LearnDesk Live Classes enables you to run classes that occur regularly. For example, your guitar class occurs every Friday, 6-7 pm. Recurring-schedule classes are a great way to organize your ongoing classes where you teach groups of students at a set schedule each week or month.
Terminology
- Recurring Event: Recurring event is an instance of a repeating schedule that can be booked by your students.
- Event dialog box: An event dialog box shows up whenever you add or edit a recurring event in your Schedule.
Setting up Recurring Events
Once you have completed the basic information of the class, added the pricing, and submitted the class for approval, it's time for you to set up the recurring events for the live class.
Events in LearnDesk include location, date, time, occurrence, and additional fields that are combined to enable students to book a slot on their calendars.
To know if your class supports the recurring events schedule, check the helper label below the class name in the class editor, as shown below:
To set up/edit the events for a class that you have already created, navigate to the list of Live Classes for your School, click on the class that you want to edit, and then click on the "Events" tab.
Location
As a first step towards setting up your recurring event, you need to set the location of the events of the class. The location can be any one or a combination of the following options:
- Phone: If you will be teaching over a phone call/conference call, input the phone number and additional dial-in information at which the students should call you at the time of the event.
- Address: If you will be teaching at a physical location, input the address for the location where the students should come to attend the event. For example, the address of your teaching facility.
- URL: If you will be teaching using online meetings software like Zoom or Webex or GoToMeeting, you can input the URL of your meeting.
Location is a required field.
Schedule
The schedule is the fundamental part of a live class. In the schedule of a recurring live class, you select the dates and times on which the events of the class would occur and how long the events will continue to occur.
The schedule for a recurring live class is set by adding events on your calendar, as shown below:
Event Title
To get started with adding an event, click on the day when the recurring event should start. In the resulting event dialog input the event title.
Start Time, End Time, and Teacher
Next, input the start and end times and select the teacher.
Repeat
Next, select the repeat schedule for the event. if the event repeats every week, select the day(s) of the week when the event will be held. For example, in the image below, the event will occur on Tuesday and Friday of every week from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
You also have the option to set the repeating schedule for the class to be monthly, as shown below:
Ends
By default, a recurring event is set to end in 12 months. If you want the event to end on a specific date you can do so. You can also set the event to end after a specific number of occurrences. If your class occurs several times a week, then each of the class meetings is counted towards the total number of occurrences. For example, if your class meets twice a week, and you set it to end after 20 times, then the class schedule will end in 10 weeks.
Enable
LearnDesk provides you with a way to stop taking new signups for a recurring event schedule while allowing existing students of the schedule to continue accessing the calendar events and materials. This option is especially useful when you no longer want to receive new signups for a particular event schedule.
You can change the status of any class event by using the "Enable this recurring event" option. Events are enabled by default. However, you can disable the event or re-enable a previously disabled event using this option.
Only enabled events are available for sign-up by new students from the class sales page. Disabling an event does not cancel the recurring event.
Color
You can add a color for the event, which will help to differentiate between multiple classes, as shown below:
Click "+n events", to display the effects of the color feature in multiple classes, as shown below:
Apply
Once you have set the event title, time, repeat cycle, and ending, it's time for you to apply the event schedule to your calendar. To do so, click on the "Apply" button in the dialog box, as shown below:
Remove
LearnDesk provides you with a way to remove a recurring event schedule from your live class. You can remove an event schedule only if there are no students associated with the event. To remove all students associated with the event schedule, read the Cancel help document.
You can remove a recurring event schedule by clicking on the "Remove" button located in the event dialog box, as shown below:
View all Events for a Day
If you have set up more than 2 events per day, you can access the additional events for that particular day by clicking on the label "+n events". When you do so, you will get a dialog box similar to the one shown below, which will list all the events for that particular day. Click on any of the events to continue editing their recurring schedule.
