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Questions

Short answers about how Orbit actually works. Search inside the app finds these too.

What is Orbit, and who is it for?

Orbit is a study tracker for the IB Diploma, for AP courses and for the GMC's PLAB exams, with an edition for the teachers who teach the first two.

You rate what you know, it schedules the review, and you log the mistakes worth redoing.

It holds your syllabus, your dates and your own links, so one screen answers what to do today.

How does Orbit decide when something comes back?

Every rating books the next review on a ladder: weak comes back tomorrow, shaky in three days, solid in seven.

Each time a review comes back solid it moves up the ladder, so the gap grows to 21 days, then 45, where it stays.

Rate it weak and it drops to the bottom again, because the point is the things you are about to forget.

Logging an error on a subtopic pulls its next review forward.

What do the four states mean, and why is solid three taps?

A subtopic is untaught until you touch it, then one tap makes it weak, another shaky, and a third solid.

Tapping through them is deliberate: it is a moment of thinking about how well you actually know it.

Untaught rows stay out of the queue entirely, so a syllabus you have not reached yet never nags you.

How do I make the tree match my school's units?

Open a subject, tap the pencil, and paste your school's unit list into the importer, or read it from a photo or a PDF of the page.

Orbit reads the numbered sections and shows a preview of what will replace what before anything changes.

Your ratings follow the rows that survive the match, and you can edit any row by hand afterwards.

What are the error log and the redo deck for?

When you get something wrong, log it in three taps with an optional photo of the question.

The subtopic's next review moves closer, because a mistake is the clearest signal that something needs another look.

The redo deck deals those mistakes back to you later, a few at a time, so you meet the question again rather than only the topic.

What does the flame by my streak mean, and what is the shield?

The flame is an outline until today has counted and fills in once it has, and it goes out again at midnight in your own time zone: rating a subtopic, logging an error, a review, a doubt, a practice band, or ticking off homework or a deadline all count.

The first of those each day shows a short screen with the day you are on and this week's days, and nothing after it that day.

The shield covers one missed day a week, Monday to Sunday, so the streak carries on over it, and Streak shield in Settings turns it off.

What is the difference between homework and a deadline?

Homework is the small stuff due tomorrow: it sits in a checklist on Today and never reaches Google Calendar.

Deadlines are the dated things that matter, like an IA, a mock or a test, and those can sync to Google Calendar.

Both live on the Timeline, so nothing is hidden, but only one of them interrupts your day.

Can I record the grade my school gave instead of the marks?

Yes: a score can be the marks, the grade or score your school gave, or both, and a grade on its own counts at the middle of its band.

When you enter both and your boundaries turn the marks into a different grade, the school's grade is the one that counts, and Orbit offers to move that subject's boundaries for that kind so the next one converts the same way.

A ticked test, mock, major or minor takes its score when you tick it or later from the Done list, and the same test on the same day is never logged twice.

How does my school's weighting change a projected grade?

If your school weights its assessments, say minors 30 percent and majors 70, set that once in Settings and change it on any subject that differs.

Orbit turns each kind's marks into a grade first, then combines those grades by your weights, and the dashboard shows the working under the number.

Leave it unset and every projected grade is worked out exactly as before.

Why does a Diploma subject show two numbers on my dashboard?

One is your school grade: every mark you log, through your own boundaries and weights, minors and majors included.

The other is the IB projection: your IA at its real share of the final grade, with mocks and past papers standing in for the exams, which is how the IB grades you.

Tests, majors and minors count towards the school grade only, and a subject graded mostly on coursework shows the school grade alone.

Does Orbit track CAS?

It tracks the shape of it, not the hours: every CAS idea can carry its strands, where it is up to, and which of the seven learning outcomes it covers, and the CAS page groups them by strand.

The dashboard then says what is in each strand, which outcomes nothing covers yet, and whether your project has started.

Reflections are not in Orbit: they belong in whatever your school uses, and they are yours to write.

Where does the extended essay live in Orbit?

On its own page under Core: the EE ideas you capture wait there and on the Timeline's Ideas tab until one turns out to be the one.

Add the EE dates your school sets on that page, and they reach the Timeline and your calendar like any other deadline.

Nothing about the EE is rated, and the essay itself is yours to write.

How do the four modes work on one account?

One account can be an IB student, an AP student, a PLAB candidate and a teacher, and you switch in Settings under Account.

Each mode keeps its own subjects, dates, settings and tour, and switching never deletes anything.

The header shows which hat you are wearing, and switching back finds everything where you left it.

What does Orbit do for a teacher?

Each class has its own tree: log what a lesson covered in one tap, and the dashboard paces the class against its exams, or against your term dates when it has no exam session, with the finish date at the current pace.

Today opens on the next lesson to log and, if you mark, what is waiting to be marked.

Once a week, on your reset day, Orbital AI writes a short brief from those figures, each one linked to what it counts; turn it off in Settings under Connections.

