Calendar Settings
Calendar settings control how the Conductly calendar behaves, including what determines each event's color. There are nine settings on this page, plus a separate per-user Calendar Sync page for connecting Google Calendar.
:::info Looking for instructor calendar visibility? "See the full calendar" and "Hide other students' names" used to live here but moved to Settings > Team, under the Instructor permissions panel's What instructors see on the calendar section. See Team Management. :::
To access calendar settings, go to Settings > Calendar.
Prevent Double Booking
The Prevent double booking toggle controls what happens when a new event would use the same room at the same time as an existing event:
- On (the default) -- Events cannot be scheduled in the same room at the same time. Conductly blocks the conflicting event from being saved.
- Off -- A warning is shown for room conflicts ("Are you sure?"), but you can proceed with Schedule Anyway.
Most schools should keep Prevent double booking on. This is especially important if you have multiple instructors sharing rooms or if your schedule is tightly packed. Turn it off only if your school intentionally allows overlapping events in the same room.
Automatically Assign a Room
When Automatically assign a room is on, lessons that families book themselves through your store's Book online products get a room assigned automatically -- no staff follow-up needed. Conductly picks the instructor's most-used room that is free at the lesson time; if none of those are available, it falls back to the first free room by name; if no room is free at all, the lesson is left unassigned.
This setting is off by default. A missing room never blocks a paid booking -- the lesson is always scheduled, with or without a room.
Starting Hour
The Starting hour setting controls the time the calendar shows when you first open the page. The default is 9:00 AM -- set it to the hour your teaching day typically begins so you land right on your active schedule instead of scrolling from midnight.
Default Event Duration
The Default event duration setting (labeled Event length) controls how long a new event runs when you click an empty slot on the calendar in Day, Week, or Month view, or create one from the Schedule button's Lesson/Class/Event options. Choose 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours -- the default is 30 minutes.
This only affects newly created events -- existing events are unaffected and can still be resized manually. It also doesn't change the calendar's click grid: Day and Week view stay on half-hour increments, so a shorter or longer default changes how long the event you create is, not where you can click to start one.
Apply Make-Up Credits When Scheduling
When Apply make-up credits when scheduling is on (it is off by default), admins can choose how many make-up credits to use for a student while creating a lesson. The event form shows a make-up credit panel so credits can be applied at scheduling time instead of as a separate step.
Count Unmarked Lessons as Attended
Most schools only apply a label -- Missed, Makeup, and so on -- when a lesson doesn't go as planned, and leave the lessons that went fine untouched. The Count unmarked lessons as attended toggle (on by default) controls how the Attendance report treats those untouched lessons:
- On (the default) -- A past lesson or class nobody labeled counts as Attended on the Attendance report, so your attendance rate reflects the whole term instead of just the exceptions.
- Off -- Only lessons you explicitly labeled count. Unlabeled lessons are excluded from the report entirely.
Lessons still to come are never counted either way, and neither are cancelled lessons or non-lesson calendar events like recitals.
Turn this off only if your school labels every lesson individually and wants the Attendance report to reflect only those explicit marks.
Color Events By
The Color events by setting controls what determines each event's color across the Day, Week, Month, and List views:
| Option | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Instructor (default) | Events take the color of the instructor teaching them, set on the instructor's detail page. |
| Location | Events take the color of the room they're booked in, set on the room's detail page. |
| Category | Private lessons, classes, and programs each get their own fixed color. |
If the chosen dimension has no color -- an event with no location, or an instructor or room whose color hasn't been set -- the event falls back to Conductly's default untinted look instead of showing a fourth color.
Only rooms have a calendar color, not buildings -- a building can't be booked on an event directly, so there's nothing for Location mode to color there. See Managing Locations.
This setting doesn't change anything for existing schools unless you switch it -- Instructor is the default and matches how the calendar has always looked.
Count Unmarked Lessons as Attended
The Count unmarked lessons as attended toggle (under Attendance) controls how the Attendance report treats past lessons nobody labelled. Most schools only bother labelling the lessons that went wrong -- a missed lesson, a trial, a makeup -- and leave everything else alone.
- On (the default) -- A past lesson with no label counts as attended on the Attendance report.
- Off -- Only lessons explicitly labelled Attended count as attended; unlabelled past lessons count as unmarked, not attended. Turn this off if your school marks every lesson individually.
Instructor Availability Background
The Instructor availability background setting picks the color used for the availability overlay on the calendar (the "Show instructor availability" overlay in the calendar's Display menu). Choose a color that stands out against your instructors' calendar colors.
Calendar Sync (Google)
External calendar sync is configured on its own page: Settings > Calendar Sync. It is a per-user setting -- each staff member connects their own Google account.
- Sync is one-way: Conductly is the source of truth, and events sync into a dedicated "Conductly" calendar in your Google account. Events created in Google never appear in Conductly.
- Only Google Calendar is supported. There is no Outlook or iCal sync.
Once connected, you can configure:
| Option | Choices |
|---|---|
| What to sync (owners/admins only) | "Only what I teach" or "Everything at the school" -- instructors always sync their own schedule |
| Event types | Lessons, Classes, School events -- leave all checked to sync every type |
| Event details | Include location and Include notes toggles |
| Event title | Event name (e.g. "Piano Lesson") or Generic placeholder (every event shows "Busy") |
| Sync window | How far ahead to sync (e.g. "Next 30 days") |
Use Sync now to trigger a sync immediately, and Disconnect to remove the connection (this also removes the "Conductly" calendar and its events from your Google account).
:::tip If sync seems slow right after connecting Google briefly limits how fast Conductly can push events when there's a lot to sync at once -- most often on the first sync right after connecting a large schedule. Conductly retries automatically in the background, so you'll see "Your calendar is syncing -- large schedules can take a few minutes to finish" instead of an error. No action is needed -- there's no reason to disconnect and reconnect; give it a few minutes and check back. :::
:::info Organization-wide switch An administrator can turn Google Calendar sync on or off for the whole school under Settings > Integrations ("Allow staff to connect Google Calendar"), including revoking individual connections. If your Calendar Sync page says sync is turned off, ask an administrator to enable it there. :::
Best Practices
- Keep double-booking prevention on unless your school intentionally shares rooms across overlapping events.
- Set the starting hour to your first lesson. It saves a scroll every time anyone opens the calendar.
- Match the default event duration to your most common lesson length. If most of your lessons run 45 or 60 minutes, set it once instead of resizing every new event you book.
- Leave "Count unmarked lessons as attended" on unless your staff labels every lesson. Turning it off makes the Attendance report stricter -- an unlabelled lesson stops counting as attended, so reports can undercount if labelling habits are inconsistent.
- Switch to Location coloring if you run multiple rooms. It's often easier to scan the calendar by room than by instructor when several teachers share a building.
- Use the generic title mode for privacy. If instructors share their Google calendars with others, the "Busy" placeholder keeps student names out of view.
- Keep your Conductly calendar as the source of truth. Since sync is one-way, always make scheduling changes in Conductly.