Reorder Events
If you have set up more than 2 events per day, you can reorder the events by clicking on the label "Reorder events". When you do so, you will get a dialog box similar to the one shown below, which will list all the events in your particular live class. Click on the drag button on any of the events to continue reordering the events, as shown below:
Once you have reordered the events, click on the "Apply" button in the dialog box, as shown below:
Time Interval Conflicts
If your school has multiple teachers who are going to teach at the same time, you can add their events to the calendar which does not cause "Time Interval Conflict", as shown below:
After scheduling the events, the image shown below portrays multiple teachers with the same timings.
If the Check Conflicts option is enabled, an attempt to add a new event at the time of a day when an event is already defined for the same teacher will display an error message "This time interval has a conflict. Click here to view the conflicts", as shown below:
When you click the link "Click here", a new information window will appear and it will display the list of classes that have time interval conflicts, as shown below:
This error message shows up when you conflict with the start and the end time selected in the event dialog box. This time interval conflict checking is done against all the events of all the live classes for that particular teacher in your school. This facility prevents double bookings of a particular teacher.
To fix this issue, tick the check conflicts check box to avoid clashes with other live classes. Choose a different start and end time that does not have a time interval conflict against any other event of all the live classes for that particular teacher in your school.
Time Zone
You can change the time zone for all the events in your schedule. To change the time zone, click on the "Edit" icon located next to the time zone, as shown below. From the resulting drop-down, select the new time zone.
Maximum Students
To effectively manage your live class, and provide a meaningful experience to your students, you can limit the maximum number of students who can book a particular recurring event schedule.
You can set the maximum number of students for each recurring event by inputting a number in the "Maximum Students" input box, as shown below:
Limits for maximum students
Maximum values that you can input in this field are related to the Location set for the events of the live class. Following are the maximum values as per the location.
- Phone: 100
- Address: 100
- URL: 100
Check Conflicts
Enable Check Conflicts to manage time conflicts between multiple events created by a particular teacher, as shown below:
Notifications
LearnDesk's Live Class Notifications feature enables teachers to send Emails and SMS to their students and provide them with information about the class. Event notifications are a powerful tool that allows teachers to engage students. Amongst other uses, event notifications help increase class attendance and help students come better prepared for class. Notifications include a variety of messages such as messages that can be sent out when students book a class or messages that are sent out before the start of the class.
Email Notifications
Teachers can set up the following Email notifications for Recurring classes:
- Confirmation Email: Message sent when a student buys the class.
- Cancellation Email: A message is sent if the class is canceled by the teacher or the student.
- Reminder Emails: One or more messages that are sent before the start of the class.
Confirmation Email
The confirmation email sends students a system-generated email confirmation once they book the class. The email lists the time and location of the class. The time of class is listed as per the student's time zone. The location of the class is listed as per the location set by the teacher under the Location section. This includes the phone number, address information, or the URL to be used for the web meeting.
The confirmation email is set up using the "Confirmation Email" checkbox, as shown below:
Cancellation Email
The cancellation email sends out a system-generated email to students and the teacher.
The cancellation email is sent in the following scenarios:
- If the student cancels their booking for the recurring class. This means that the student removed themselves from the class.
- If the teacher cancels the booking of a student. This means that the student has been removed from the class.
- If the teacher cancels one of the events of the recurring event schedule. The cancellation email is sent to each of the students in the class.
The cancellation email is set up using the "Cancellation Email" checkbox, as shown below:
Reminder Emails
The reminder emails are sent out before the start of the class and help increase class attendance and engagement. You can ensure that your students come better prepared for the class by including the class agenda, reading materials, class rules, class requirements, and other such materials. This will help you get started with teaching right away during the live class.
The reminder notification is set up using the "Reminder Email" checkbox and by entering information after clicking the "Manage" button, as shown below:
You can use a customized subject line and email body for the reminder notification, as shown below. The body of the email supports rich-formatting options.
The reminder notifications automatically include the time and location of the class. You can further customize the email and include additional information with the use of email template variables. To view the list of available variables, click on the "Variables" button, located next to each of the subject and body labels.