Does Orbit work for PLAB?

Yes: the GMC's MLA content map is the syllabus, so PLAB 1 is a tree of conditions by body system, each with the presentations it comes in with, and PLAB 2 is a tree of stations by domain.

You rate and review them the same way, and each part counts down to the sitting you book and records pass or fail.

Orbital AI is exam preparation and never clinical advice: it plays the patient in a station rehearsal, marks you against the domains, and tells you to check any management against NICE and the BNF.

What does the Google Calendar connection read and write?

Orbit asks for two narrow permissions: to manage events, and to list your calendars so you can pick which one it writes to.

It writes one review block a day and your dated deadlines, and it reads that calendar only to show what is already on it.

It never reads your other calendars unless you tick one to read deadlines from, and never touches an event it did not create.

You can disconnect it in Settings at any time, and the events already there stay.

How does Orbit know when there is no school?

Add your terms and holidays in Settings, or read them from a photo or a PDF of your school's calendar and check them before they are saved.

A holiday, or the gap between two terms, clears the school day on Today, on the calendar and from the morning digest, and a test set on it takes no lesson's time.

Until you add a holiday of your own, Orbit uses your country's public holidays, which you can turn off in the same place.

Is Orbit free?

Yes, it is free while Orbit is in beta, which runs to 30 Sep 2027, and there are no ads and nothing to buy inside it.

It is invite only for now, so every account comes from a code someone shared.

If that ever changes, you will hear it from us before anything is charged.

Do I need an invite to sign up?

Yes, Orbit is invite only while it is in beta, so every account starts from a code somebody shared with you.

Anyone already using Orbit can make up to three codes in Settings under Account, which is where most of them come from.

Paste yours on the first signup screen and the ways to create an account appear under it.

Joining a school is a separate code, pasted inside the app once you have an account.

Who can see my data?

You can. Every table is locked to the account that owns the row, enforced by the database rather than by the app.

The owner can see operational things like your email, when you last used it and how many subjects you have, which is what keeps the beta running.

Nobody else can read your ratings, your notes or your photos, and nothing is sold or shared.

How do I delete my account?

Settings, then the Data tab, then Delete account, and you type DELETE to confirm.

Everything goes with it: subjects, ratings, errors, photos, deadlines and the Google connection.

Export your data first from the same tab if you want to keep a copy.

How do I send feedback or report a bug?

Open the question mark on any screen, or About this screen in the rail on a desktop, and take the Send feedback row at the bottom of the panel.

One box, no categories, and the screen you were on is recorded with it.

You can attach a screenshot, and it goes straight to the person who builds Orbit.

What is the bell, and what does it count?

The bell holds a copy of every notification Orbit sends, what changed in the app and the odd word from us, newest first, so a push you missed is still there to read.

A test, mock, major or minor still to come, added by you, on another of your devices or from a calendar Orbit reads, sends a push to every device you have Orbit on while deadline alerts are on, and a calendar read that brings in many at once sends a summary rather than one push each.

Opening a notice clears it, and the bell is the only badge in Orbit.

What is Orbital AI, and what does it send?

Orbital AI is the study tutor behind the dark disc in the bottom corner of the screen: it answers when you ask, and the disc's one suggestion a day sends nothing until you tap it.

It sends your question, the subtopic names it is about and a short summary of your own record, like your ratings and what is coming up, never your name; it never sends your photos from the error log, only a file you attach to that one message, and nothing is used to train models.

It is a language model, so it can be confident and wrong: check anything that matters, and never hand its words in as your own.

The privacy policy has the rest, under Orbital AI.

Why does the Orbital AI disc sometimes suggest something?

At most once a day, when your own record has something worth a look: weak subtopics in the three days before a test, or the two weeks before an exam or a sitting, a CAS strand still empty a month in, or a row you rate solid that your reviews keep failing.

Orbit works it out itself and sends nothing anywhere to do it, and a tap opens Orbital AI with that action chosen and waits for you to press Ask.

Not now puts it away, the same suggestion stays away for a month, and Nudges from the disc in your notification settings turns them off.

What happens when I join my school?

Your school can put its own reading lists and databases onto your subjects, and that is all joining does. Nothing of yours is read by anybody here: not your ratings, not your errors, not your reviews, not Orbital AI.

Your classes count towards your school's department averages, which name nobody and need three classes and two teachers before they appear. A class is named to the staff here only when you turn sharing on, one class at a time, and you can see every read that named one.

What can my school's leadership see about me?

Of a student, nothing at all: not your ratings, not your errors, not your reviews, not Orbital AI, at any level of membership.

Of a teacher, two numbers per class (how much of the syllabus is taught, and how much is assessed) added in with every other class in its department and year group, and only where three classes and two teachers stand behind the figure.

A class is named only where its own teacher turned sharing on, that teacher sees every day somebody opened it, and Orbit will not order teachers or classes by pace.