Common questions

These are the questions that come up before a madrasa commits to Sijil, and in the first week after it does. Each answer is short and says where the detail lives, so nothing here is the only place a thing is explained.

Two of the sections below are deliberately unflattering — what cannot come out of Sijil, and what Sijil does not do at all. They are here because a gap nobody mentions gets filled in by assumption, and finding out in month three is worse than reading it now.

Starting out

How much work is the setup?

An afternoon, and it is typing rather than configuration. The order matters more than the effort: an academic year first, then the classes with their timings, then the students, then the asatiza — each step needs the one before it. Quick start is that whole sequence in order, with what each screen asks for.

How long does approval take?

A person reads every application, usually within a day, and the decision comes by email either way. Approval carries two things worth keeping: the madrasa's own address on Sijil — its subdomain — and a 5-digit Madrasa Code that every Ustaz types to sign in. The Code is an address, not a secret.

What does it cost, and is there a trial?

There is a trial, nothing is locked during it, and there is no card to enter. Pricing is for the whole madrasa rather than per student, and the plans differ only in size — every plan carries every feature Sijil has, so the smallest is not a cut-down version. The figures live in one place, the pricing section on the home page, because a number restated in five places is a number that will eventually disagree with itself. A madrasa larger than the biggest plan is a conversation rather than a form.

Do we need a computer?

No. Asatiza mark from their own phones, and the management side works on a phone too — though a day of typing students in is easier on a wider screen. There is nothing to install from an app store either way.

Moving off the paper register

Do we have to type in last year's registers?

No, and you cannot. A register can only be marked inside a running academic year, on a date that falls inside it, and a new year's first attendance day has to be tomorrow or later — so Sijil begins the day you begin, and the old registers stay where they are. Days that pass after that start can be filled in later: purani hazri is a normal part of the week rather than a workaround.

Can we start midway through a year?

Yes. The year is a name and a first day, and both are yours to choose — a madrasa joining midway calls the year whatever it calls the year and starts it that week. Fees begin billing in the month the year starts, which the sheet says out loud before it runs. The academic year is where that frame is set.

Can we get our records out of Sijil?

Not as a file. There is no CSV or Excel export and no downloadable report — reports are read on the screen, and the one thing that prints is a fee receipt. A closed academic year keeps an archived record of itself on the academic year page. If a spreadsheet is a requirement where you are, it is worth saying so before you commit rather than after.

Who can see our records?

Only your madrasa. Each one sits behind its own address and its own accounts, and the limits are enforced on the server for every request rather than by which buttons a screen happens to draw. Inside the madrasa an Ustaz sees their own classes, a parent sees their own children, and the Mohtamim sees everything. Accounts and roles has the whole grid.

What happens at the end of the year?

Attendance inside a closed year stops being markable or correctable — it was a statement about a particular morning, and that morning has passed. Fees stay open, because arrears outlive a calendar. Both stay readable for as long as the madrasa is on Sijil.

Phones, the internet and PINs

Does Sijil work without an internet connection?

Two things do: marking attendance, and recording a completed Hifz or Nazira unit. Everything else needs a signal. What is marked offline is held on the phone and goes up the next time the app is open with a connection — closing the app does not lose it, but a closed app does not upload either. Working without a signal is that boundary in full.

Is there an app to download?

No. Sijil installs from the browser onto the home screen: no app store listing, no APK to pass around, and no version to chase. On an iPhone it is Safari's Share menu, then Add to Home Screen.

An Ustaz's phone has been lost. What now?

Cut it off from Settings → Devices, the same list that approves a new phone. Until a device is approved no register can be marked from it, and once it is revoked the phone stops marking. A phone that never reconnects also stops being trusted offline after three days on its own. Devices has both sides of that screen.

Can two asatiza share one phone?

Yes. The register is cleared by the Hazri PIN of whoever is signing off the day's marks, so a shared madrasa phone still records the right author. An Ustaz marking on somebody else's phone needs only that PIN — not their phone number and not their Login PIN.

Nobody remembers the Admin PIN.

It is changed under Settings → Hifazat, and that screen asks for the current PIN first. There is no reset elsewhere: our side can see that a madrasa has an Admin PIN set, never what it is. Keep it somewhere only the Mohtamim reaches. Parent PINs are the opposite case — the madrasa can read one back, or issue a fresh code, from the student's Parents tab.

Parents

Do parents install anything, or pay anything?

Neither. The parent portal is a separate small app at its own address, opened by a code the madrasa issues, and it goes onto a home screen the same way. There is nothing to buy at that end and no account for a parent to create.

What can a parent see?

Their own children, and only what belongs to them: the day's timings, attendance, sabaq progress, and what is due. Nothing on that side changes a record — the portal is a window, not a form. One guardian with several children at the madrasa sees them all under one sign-in. The parent portal is the whole of it.

A parent has forgotten their PIN. Do they start again?

No. The madrasa can read that PIN back to them from the Parents tab, and each reading is written into the audit trail with the admin's name and the time. Issuing a fresh code instead clears the old PIN and unlinks the phone straight away — so a code generated and never sent leaves that family locked out until it is.

What Sijil does not do

There is no exam, marks, result or grading module: imtihan days can go on the calendar as events, but nothing records a mark against them. There is no Hijri calendar — dates are Gregorian, and the day a register belongs to is decided in Pakistan time. There is no CSV or Excel export. Fees are recorded after they have been taken, so no payment gateway collects money through Sijil. And Sijil is an independent product: not affiliated with, endorsed by or certified by any madrasa examination or regulatory board.

What Sijil is made of carries that same list beside what does exist, generated from the one source the rest of the site is built from — so it cannot quietly drift away from the product.