Clicking on the variables button should bring up the variables dialog, as shown below. Click on any of the variables to add them to the subject or body.
You can restore the default subject and body for the reminder email by clicking on the "Restore default" button, located next to each of the subject and body labels.
You can set the reminders to be sent up to 3 times before the start of the class. You can configure the time at which the reminder emails are sent before the start of the class under the "Timing" section, as shown below:
You have the option to set the time in minutes, hours, or days. For example, you can set the reminder notification to be sent out 30 minutes, 2 hours, or 3 days before the start of the class.
Reminders can be set up to be sent from 0 minutes to 25 days before the start of the class.
Check out the Email Template Variables help document to learn how to add the name and email address of the student in the notification emails.
SMS Notifications
Teachers can set up the following SMS notifications for regular classes:
- Confirmation SMS: Message sent when a student buys the class.
- Cancellation SMS: A message is sent if the class is canceled by the teacher or the student.
- Reminder SMS: One or more messages that are sent before the start of the class.
Confirmation SMS
The confirmation SMS sends students a system-generated SMS confirmation once they book the class. The SMS lists the time and location of the class. The time of class is listed as per the student's time zone. The location of the class is listed as per the location set by the teacher under the Location section. This includes the phone number, address information, or the URL to be used for the web meeting.
The confirmation SMS is set up using the "Confirmation SMS" checkbox, as shown below:
Cancellation SMS
The cancellation SMS sends out a system-generated SMS to students and the teacher.
The cancellation SMS is sent in the following scenarios:
- If the student cancels their booking for the recurring class. This means that the student removed themselves from the class.
- If the teacher cancels the booking of a student. This means that the student has been removed from the class.
- If the teacher cancels one of the events of the recurring event schedule. The cancellation SMS is sent to each of the students in the class.
The cancellation SMS is set up using the "Cancellation SMS" checkbox, as shown below:
Reminder SMS
The reminder SMS is sent out before the start of the class and helps increase class attendance and engagement. You can ensure that your students come better prepared for the class by including the class agenda, reading materials, class rules, class requirements, and other such materials. This will help you get started with teaching right away during the live class.
The reminder notification is set up using the "Reminder SMS" checkbox and by entering information after clicking the "Manage" button, as shown below:
You can use a customized sms body for the reminder notification, as shown below. The body of the sms supports rich-formatting options.
The reminder notifications automatically include the time and location of the class. You can further customize the SMS and include additional information with the use of SMS template variables. To view the list of available variables, click on the "Variables" button, located next to the body label.
Clicking on the variables button should bring up the variables dialog, as shown below. Click on any of the variables to add them to the body.
You can restore the default body for the reminder SMS by clicking on the "Restore default" button, located next to the body label.
You can set the reminders to be sent up to 3 times before the start of the class. You can configure the time at which the reminder SMS are sent before the start of the class under the "Timing" section, as shown below:
You can set the time in minutes, hours, or days. For example, you can set the reminder notification to be sent out 30 minutes, 2 hours, or 3 days before the start of the class.
Reminders can be set up to be sent from 0 minutes to 25 days before the start of the class.
Save
You should continue to save the events set up frequently, as you keep making changes. The "Save" button is on the bottom right of the screen. You can also save using the keyboard combination CTRL+S on Windows and ⌘+S on Mac, as shown below:
You will also be notified by email of any changes that you have saved, as shown below:
Publish
Once, you have set the location, schedule, maximum number of students, and notifications, and saved the setup, you are ready to publish the events to the sales page of your class. Click the "Publish" button on the bottom right of the screen to post the events to the sales page.
You can publish the events to the sales page only after the class has been approved.
Following is how the events schedule will look on the sales page of the live class.
Updates to Schedule
If as part of your changes to the events of the class, you have updated the location or the schedule, then the resulting updates are automatically reflected on the student's and teachers' schedules. This will also result in the availability of the events of the recurring schedule getting reset to the default. An automatic email notification will be sent out to the students and the teacher providing them with the updates made to the class.