Student Statuses
Every student in Conductly has a status that reflects where they are in their journey with your music school. Statuses help you organize your roster, filter your student list, and understand your enrollment pipeline at a glance.
Available Statuses
You can set the following statuses manually from the status badge on a student's detail page: Active, Prospective, Trial Lesson, Waitlist, Marketing, Registration Sent, Registered, Invoice Sent, Inactive, Created, Deactivated, and Do Not Contact.
Prospective
A Prospective student is someone who has expressed interest in your school but hasn't started lessons yet. This is your lead -- they might have filled out a form, sent an inquiry, or been added manually after a phone call. Students who arrive through an interest form land here automatically; students you add by hand start as Created until you move them along.
When to use it: A new lead comes in and you want to track them before they commit.
Trial Lesson
A student with the Trial Lesson status is trying out your school. They've been scheduled for a trial lesson but haven't committed to ongoing enrollment yet.
When to use it: You've scheduled a trial lesson and want to track the student separately from fully enrolled students.
When you create a lesson or class for a student with this status, Conductly automatically marks the first occurrence with the Trial attendance label -- see Creating Events. This only happens at creation time, and only for the first occurrence.
Waitlist
A Waitlist student is waiting for a spot to open up -- for example, a full class or an instructor with no availability.
When to use it: You can't place the student yet but want to keep them queued for the next opening.
Registration Sent
The Registration Sent status means you've sent the student (or their guardian) a registration form, but they haven't completed it yet. Conductly sets this automatically when you send an email using one of your Registration email templates (see Email Templates) -- a hand-typed email or a General template won't trigger it. This only moves students forward: it applies to students who are Created, Prospective, Marketing, Trial Lesson, or Waitlist. Anyone further along (Registered, Invoice Sent, Active) or already set aside (Inactive, Deactivated, Do Not Contact) stays where they are.
When to use it: After sending a registration form, to track who still needs to complete their registration.
Registered
A Registered student has completed their registration form but is not yet actively taking lessons. They may be waiting for a session to start or for scheduling to be finalized. Conductly sets this automatically when a registration form is completed.
When to use it: Registration is complete and you're working on getting them into a session.
Invoice Sent
The Invoice Sent status indicates that the student's first invoice has been sent but hasn't been paid yet. Conductly sets this automatically when the first invoice goes out. This is a useful checkpoint between registration and active enrollment.
When to use it: After sending the first invoice, to track payment before marking the student as active.
Active
An Active student has something booked ahead — a lesson or class on the calendar, however far out, or an open enrollment in a series that hasn't run out. A class starting in December keeps a student Active all summer. Conductly sets this automatically whenever a booking is made: enrolling from the calendar or a student's page, a purchase through your store or the family portal, or a self-booked lesson.
When to use it: The student is enrolled in a session and actively taking lessons.
Marketing
The Marketing status is for contacts who have opted into marketing communications from your school. They may be former students, prospective families, or community members who want to hear about events and offerings.
When to use it: Someone wants to stay on your mailing list but isn't currently a student.
Do Not Contact
A student marked as Do Not Contact has opted out of all communications. Conductly will respect this status to help you stay compliant with their preferences.
When to use it: The student or their guardian has requested no further communication.
Always respect the Do Not Contact status. Reaching out to someone who has opted out can damage trust and may have legal implications depending on your jurisdiction.
Inactive
An Inactive student has nothing booked ahead -- no upcoming lesson or class, and no open enrollment in a series that hasn't run out. This is the right status for students who are taking a break, went on vacation, or paused their lessons.
When to use it: A student stops lessons but you want to keep the door open for their return.
Active and Inactive follow one rule: a student is Active while they have something booked ahead, and Inactive once nothing is. Conductly applies this the moment a booking changes -- enrolling, a store or portal purchase, or a self-booked lesson moves a student to Active; a cancelled or deleted lesson, an ended series, or an unenrollment with nothing else booked moves them to Inactive -- and checks every student again each night in both directions.
