Term setup and key dates
A cohort needs a calendar before content can hang off it. Term setup is where you define the weeks and the handful of dates the rest of First Six refers back to.
What you set
- The weeks
Set each week's start and end dates, and its heading. The heading is the greeting students read at the top of that week, shown as "Hey [name], <your heading>" (for example "Look at you, building a routine."). Leave it blank for a plain "Hey [name],". This is the spine of the six-week experience. Every briefing, event, and check-in is anchored to a week.
- The timezone
Set your institution's timezone (it defaults to Australia/Brisbane and applies to every cohort). The times students see (class starts, deadlines, announcements) resolve against this.
- The key dates
Set the dates that matter: census date, semester start, and semester end. These are the single source of truth and feed other surfaces automatically. You can also seed them when you first create the cohort; Term setup is where you confirm or change them afterwards.
The census date in particular does more work than a label. It powers Ask Anything answers, week banners, and date tokens you can drop into content (so a briefing can say "the census date is …" without you hard-typing it). Set it once, correctly, and the rest stays consistent.
Validation
First Six checks your dates make sense: a week can't end before it starts, and ranges that don't line up are flagged before you save. Changes apply to students promptly, so make term edits deliberately.
Brand is read-only here
You'll also see your institution's brand (logo, colours, typeface) on the setup surface, but it's read-only: branding is set during onboarding and managed by First Six. See the developer note on brand configuration for what's configurable.
Troubleshooting
I changed one week's dates and the weeks after it moved
Deliberate: a cohort's weeks are kept back-to-back with no gaps, so editing a week's start reflows the weeks after it rather than leaving a hole in the middle of the arc. Set week one first, then adjust forward. The reflow is calendar-safe across daylight-saving changes: a week is always exactly seven calendar days, even across the October and April transitions.
Staff in another state see the key dates differently
They should not, and if they do, it is worth reporting: dates here are calendar dates anchored to your institution's timezone, not to whichever device is looking at them. A staff member travelling, or a campus in another state, sees the same census date you set.
Common questions
Can I reuse last term's setup?
When you create a cohort you can clone from a previous one to reuse its weeks and content as a starting point, then adjust the dates.
What if I get the census date wrong?
Fix it in setup. Because other surfaces read from it, correcting it here updates them too. That's exactly why it's a single source of truth.
Can different cohorts run on different dates?
Yes. Each cohort has its own weeks and key dates, so a semester-one intake and a mid-year intake run independently.
Next steps
Related
The fastest answer is usually one question away.