GoLab at VAST

GoLab is the campus app of Vidya Academy of Science and Technology Technical Campus (VAST). It brings attendance, timetable, results, study material, the campus feed, messages, group chats, an AI tutor and campus services into one place for students and teachers, and gives the college office a web portal to manage people and academics.

Install the app

GoLab is distributed directly by the college for Android 7.0 and later.

1. Open the download page on your Android phone and tap Download for Android. On a computer, scan the QR code with your phone instead.
2. When the download finishes, tap the file. If Android says installing from this source is not allowed, tap Settings, turn on Allow from this source for your browser, then go back.
3. Tap Install, then Open.

Updating

Download the latest version from the same page and install it over the old one. Your account and data stay; you do not need to sign in again.

Create your account (students)

Every VAST student with a student ID starting with VAK can create an account in the app. It takes about two minutes.

1. Open GoLab. On the Welcome screen, keep Student selected at the top.
2. Choose Vidya Academy of Science and Technology Technical Campus (VAST) from the list. You can search for "VAST".
3. Enter your student ID exactly as on your ID card, for example VAK23CS001, and tap Continue.
4. Enter your full name, choose your department and current semester.
5. Verify it is you, in one of two ways:
   • Email: enter your email and tap Send code. Type the 6-digit code from the email, choose a password (at least 6 characters, a number is recommended) and tap Verify and activate.
   • Google: tap Continue with Google and pick your account. No password is needed; you can always sign in with Google.
6. You are signed in. A welcome message from VAST appears in your notifications.

Student guide

After signing in you land on your dashboard. The bar at the bottom takes you to Home, Feed, Explore and Alerts. The menu (top left) lists every feature.

Profile and portfolio

Your profile is what classmates and teachers see. Open Profile and tap Edit profile.

• Photo and banner: tap them to choose an image (under 5 MB).
• Display name, headline, pronouns, about and status: how you introduce yourself. Your official name and student ID come from the college and cannot be changed here.
• Skills: type a skill and tap +. Up to 20.
• Social links: Instagram, LinkedIn, GitHub, X, YouTube, LeetCode, Behance, Dribbble and a website. Type a handle like @yourname or paste the full link. Links must point to the right site.
• Portfolio: add up to 12 projects with a title, description, link and tags.
• Academic: keep your semester, division and batch current.

Other students see your profile, posts, skills, links and portfolio. They never see your email or phone number.

Campus feed and stories

The Feed shows posts from VAST only. People you follow appear first, then your department, then the rest of campus.

• Tap + to share a photo, video or text post. Posts are stored securely in the college's cloud storage.
• Like and comment on posts; the author is notified.
• Open someone's profile to Follow them, see their posts as a grid and view their stories.
• Explore suggests posts from people you do not follow yet.

Messages and group chats

Direct messages

Open a profile and tap Message, or go to Messages and tap the pencil icon to search anyone at VAST by name or student ID. Messages arrive instantly; images and documents can be attached.

Groups

1. In Messages, tap the people icon (New group).
2. Name the group, for example "CSE S5 Project Team", and select members. Only people from VAST can be added. Up to 256 members.
3. Tap Create. Members are notified that you added them.

The creator is the group admin and can rename it and add or remove members. Anyone can leave a group with the exit icon in the chat header.

Attendance and academics

QR attendance

When your teacher starts attendance, a QR code appears on their screen. Open Scan Attendance and scan it while you are in the classroom. Scanning twice is harmless. Codes expire quickly and only work for your class, so attendance cannot be marked from outside.

Timetable, exams and hall tickets

Your timetable and exam schedule follow your department and semester. Before an exam, open Hall Ticket; the invigilator scans its QR code to verify it.

Results

When teachers publish marks you get a notification. Results shows every subject, your CGPA trend and subjects that need attention.

Leave requests

Use Apply Leave to request leave with a reason and dates; your teacher approves or rejects it.

AI tutor

Ask anything about your subjects in plain language, get step-by-step explanations, practise mock interviews and get feedback on your resume. Choose a shorter or more detailed answer style in Settings. Always cross-check important facts with your notes and teachers.

