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
Label each week and set its start and end dates. This is the spine of the six-week experience — every briefing, event, and check-in is anchored to a week.
- The timezone
Set the cohort's timezone (it defaults to Australia/Brisbane). 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.
The census date in particular isn't just 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 flags ranges that don't line up 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.
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.
Related
The fastest answer is usually one question away.