Settings is the fundamentals. This is the chapter to actually sit down and work through, because every other piece of the CRM (forms, automations, the handoff into the CCMS) is built on top of what you set up here.
Get Settings right once and the rest of the CRM mostly takes care of itself. Skip it and every other chapter feels harder than it needs to be.
There are three tabs that actually matter day-to-day: Properties, Stages, and Connections. We'll take them in order.
1. Properties (start here)
A property is just a piece of information you want the CRM to keep on every lead. Name, phone number, child's date of birth, which program they asked about, where they heard about you. Each one is a field on the lead record.
Properties come in two flavors. Default properties ship with the CRM (name, email, stage, created date, and so on). Custom properties are the ones you add yourself for the things that matter to your school but no one else's.
Try it: build a property
Click through the fields below the way you would inside CRM Settings → Properties → Add property. The preview on the right shows what the field looks like on a lead record as you go.
Change the field type or toggles on the left and watch the lead record on the right react the same way it will in the real CRM.
Here's what each field is actually asking you. The descriptions are shown below each card.
The human-readable name. Keep it short and obvious - "Preferred contact method", not "PCM (v2)". This is what shows up on the lead record and on forms.
What is this fact actually about? Lead properties describe the inquiry itself (stage, source, closed reason, created date), not a person. Guardian properties describe an additional guardian added to the record. Student properties describe a child. Pick the wrong one and the field shows up in the wrong place forever.
How the answer is stored. Text for free typing, Single choice for a fixed list (Source, Stage, Preferred contact method), Date for birthdays and tour dates, Number for counts. Pick the type that matches how you'll want to filter or report on it later.
Whether this field shows up automatically on the lead record. Turn it on for things you'll look at every day, leave it off for fields you only need for automations or reporting.
If this piece of info should follow the family into the CCMS once they enroll, pick the matching CCMS field here. This is the bridge between the two systems. No mapping means it stays on the CRM side.
Who on your staff is allowed to change this field. Leave it open unless there's a real reason to lock it down.
2. Stages (the journey labels)
Stages are the labels that mark where a lead is in the journey: New, Tour Scheduled, Tour Complete, Application Sent, Application Received, Enrolled. Same list you saw moving in the intro.
A stage is technically just a property (a single-choice field on the lead), but it's the one property that drives everything else. When a lead moves from one stage to the next, that change is the signal automations listen for. Move someone to Tour Scheduled and a confirmation text can go out. Move them to Enrolled and the handoff to the CCMS can kick off.
You'll find stages under CRM Settings → Stages. You can rename them, reorder them, or add your own, but unless you have a strong reason, stick with the defaults. They line up with how the rest of the CRM (and this guide) talks about leads.
A stage is a label, but moving someone between stages can be the quiet trigger that makes messages go out, tasks get created, and the next step happen on its own - once you've set up the automations to listen for it.
3. Connections (plug in the real world)
Connections is where the CRM stops being a closed box and starts talking to the tools you already use. This is also the one tab you should not put off, because three of the most important things in the CRM don't work right until it's set up.
Connect the calendar you actually live in (Google or Outlook). Two things start working the moment you do. One, when a parent books a tour through your meeting link, it lands on your real calendar. Two, the CRM can see when you're already busy, so it won't offer a parent a slot that conflicts with something already on your day.
3 slots hidden because the calendar already has events at those times. Parents never see them, so nothing gets double-booked.
The catch: the calendar can't tell a personal event from a tour, so a dentist appointment blocks a tour slot the same way a real tour would. That's why the move is to connect a calendar used only for tours - your personal day stays private, and the booking page stays full of real openings.
Connect the inbox you use to talk to families. Emails you send to a lead from the CRM go out from your real address, and replies come back into the lead's record automatically. Without this, conversations live in two places and nothing stays tied together.
This is where you claim the dedicated phone number the CRM uses on your behalf. Calls to this number can forward to your real business line, so parents reach you directly. The same number is what you'll use to send and receive SMS, and it's the number you'll verify so text messages actually deliver instead of getting flagged. Without this, the SMS side of the CRM is essentially turned off. Important: put this number on your website, your ads, and anywhere else families find your phone number. When parents call it, the CRM can route it to the right person and keep a complete record of every call on the platform.
4. Notifications (the daily digest)
There's a fourth tab that's easy to miss: Notifications. It holds the daily digest, a once-a-day email that rounds up what needs your attention so you can start the morning without digging through the app.
It's per user and off by default. Every person on your team picks their own send time, days, and which sections they want. Three sections, each toggleable: tasks due today plus anything overdue, today's tours and meetings, and automations that failed since your last digest. Lead names in the email deep-link straight into the CRM, and days with nothing to report are skipped, so it never turns into noise.
Flip the toggles, then hit Preview to see the email you'd actually get.
What's next
Chapter 2 is Leads. Now that the foundation is in place, we open the tab your team lives in: how the Leads table works, how to filter and save lists, and what the lead profile actually shows. Everything after that (tasks, forms, meetings) is about feeding and working this one screen.