ProgressThe walkthroughThe first five minutes.
Progress Desk opens to Today, your daily home base. The sidebar holds every screen you will use day to day. The five steps below get you from an empty caseload to a working one.
Add your students.
Go to Caseload → Add Student. Include a date of birth, which drives the transition-age trigger automatically. If you already have a roster in a spreadsheet, import a CSV or JSON file under Data & Backup.
Write measurable goals.
Open a student, head to Goals, and click New goal. The SMART builder assembles a standards-aligned, measurable goal sentence as you type, suggests the data type and target from the criterion, and scores the goal 0–5 against the SMART criteria with fix-it hints. Or start from a goal-bank template. Built-in starters cover reading, reading comprehension, math, behavior, and SEL.
Log data in seconds.
Use the Data Entry tab during sessions, for one student or a whole group at once. As data comes in, each goal's status, parent-friendly progress code, and on-track projection update automatically from the decision rules. Choose from percentage, frequency, duration, rate, trials, task analysis, prompts, independence, yes/no, interval, latency, ABC, or anecdotal data.
Stay compliant.
The Compliance screen rolls up every deadline, missing report, service shortfall, fidelity gap, and incomplete plan across your caseload, sorted by urgency. Each item has a one-click action: Generate a report, Log data, Log contact, open Service Minutes, or jump to the Accommodations or Transition tab.
Prep meetings and generate documents.
The Meetings workspace assembles a prep packet with present levels, progress codes, service-minute status, and accommodations all in one place. From Documents, generate Progress Notes, PLAAFP statements, FBAs and BIPs, Transition Plans, Prior Written Notices, and meeting invitations. Every value is pulled from real data, never placeholders.
After the walkthroughSecure the app.
Progress Desk is private by design. Your data is encrypted at rest with a key sealed in your macOS Keychain. To add a screen lock on top, head to Settings → Security & privacy:
- App password. Required on launch and after the auto-lock timer.
- Touch ID. Unlock with biometrics where available.
- Auto-lock idle timeout. Lock after 1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes of inactivity.
The app password and Touch ID are a screen lock, not the encryption key. There is no password that, if forgotten, would lock you out of your own data.
Make it yoursAppearance and density.
Under Settings → Appearance:
- Theme. Light, Dark, or System (follows your computer).
- Color theme. Five palettes: Cream, Ocean, Graphite, Lavender, and Rose. Each tints the surfaces and the accent on buttons, the active sidebar item, links, and focus rings.
- Density. Comfortable or Compact. Compact tightens spacing for denser caseloads and smaller screens.
- Text size. Small, Default, or Large.
Status and data colors never change with a palette. Mastered stays green, regression stays red, and each domain keeps its own color.
ReferenceA few terms worth knowing.
- Baseline
- The student's starting performance on a goal, before instruction. The anchor for measuring growth.
- Aim line
- A reference line from baseline to the mastery criterion. It guides visual decisions but never triggers a flag on its own.
- Mastery rule
- The number of consecutive data points at or above criterion before a goal counts as mastered. Set in Settings, overridable per goal.
- Monitoring cadence
- How often a goal expects data (default weekly). A goal with no recent data shows as "data overdue."
- Progress code
- A parent-friendly rating per goal: Mastered, Sufficient, Insufficient, Emerging, or Not addressed, based on whether the trend will reach the target by the annual review.
- Owed minutes
- Service minutes missed because of a provider or school-caused gap. Student absences are never owed.
- Protected class
- A class marked "don't pull" (such as core reading or math). Progress Desk flags it so you schedule around core instruction.
- PLAAFP
- Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance. The data-driven snapshot of where a student is now.
The full glossary lives in the in-app Help under Getting started → Glossary.
Pro movesThree keyboard shortcuts to learn first.
- ⌘ K opens the command palette. Search students, goals, documents, contacts, or jump to any section.
- ⌘ 1 through ⌘ 9 jump to Dashboard, Compliance, Caseload, Schedule, Meetings, Service Minutes, Progress, Documents, Presentations.
- ? shows the full cheat sheet whenever you need it.
The complete shortcut list lives at Help center → Keyboard shortcuts.
When you are readyReplay this anytime.
The same walkthrough is built into the app. Open the in-app Help and click Replay welcome at the bottom of the sidebar to step through the welcome wizard again. Helpful if you are setting up a second device, or just want a refresher after a long break.
Get in touchIf something does not click.
Email us. The same person who built Progress Desk answers the support inbox, and that person knows your problem from experience.
Email us at support@progressdesk.app →