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Student Portal Settings

These settings control the Family Portal -- the area where guardians and students log in to pay invoices and manage their own upcoming private lessons. To access them, go to Settings > Student Portal.

Everything on this page autosaves -- there's no separate save button.

Portal​

Enable the student portal turns portal login on or off for your whole school. It's on by default.

When turned off, families who try to log in see a message that the online portal isn't available, along with your school's contact information. This only blocks logins -- emailed invoice and payment-method links keep working either way, so families can still pay and update their card without the portal itself.

Self-Service​

Two toggles control whether families can manage their own private lessons from the portal, both on by default:

  • Allow rescheduling -- families can move their own upcoming private lessons to a new time
  • Allow cancellations -- families can cancel their own upcoming private lessons

Turning either off removes the corresponding button from the portal. Group classes are never included -- self-service only ever applies to private lessons.

Notice Required​

Reschedule notice sets how much advance notice (in hours) a family needs before their lesson to reschedule it. Once a lesson falls inside that window, its Reschedule button disables with a tooltip explaining why.

Cancellation notice sets the line between an on-time cancellation and a late one, also in hours. Both default to 24 hours. A lesson a family cancels at or beyond this notice is recorded as Missed (with notice); canceling inside the window is a late cancellation, recorded as Missed (no show) -- see When a Family Cancels for what that means and whether it's even allowed.

Booking Window​

Book up to [N] days ahead caps how far in advance a family can reschedule into. The default is 31 days -- families can't move a lesson to a date further out than that.

Frequency Limits​

Two counters cap how often a family can make changes, both 0 (no limit) by default:

  • Max reschedules per lesson -- how many times the same lesson can be rescheduled
  • Max changes per student, per period -- a combined cap on reschedules and cancellations for one student

Reset period determines how the per-student counter resets: Calendar month or Billing cycle.

When a Family Cancels​

A family cancellation doesn't delete the lesson -- it stays on the calendar, labeled Missed (with notice) or Missed (no show) depending on how much notice the family gave (see Notice Required above), exactly as if a staff member had marked it that way. In the portal itself it still shows with the same red Cancelled pill families have always seen.

What that label means for money is decided by your Lesson labels policy on the Calendar settings page, the same rules that apply when staff mark a lesson missed -- there's no separate portal-only billing choice anymore. For each of the two Missed labels, Lesson labels controls whether the family is still billed (pay-per-lesson pricing only), whether the instructor is paid, and whether the student receives a make-up credit. A credit that would be issued is skipped silently if the student is already at their make-up credit cap or your school's rolling-window limit.

Late cancellations controls whether a family can cancel at all once they're inside the notice window:

  • Not allowed online (default) -- the Cancel button disables with a tooltip once a lesson is inside the notice window, same as it's always worked. The family has to contact the school directly.
  • Allowed, recorded as no show -- the Cancel button stays active. A family who cancels inside the window goes through and the lesson is recorded as Missed (no show).

Because the lesson stays on the calendar rather than being deleted, the instructor's slot is not freed up for online self-booking either way -- staff can still book over it by hand.

Notifications​

Notify staff of changes sends an email/notification to the lesson's instructor and an admin whenever a family reschedules or cancels through the portal. It's on by default -- turn it off if you'd rather staff check the calendar directly. The cancellation notification names whether it was on time or a late cancellation, and whether a make-up credit was issued. When a cancellation issues a make-up credit, the separate Make-up Credit Issued notification (see Notification Preferences) is gated by this same toggle -- turning it off silences both notifications for portal cancellations.

Best Practices​

  • Keep notice periods realistic. 24 hours is a reasonable default, but tighten it if late reschedules disrupt your instructors' schedules.
  • Use frequency limits for chronic reschedulers. A per-student cap keeps one family's schedule changes from crowding out an instructor's availability.
  • Decide your cancellation policy before turning self-service on. What a portal cancellation costs the family -- billed or not, make-up credit or not -- comes entirely from your Lesson labels policy for the two Missed labels, so set that deliberately rather than leaving the default.
  • Leave staff notifications on unless your team checks the calendar frequently enough to catch changes on their own.