A student with active enrollments cannot be set to Inactive by hand -- complete or drop their enrollments first. You can still set either status by hand otherwise: setting Active on a student with nothing booked ahead is allowed, but they revert to Inactive at the next nightly check unless you book them a lesson first (the status badge tells you this). Setting Inactive holds until the student is next booked -- see Reactivating a Returning Student.
Created
Created is where every student you add by hand begins -- a bare record that hasn't entered your pipeline yet. Students who come in through an interest form skip it and start as Prospective.
When to use it: You'll rarely set this one yourself, since it's the starting point. Move students on to Prospective once you're actively working them as a lead.
Deactivated
A Deactivated student is permanently inactive. This status is for students who have definitively left your school and are not expected to return.
When to use it: The student has permanently left and you want to clearly separate them from students who might come back.
System-Set Statuses
A few statuses are set by Conductly itself and aren't meant to be applied manually:
- Anonymous Shopper -- A visitor browsing your public store who hasn't identified themselves yet.
- Checkout Incomplete -- A store shopper who registered and started checkout but didn't complete payment. These are worth following up on!
Automatic Status Changes
Conductly moves students through the pipeline automatically as things happen:
| What happens | New status |
|---|---|
| You add a student or guardian by hand | Created |
| Someone submits a form set to assign a status | Whatever the form assigns (commonly Prospective) |
| You send a Registration email template from a student's or guardian's page | Registration Sent -- for the student and their guardians |
| A registration form is completed | Registered -- for whoever submitted it and the family members it covers |
| The first invoice is sent | Invoice Sent |
| You enroll a student in a class or private lesson, or they're booked through your store, the family portal, or self-booking (unless they're Marketing, Do Not Contact, or Deactivated) | Active |
| A payment is captured | Active |
| An invoice is fully covered by credits or a scholarship, with nothing left to pay | Active |
| A guardian enrolls themselves as a student | Active |
| Their last booked lesson is cancelled or deleted, their series ends, or they're unenrolled with nothing else booked | Inactive |
| Every night, for every student, in both directions | Whichever of Active / Inactive matches whether they now have something booked ahead |
Booking a student sets their status to Active the moment it saves -- unless they're Marketing, Do Not Contact, or Deactivated, which Conductly leaves alone since those record a deliberate decision about the person. If a student stays at one of those three statuses after being booked, that's expected -- change their status by hand if you want them Active.
Guardians move with their students. Sending a registration email to a student also moves their guardians to Registration Sent, and a guardian's payment activates the students on that invoice.
The Student Lifecycle
While every school is different, here's a typical flow through the statuses:
Created → Prospective → Trial Lesson → Registration Sent → Registered → Invoice Sent → Active
From Active, students may eventually move to:
Active → Inactive → (returns to Active, or moves to Deactivated)
The Marketing and Do Not Contact statuses can be applied at any point, depending on the student's communication preferences.
Statuses are flexible -- you don't have to follow every step in the lifecycle. For example, a student who walks in and signs up on the spot might go straight from Prospective to Active. Use the statuses that make sense for your school's workflow.
Changing a Student's Status
You can change a student's status in two ways:
From the Student Detail Page
- Open the student's detail page by clicking their name.
- Click on the current status badge.
- Select the new status from the popover.
Using Bulk Status Updates
To update the status of multiple students at once:
- Go to the Students list.
- Select the students you want to update.
- Choose Update Status from the header three-dot menu.
- Select the new status and confirm.
Bulk status updates are especially useful at the start of a new semester. For example, you might move all students from "Registered" to "Active" once lessons begin, or move students who didn't re-enroll to "Inactive."
You can also change a student's status by dragging their card between columns in the Students page's Board view -- see Managing Students.
Using Statuses to Filter Your List
The student list can be filtered by status, making it easy to focus on specific groups:
- View all Prospective students to see your current leads
- Filter to Active to see your current roster
- Check Inactive students to find candidates for a re-engagement campaign
- Look at Registration Sent to follow up on incomplete registrations
- Review Checkout Incomplete students to recover abandoned store checkouts
Combine the status filter with other filters (instructor, instrument, session) for even more targeted views.