Campus services

Depending on what VAST enables, you will also find live bus tracking, events and tickets, library, placements and job applications, the resume builder, canteen ordering, lost and found, hostel and health services in the menu.

Teacher guide

Getting your account

Teacher accounts are created by the VAST college office in the web admin portal. You receive your Faculty ID and either a password or an email inviting you to set one.

First sign-in

1. Open GoLab, select Faculty at the top of the Welcome screen, then choose VAST. (From the student sign-in screen you can also tap Faculty member? Sign in here.)
2. Enter your Faculty ID and password.
3. No password yet? Tap Forgot password, enter the email the college registered for you, and set a password with the 6-digit code.

Taking attendance

1. Open Take Attendance and choose the class and subject.
2. Start the session; a QR code appears. Show it to the class.
3. Watch students appear as they scan. Students who did not scan are marked absent when the session ends.

Marks and material

• Marks Entry: enter or upload marks per subject. Marks above the maximum are rejected row by row, so nothing wrong is published. Students are notified automatically.
• Upload Material: share notes, slides and PDFs for a department and semester.
• Class analytics: see the topper, the class average and students at risk.

Messages and announcements

Message students directly, create groups for a class or project, and post notices that reach students as push notifications.

College office (web admin portal)

Open the admin portal in any browser and sign in with the college admin email and password, or with Google.

Departments

Departments lists your departments (CSE, ECE, EEE, ME, CE, AI and DS are set up). Students choose from this list when they create their account, so add any missing department here first.

Add teachers

1. Go to Users, then Add New Faculty.
2. Enter the name, Faculty ID (for example T1001), email, department and designation. Set a password of at least 8 characters, or leave it empty: the teacher then sets one with Forgot password using their email.
3. Share the Faculty ID with the teacher. They can sign in to the app straight away.

For many teachers, use Bulk Import, choose Faculty and upload a CSV with the columns teacherId, name, email, department, designation. Each teacher receives an email to set their password.

Students

VAST students with VAK IDs create their own accounts in the app, so no upload is needed. To add a student manually, use Users, then Add New Student. To pre-load a list, use Bulk Import with the columns studentId, name, email, department, semester, batch, division. Run Check first; it reports problems per line before anything is saved.

From the student and faculty directories you can search, edit, suspend or remove accounts. A suspended account is signed out and cannot sign in until restored.

Activity

Activity shows how many students are active now (last 15 minutes), today and this week, how many have activated their accounts, and a list of recently active students and teachers with their last sign-in. It refreshes every minute.

Exams and settings

Exams schedules exams per department and semester; hall tickets follow automatically. Settings holds the institution profile, contact details, theme and which features (attendance, LMS, community) are switched on.

Security and privacy

• Verified accounts. Every student account is confirmed with an email code or a Google account, and only VAST IDs starting with VAK can join. Codes expire after 10 minutes and lock after 5 wrong attempts.
• Encrypted connections. The app and portal only talk to the server over TLS 1.2 or 1.3.
• Passwords are never stored, only salted bcrypt hashes. Changing your password signs out your other devices. Changing your email or password requires your current password.
• Private by default. Other students see your public profile only, never your email or phone. Feed, explore, groups and people search are limited to VAST.
• Protected accounts. Repeated wrong sign-ins are slowed down, every request is checked for your role and college, and attendance, hall ticket and ID QR codes are signed and expire.
• Reliable service. The service runs on a dedicated server with load balancing, plus an automatic standby cloud that takes over if needed, with data kept in sync between them.

Notifications and settings

Allow notifications when the app asks, so announcements, marks, messages and reminders reach you. In Settings you can turn categories (academic, social, email announcements) on or off, enable an email alert for every new sign-in, choose the AI answer style, switch between light and dark mode, and change your password.

Troubleshooting

Support

For account problems (ID not accepted, suspended account, wrong name or department), contact the VAST college office. For app problems, describe what you tapped, what you expected and what happened, and include a screenshot if possible.

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