01
Open Sidekick on your phone
Go to the app and sign in with the Google account you bought with. On an iPhone, open it in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. It gets its own icon and opens full screen, with no browser bars.
AUTOMATA · phone
Sidekick.
On your phone.
Sidekick is the phone app for your own students. You sign in with Google, record only when everyone in the room has agreed, and the notes stay in your own Google Drive. It is a home-screen web app, not an App Store app, and it is separate from the Mac AUTOMATA app.
Open Sidekick Mac app download
The Mac download stays at automatareports.com/downloads. This page only explains the phone app.
How to use it
Open it, sign in, then pick a student.
Everything below is what the phone app actually does. Your students and files stay in your own Google Drive. Sidekick can only see the files it creates for you.
02
Set Me Up
One tap makes two things in your Google Drive: a Sidekick Caseload sheet, and a Sidekick Student Files folder. They belong to you. Nothing about your students is stored on our side.
03
Add your own students
Type or paste one student per line, or import a file. A name is enough. Each student gets a folder. You can also keep a list of people you are often in the room with.
04
Pick the student, then the job
Classroom observations fill Observation 1, then 2, then 3. Testing observations go on their own column. Photos and files upload into that student’s folder.
Recording
Record only with consent.
Before every recording, tick “Everyone agreed to be recorded.” The box clears itself when you stop. Recordings are sent to be written up and are not kept.
A meeting or an interview
When the words come back, you can name who each voice was, from the people you added, and edit the transcript before you send it.
Where the note goes
Send it to the student’s sheet, copy it, or make a Google Doc in that student’s folder. If your product includes AUTOMATA, Send To Report puts it on your Report Queue until you pull it into a report on your computer.
Sidekick is not the Mac app. The desktop AUTOMATA download is still at automatareports.com/downloads. Questions: info@automatareports.com.