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The student dashboard explained

The student dashboard explained


When a student opens SimplyPrint at /panel/dashboard, this is what they see. The student dashboard is a single, focused page built around three jobs: upload a file, see what's queued, and know who to ask for help. It's the page first-time students land on automatically, with no training needed.


This guide walks through every widget on the page, what each one does, and how the student experience changes when you turn things on or off in settings.


The student dashboard is part of the School plan (Feature::TEACHER_STUDENT_DASHBOARD). On a School account, anyone who isn't a teacher or admin sees this page automatically.


Table of contents

  • Who sees the student dashboard
  • The greeting and layout
  • Upload a file
  • Your queued prints
  • The bulletin board
  • Quick links chosen by the teacher
  • Your teachers and admins
  • The Academy CTA
  • Help card
  • Quota and balance (if your school uses them)
  • Related articles


Who sees the student dashboard

A user gets the student dashboard when, on the School account, they are not a teacher and not an admin. There is no "student" rank to assign in SimplyPrint — every non-teacher non-admin user is a student by default.


That means the page is the natural landing for class members, makerspace visitors and anyone given a sign-in without elevated rank. As soon as someone is promoted to teacher (or given admin permissions), they switch to the teacher dashboard on their next page load.


The greeting and layout

The page opens with a time-of-day greeting using the student's first name, then splits into two columns: an 8-wide left column with the upload zone and queue, and a 4-wide right column with the bulletin, links and help widgets.


Student dashboard with all widgets enabled


The same layout adapts to dark mode automatically.


Student dashboard in dark mode


Upload a file

The biggest widget on the page is the file upload zone. Students can drag and drop an STL, 3MF, or G-code file, or click to open the file picker. Uploads pipe through the same processing as a manual upload from the files page, so they land in the student's queue and are ready to print.


There's no folder structure to learn, no file browser to navigate. The upload zone is the path of least resistance.


Your queued prints

Right below the upload zone is the student's personal queue widget. It shows the prints they've submitted — what's pending, what's running, what's finished — along with a quick g-code analysis estimate (time, material) for each item.


This is intentionally only the student's items, not the whole class. The full school queue (with everyone's items) lives at /panel/queue and is permission-gated. By default, students see the whole school queue there too, but you can lock it down per rank if you'd rather they only see their own.


If your school requires teacher approval before students can print, items in the student's queue will show a "Pending approval" pill until a teacher acts on them.


The bulletin board

On the right side, the bulletin board widget shows whatever the teachers have posted to the classroom. Title, body, date — students can read but not write.


Use it for printer outages, project deadlines, open-lab hours, build plate changes. Read more in the classroom bulletin article linked at the bottom of this page.


Below the bulletin, the quick-links widget shows links your admins have configured. Two flavours appear:


  • Highlighted links — large coloured buttons, used for the resources you want students to use first (Tinkercad, your school's design brief, the safety sheet).
  • Regular links — a compact list, for everything else.


This widget only appears when at least one link has been configured. To set them up, see the "Customising dashboard links" article linked at the bottom of this page.


Your teachers and admins

The contacts widget shows the staff a student should reach out to for help. For each person it shows their name, avatar, email and (if set) phone number.


By default it shows every teacher and admin on the account. For larger schools — where students should only contact their own teacher rather than every admin — you can hand-pick which staff appear. See the "Customising dashboard links" article linked at the bottom of this page.


The Academy CTA

The Academy shortcut is a big "Learn about 3D printing" button that drops the student into the SimplyPrint Academy. Lessons, courses and projects live there — including any custom courses your school has built.


The Academy with custom courses is also part of the School plan, so any course your teachers create is available right from this CTA.


Help card

The help card is a small panel with shortcuts to the in-product Get Help flow, Crisp chat and email contact. It's the same help surface students see elsewhere in the panel.


Quota and balance (if your school uses them)

If your school uses print quotas or the prepaid balance system, students will also see a quota status badge in the top bar of every page (including the dashboard).


Top bar quota status badge for students


Clicking the badge opens a panel with progress bars for each quota type, the student's balance, and a Request more button when they're running low. The full self-service page lives at /panel/user_settings/quota.


When a student clicks Request more, they fill in a short form and the request lands in the teacher's quota requests inbox on the teacher dashboard.


Quota request modal for a student


Quota and balance are part of Feature::USAGE_POLICIES (the print quotas and balance system), which is also a School-plan feature. If your school doesn't use quotas, none of this appears.



Updated on: 24/05/2026

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