Within TutorCruncher, a Lesson refers to any specific tutoring appointment that takes place between a Student and a Tutor. These could be one-time sessions, or recurring either indefinitely or as part of a course or series. Whenever a Tutor and Student(s) are scheduled to meet either in person or online for a tutoring session of any kind, Administrators (or Tutors) can schedule Lessons to plan and record those appointments, allowing you track, manage and organise your tutoring business.
Lessons are primarily accessed via their Job’s main summary page, but a Calendar or listed view of all of your company’s Lessons can be found via Activity > Calendar.
Lessons as they appear in the Calendar view.
Each Lesson page contains an indication of the Lesson’s status, its date/time, a list of all of the Students/Tutors who will be attending the Lesson, as well as the Client’s charge rate and Tutors’ pay rate. You can also upload Notes or Documents to the Lesson’s main page that other users assigned to the Lesson can view, and any Notes or Documents that have already been uploaded to the Lesson will also be listed here. The tabs can be used to cycle through pages showing detailed information specific to the Lesson, such as any Invoices that have been raised for the Lesson, or any relevant communications such as Lesson Reports or reminders for the Lesson.
An example of a planned Lesson page.
Note: Only Administrators will be able to see both the Client’s charge rate and Tutor’s pay rate - Clients and Tutors will only be able to see their respective rates.
How do I schedule/record a Lesson in TutorCruncher?
Lessons are created within Jobs, so to get started creating a Lesson, you’ll first need to create a Job for that Lesson to be in - read more about that here. Any Lesson that is created with a start date/time before the current time, then it will be created as a ‘Completed’ Lesson, in which case you will be redirect to fill in a Lesson Report, whereas if it is planned in the future, it will be marked as ‘Planned’.
There are four ways a Lesson can be scheduled on TutorCruncher:
Creating a Lesson via a Job
First create a Job for the Lesson if you haven’t already.
Navigate to the Job’s main summary page and select the Add New Lesson button within the Lessons panel.
An example of a Job’s main summary page, with the ‘Add New Lesson’ button highlighted.
This will open the Create Lesson page, where you will be prompted to schedule a date & time for the Lesson and a topic title for the Lesson. You can also select which users attached to the Lesson’s Job will be attending the Lesson if necessary, and also specify a Location. Upon submission Lessons that took place in the past will be recorded and be marked as ‘Complete’, whereas future Lessons will be scheduled in the Calendar and marked as ‘Planned’.
Creating a Lesson via the Calendar
First, create a Job for the Lesson if you haven’t already.
Navigate to Activity > Calendar and click Add New Lesson.
An example of a Calendar view, with the Add New Lesson button highlighted.
Select the Job the Lesson will be attached to from the dropdown menu.
This will open the Create Lesson page, where you will be prompted to schedule a date & time for the Lesson and a topic title for the Lesson. You can also select which users attached to the Lesson’s Job will be attending the Lesson if necessary, and also specify a Location. Upon submission Lessons that took place in the past will be recorded and be marked as ‘Complete’, whereas future Lessons will be scheduled in the Calendar and marked as ‘Planned’.
Creating a Lesson from a Client booking
Clients can also book Lessons from their end - read more about that here.
Repeating a previously-created Lesson
Read about repeated Lessons below.
What do the Lesson statuses mean?
These are the different Lesson statuses and what they mean:
Planned: The Lesson is scheduled to take place at a future date/time.
Awaiting Confirmation: The Lesson’s scheduled date/time has passed, but it is still awaiting being marked as ‘Complete’ (or cancelled) by an Administrator or Tutor.
Complete: The Lesson has been marked as ‘Complete’ by an Administrator or Tutor, and will be included in Invoices and Payment Orders.
Cancelled: The Lesson has been marked as cancelled before or after the scheduled date/time, and will therefore not be included in any Invoices or Payment Orders.
How do I cancel a Lesson?
Simply navigate to the Lesson’s main page and select the Cancel button. This will open the ‘Cancel Lesson’ panel, from where you add in a reason for the cancellation if you wish.
An example of a cancelled Lesson.
Cancelled Lessons will still be searchable in the Lesson list and will appear on the Job it’s attached to. They can also still be edited and marked as ‘Complete’. Invoices and Payment Orders will not regenerate for Lessons that have been cancelled. If Credit Requests were used to prepay for the Lesson, they will still remain attached to the cancelled Lesson and will remain marked as ‘paid’.
How do I cancel a Lesson but still charge for it?
Simply navigate to the Lesson’s main page and click the downwards arrow next to the Cancel button - the ‘Cancel but still charge’ option will appear in the dropdown - select this to mark the Lesson as ‘Cancelled but Chargeable’.
An example of a Lesson that is cancelled but chargeable.
Lessons that are marked as ‘Cancelled but chargeable’ will still be searchable in the Lesson list and will appear on the Job it’s attached to. They can also still be edited, repeated and marked as ‘Complete’ or ‘Cancelled’. Invoices and Payment Orders will not regenerate for Lessons that have been cancelled. If Credit Requests were used to prepay for the Lesson, they will still remain attached to the cancelled Lesson and will remain marked as ‘paid’.
How do I send a Lesson schedule?
A detailed list of your Client's upcoming Lessons can be sent by navigating to your Lesson list view (via Activity > Calendar > View in List) before using the Filter button and choosing a Client to filter out the Lesson list by. Once those Lessons are filtered out, click Send to Client to send that user a detailed Lesson schedule.
Sending a Client their Lesson schedule.
Note: Make sure that the Email Definition for 'Send Lesson Schedule' is enabled. You can check this by navigating to System > Settings > Communication Settings > Email Definitions.
How do my Clients pay for Lessons?
Note: If you are based in the UK and acting as an Employment Agency, then the way that Lessons are billed for works slightly differently for you - read up on how Employment Agency Lessons are Invoiced for here.
Every Lesson that is logged on TutorCruncher will create charges for any Clients who have Students attached to that Lesson. The charges are calculated by multiplying the Client’s assigned charge rate with the number of Lesson units. These charges are added to the Client’s Invoice when Invoices are regenerated for that Lesson.
There are two main ways that your Clients can pay for their Lessons:
Drafting and then Raising Invoices (billing for Lessons in arrears).
Drafting and then Raising Credit Requests (billing for Lessons in advance).
A list of any Invoices/Credit Requests that have been raised against a Lesson can be found on the Lesson’s ‘Accounting’ tab.
An example of a Lesson’s Accounting tab, showing an associated unpaid Credit Request.
You can use Auto Invoicing which allows Invoices to be automatically sent to a Client when a particular Lesson is marked complete. This Invoice will apply to any and all students involved in the Lesson completed and it will be triggered on either a Job-by-Job basis or a branch-wide basis.
Invoices which are sent out via Auto Invoice appear as normal under Accounting > Raised Invoices and can be charged in the same ways. If Auto Charge is enabled this will still apply to Auto Invoices and the corresponding Invoices will be charged.
Note: Enabling Auto Invoice will automatically require that Lesson reports be written at the end of a Lesson, this will be the case regardless of whether or not you have selected the option for Lesson Reports Required.
How do my Tutors get paid for Lessons?
Note: If you are based in the UK and acting as an Employment Agency, then the way that Tutors get paid works slightly differently for you - read up on how Tutors working for Employment Agencies get paid here.
We leave paying your Tutors for Lessons they give up to you - from an accounting perspective, you can draft and raise Payment Orders for your Tutors, so that both you and they can track how much they have been paid and how much they are owed.
Any Payment Orders for a Tutor that are associated with a particular Lesson can be found on that Lesson’s Accounting tab.
An example of a Lesson’s accounting tab, showing an associated paid Payment Order.
How do I delete a Lesson?
Simply navigate to the Lesson’s main page and select Actions > Delete from the dropdown menu. Lessons can be deleted regardless of their status, but any Lessons with a raised Invoice or Payment Order associated with them cannot be deleted (you would need to void any Invoices or Payment Orders associated with that Lesson in order to then delete it). Similarly, if the Lesson is attached to a Job that has been marked as ‘Finished’, you will not be able to delete or edit that Lesson.
Why can’t I edit a Lesson?
Any Lessons that are either attached to Jobs that have been marked as ‘Finished’ or that have raised Invoices or Payment Orders associated with them cannot be edited. The Job would either need to have its status changed and any Invoices/Payment Orders associated with it would need to be marked as ‘Void’.
Can my Clients book Lessons?
Yes - your Clients can book Lessons from their end either when logged into your TutorCruncher platform, or via your website. Find out how Clients can book Lessons and Tutors in our step by step guide below.
How do I add an extra expense/fee to a Lesson?
Extra fees or expenses can be added to Lessons via Ad Hoc Charges - to add an Ad Hoc Charge to a Lesson, navigate to the Lesson’s Activity tab and select the Add button on the ‘Ad Hoc Charges’ panel to open the ‘Add Ad Hoc Charge’ panel, where you can fill in the Ad Hoc Charge’s information before submitting.
Adding an Ad Hoc Charge to a Lesson.
Can I give my Students a different charge rate for a particular Lesson?
The charge rates for Students are first specified when creating the Lesson’s Job, but these can be overridden and a custom charge rate assigned to the Student for a particular Lesson by navigating to the Lesson’s main page and selecting the purple pen & paper icon next to the Student’s name within the ‘Students’ panel. This will open the ‘Edit Charge Rate’ panel, from where you can either specify a custom charge rate for that Student, or revert to the default rate using the Reset to Default Rate button if a custom charge rate was previously given.
Setting a custom charge rate for a Student on a Lesson.
Can I give my Tutors a different pay rate for a particular Lesson?
The pay rates for Tutors are first specified when creating the Lesson’s Job, but these can be overridden and a custom pay rate assigned to the Tutor for a particular Lesson by navigating to the Lesson’s main page and selecting the purple pen & paper icon next to the Tutor’s name within the Tutors’ panel. This will open the ‘Edit Pay Rate’ panel, from where you can either specify a custom pay rate for that Tutor, or revert to the default rate using the Reset to Default Rate button if a custom pay rate was previously given.
Setting a custom pay rate for a Tutor on a Lesson.
How can I remind a Tutor to mark a Lesson as ‘Complete’?
If you navigate to your Email Definitions, there is an automated email called ‘Reminder to mark Lesson(s) complete’ - enabling this will mean that your Tutors are sent a daily email reminder to mark any Lessons that are ‘Awaiting Confirmation’ as ‘Complete’ if they haven’t done so within 24 hours.
How are my users notified when a Lesson is due to take place?
For this you can use Lesson Reminders - read more about them here.
Can I send my Clients a schedule of their upcoming Lessons?
Yes you can - simply navigate to Activity > Calendar and select View in List. Once in the list view, you can filter out the Lesson list by using the Filter button - here you can filter out the Lesson list the associated users, the Job the Lesson is on, the Lesson’s Location, a date/time range, as well as the status of any Invoices that might be associated with the Lesson(s).
Filtering out the Lesson list.
Once a filter has been applied, you can use the Send to Client button at the top of the list to send the Client a schedule of the filtered Lessons.
How do I mark attendance on a Lesson?
If a Lesson has multiple Students attending, you can mark their attendance using the attendance buttons next to their name within the ‘Students’ panel.
A Lesson’s main page, with the attendance buttons highlighted.
There are three options for marking attendance:
Attended - chargeable: This is the green tick button; if this is selected, it marks the Student as having attended the Lesson and the Client will be charged accordingly.
Did not attend - not chargeable: This is the white cross icon; if this is selected, it marks the Student as absent from the Lesson and the Client will not be charged.
Did not attend - chargeable: This is the blue dollar icon; if this is selected, it marks the Student as absent from the Lesson, but the Client will still be charged.
Attendance isn’t marked if there is only one Student on the Lesson - in cases where a single Student is absent from a Lesson, the Administrator or Tutor can simply set the status of the Lesson to either ‘Cancelled’ or ‘Cancelled but Chargeable’.
Can a Client cancel a Lesson booking?
Your Clients can cancel their booked Lessons by selecting the planned Lesson from the Calendar view on their Client dashboard and selecting Cancel Booking.
Lessons that are cancelled more than 24 hours before they were due to start will set the Student’s attendance status on that Lesson to ‘Did not attend - not chargeable’.
Can I still charge a Client for a late cancellation?
Within System > Settings > People and Activity > Activity there is the ‘Lesson late cancellation notice’ number field which defines the minimum notice period in hours a Client must give in order to not be billed for a cancelled Lesson.
Setting a late cancellation notice period of 24 hours.
If a Client cancels their Lesson within this period, their attendance on the Lesson will be marked as ‘Did not attend - chargeable’ and Invoices can still be generated for that Lesson.
Can Students cancel booked Lessons?
Only Clients can cancel booked Lessons - Students cannot cancel Lessons within TutorCruncher.
Can I download and send a report of a Student’s attendance to their associated Client?
Yes - simply navigate to the profile of the Client you wish to send an attendance report to and open the ‘Activity’ tab. Within the Jobs panel, select the Attendance Report button to open the ‘Student Attendance Report’ panel.
Here you can set the date range that you want the attendance report to cover, select which Students you would like the attendance report to cover, and choose whether to email the Client or download the document yourself.
Generating a Student attendance report.
An example of an attendance report.
Why wasn’t a Lesson marked as ‘Cancelled but Chargeable’ automatically Invoiced?
It’s important to note that only Lessons that have been marked as ‘Complete’ will automatically be Invoiced for if you have Auto Invoice enabled in your general accounting settings.
Can I edit a cancelled Lesson?
No - once a Lesson has been marked as ‘Cancelled’, no further changes or edits can be made to that Lesson unless the Lesson is instead marked as ‘Complete’.
How do I set up a repeating Lesson?
Repeated Lessons can be set up by following these steps:
First create a Job if you haven’t already, and create the first of the Lessons you want to repeat.
Navigate to the first Lesson’s main page and select Actions > Repeat.
This will open the ‘Repeat Lesson’ panel, where you will be prompted to specify the frequency that the Lesson will repeat (never, weekly or daily) and the rate at which the Lesson repeats. You can also specify which days of the week you want the Lesson to repeat on. It will repeat on those weekdays if the frequency is set to ‘Weekly’. If no days are selected here, then the Lesson will be repeated once a week starting from the first Lesson’s date. You will also be prompted to specify how many times the Lesson will repeat, alongside whether it is going to stop on a certain date or stop after a certain number of repetitions.
Creating a weekly Lesson to happen on every Tuesday and Thursday for 6 weeks.
If the Lesson/Job has a Location associated with it, you can click Check Conflicts to see if the Location will be available for all of the repeated Lessons. If no Location is specified, you can simply click Submit.
Note: You can create up to 50 repeated Lessons at once.
How do I edit repeated Lessons?
Simply navigate to the Lesson in the sequence that you want to edit and select Actions > Edit. You can then edit the date/time of the Lesson, the Lesson’s Location and title. For repeated Lessons, there will be a ‘Apply changes to future repeated appointments’ checkbox that you can enable to apply any changes made to this Lesson for Lessons planned after it.
Editing a repeated Lesson and applying those changes to future Lessons.
For instance, if you have a series of five repeated Lessons starting at 5PM, shifting start time of the third Lesson in that sequence by an hour to start at 6pm will give you the option to shift the start times of the fourth and fifth Lessons by an hour too.
This is done dynamically - if, for instance, the fourth repeated Lesson in that sequence had previously been set to two hours earlier at 3pm, then rather than that Lesson being set to start at 6pm, it would instead shift forward an hour as with the others, for a start time of 4pm.
How do I delete a series of repeated Lessons?
To delete a series of repeated Lessons, you will need to navigate to the first Lesson in that sequence. You can easily find this Lesson by navigating to any of the repeated Lessons and expanding the ‘More details’ section within the Lesson’s status panel. You can then click View Original Lesson to view the first Lesson in that sequence.
Locating a repeated Lesson’s original Lesson.
Once you’ve located the first Lesson, select Actions > Repeat to open the ‘Repeat Lesson’ panel - simply choose ‘Never’ from the ‘Repeat’ dropdown menu to delete the repeated Lessons.
Note: Only Lessons marked as ‘Planned’ will be deleted - any Lessons marked as ‘Complete’ will not be deleted.
How do I change the stop date of a repeated Lesson?
The stop date of a repeated Lesson can be adjusted simply by navigating to the original Lesson, selecting Actions > Repeat and changing the stop date from the menu. If there were previously repeated Lessons that went beyond the new stop date, they will be removed.
Can I record Lessons?
If the Job the Lesson is on is integrated with TutorCruncher Video, you can record that Lesson’s online meeting - read more about that here.
What are Online Whiteboards and how do I integrate them on TutorCruncher?
Online integrations are online whiteboard providers who have integrated with TutorCruncher. There are various options to choose from, and they can be found via System > Settings > Integrations > Online Integrations.
The Online Integrations page. In this example, the user has integrated with TutorCruncher Video and Lesson Space.
To integrate with any of the available online integrations, simply select one from the Available Integrations section, this will open the integration’s relevant panel, from which you can select Add Integration. This panel also has options for you to view the integration’s website and pricing information.
The MeritHub Classroom integration panel, with the Add Integration button highlighted.
Once you have added an integration, the integration will be connected to your TutorCruncher platform, and you will be able to add this integration to your Jobs - simply navigate to a Job, select Actions > Select Online Integration. From here you can select your desired online integration from the dropdown menu.
Do you use a tool that you’d love to see integrated with TutorCruncher? Reach out to us via info@Tutorcruncher.com and we can discuss it further. You can also give us suggestions for new integrations via our feedback form.
You can also add a custom integration - from the Online Integrations page, select Add Custom Integration. Selecting this will open the Add Online Integration panel, from where you can configure the custom integration. Once that’s done, you will be able to select the integration for your Jobs.
You can integrate with as many online whiteboards as you'd like - simply navigate to System > Settings > Integrations > Online Integrations and add the integrations as needed. These will then appear in the dropdown menu found on the Select Online Integration panel found by selecting Actions on a created Job.
How do I specify a default online whiteboard integration?
A default online whiteboard integration that is applied to all created Jobs can be specified within the Activity panel in System > Settings > People and Activity > Activity:
The Default Online Integration dropdown menu (highlighted) can be found at the bottom of the Activity panel found in your system settings.
Online whiteboard integrations can be removed via System > Settings > Integrations > Online Integrations - select the integration you wish to remove from the Your Integrations panel and select the Remove button.
Why can’t I see my online whiteboard integration as an option?
The most likely explanation is that you haven’t yet integrated with that integration - you can check this by navigating to System > Settings > Integrations > Online Integrations - if it has been integrated, it will appear under the Your Integrations panel.
How do I access the Online Whiteboard?
When a Lesson is due to commence within the next day, the link to the online integration will appear as a button on the Lesson's page.
A Lesson's main page, with the online integration link highlighted.
Online whiteboards can also be accessed by selecting the integration from the sidebar.
Accessing the TutorCruncher Video online whiteboard from the Administrator's dashboard.
If a Tutor has an upcoming online session, they can access the whiteboard from their dashboard. Students too can see their upcoming session on their TutorCruncher dashboard. Online whiteboards can also be accessed directly from Lesson reminders.
Can I use different whiteboards for different Lessons?
When you assign a whiteboard integration to a Job, that whiteboard will be assigned to all future planned Lessons. You can change the integration for any planned Lessons, however you cannot assign a different whiteboard to individual Lessons.
Does an online whiteboard come free with my TutorCruncher account?
The online integrations offered via our integration marketplace have a subscription-based pricing model. You can find out more about the pricing of the respective integrations by selecting the Pricing button next to the integration you are viewing.
Fees and charges for usage of these services are not paid via your TutorCruncher billing; they are paid directly to the whiteboard provider.