles assigned, and will be able to start using Goodnotes Education plan features. 

For more detailed guidance, please see the following articles: