Letting families book a trial lesson online

Families can book a trial lesson themselves, from a link you share or a form on your own website. Nothing is confirmed until you approve it: a booking holds its time while it waits for you, and you say yes or no from one inbox.

Switching it on

Open Settings → Self-serve portal and tick Take bookings online. It is off until you do, and while it is off your booking link and form show nothing.

Two lists on the same page decide what families are offered:

• Teachers who take bookings — tick each teacher, and where they take trials. Only ticked teachers are offered, and a teacher also needs working hours set before any of their times appear.

• Instruments — every instrument you offer starts ticked. Untick any you would rather arrange yourself.

Until everything is in place, a Before families can book box at the top of the page lists what is missing — no teacher ticked, a teacher with no working hours, or no instrument taught by a teacher who takes bookings.

The trial lesson

• Length — from 15 to 120 minutes; 30 to start with.

• Price ($) — shown on the form. Leave it blank for a free trial. Nothing is charged online; you collect it your usual way.

• Earliest booking (hours ahead) and Latest booking (days ahead) — how soon, and how far ahead, a family can book. They start at 24 hours and 14 days. Whatever the earliest setting says, a time less than 13 hours away is never offered, so you always have time to answer.

• Only offer times that are also free every week — on by default, so the trial time can become the student's regular weekly time.

• Show the teacher's first name — off by default, and families then see times only.

If your studio teaches both at the studio and in families' homes, choose which you offer online with Lessons at the studio and Lessons at the family's home. To let families say which of your lessons they are interested in, tick Available on the self-serve portal on each product you want listed.

Limits

These keep a stranger from tying up your calendar. You can lower them, but not raise them.

• Bookings per day — 30 at most.

• Hold a request for (hours) — 72 to start with, anywhere from 24 to 168. If you have neither approved nor declined a request by then, its time is released.

• Waiting requests per teacher (4 at most) and Waiting requests for the studio (20 at most) — how many requests can be waiting on you at once. At the limit, families are offered no more times and can send a request instead.

One email address can have at most two open requests with your studio at a time.

Sharing the link, or embedding the form

Once your studio's own web address is ready, the page shows your Booking link — yourstudio.encorestudio.app/book — with Copy and Open preview beside it. Use it in an email, a social post, or behind a button on your website.

To put the form on your website itself, go to Embed on your website, press Copy, and paste the code where the form should appear. It resizes itself to fit; if your website builder strips the script out, the form still works and scrolls inside its box.

What a family does

They choose the instrument (and the studio or their home, if you offer both), pick one of the open times, and give their details. The time is then held for them while you decide — until your hold runs out, or until 12 hours before the lesson, whichever comes first — and they are emailed to say so. If nothing suits, or nothing is open, they can send a request instead, saying which days and times work for them.

Every booking puts the family on your books straight away, as a lead with a Lead enrollment, so nothing is lost if you are slow to answer. A held time shows on your calendar as a dashed Trial request so nobody books over it.

Approving a request

Requests arrive in Booking requests, a button at the top of People with the waiting count beside it. You are told about each new one in your Notifications inbox, and by email if you have asked for that.

• Approve — confirms the time. A single trial lesson goes on the calendar, the student moves from Lead to Trial with that teacher, and the family and the teacher are both emailed.

• Decline — releases the time and emails the family. The lead stays on your books for follow-up.

• Mark handled — for a request with no time. Arrange the lesson from Enroll as usual, then mark it handled; no email is sent.

If the email belongs to someone you already know, the card says so and nothing is created under them until you choose: Attach to that family, or Create a new family.

If you do not answer

You are reminded — in Notifications and by email — when a held request has been waiting 24 hours, and again at 48. When the hold runs out, the time is released, the family is told it is no longer held, and the card stays in the inbox marked Hold expired. Decline it to clear it.

Lessons in families' homes

For a lesson at home, the family gives their address and up to three days and a time of day that suit them. On the Plus and Pro plans, Encore then looks for a time that puts that address next to a lesson one of your home-lesson teachers already has nearby, with enough time to drive between them — the same engine as Routing. On Core there is no drive-time search, and families asking for a home lesson always get the request form.

Each of those searches uses a paid map service, so your form allows up to 150 a day and 400 in each 30-day period. When it reaches either, families asking for a home lesson get the request form instead of times — their requests still reach you, and lessons at the studio are not affected — and you get one email, Your booking form reached its search limit, saying when searching resumes.

Who can do what

The settings page needs the Settings grant, and the inbox needs People. A manager holding People also gets the reminders, and one holding Settings gets the search-limit email.