Lesson 26

Grow and scale

Courses and classes end to end

A template decides the shape, a course is one intake of it, and the two are edited in different places. That split explains most course questions.

3 min read · Owner or trainer · Growing
Open in Petboost

A course in Petboost is two objects, not one. The template is the recipe: how many sessions, how often, how many pets, what each week is called, what it costs. A course is one intake cooked from that recipe, with real dates and real dogs in it.

Almost every course question comes from editing the wrong one. Changing the template does not move a term that is already running, and renaming a session on a running course does not change next term.

Set the shape on the template

Two numbers on the Course Structure tab decide everything downstream: how many pets can enrol, and how many times the pattern repeats.

  1. Open Courses, then Manage on the template's card and Manage Template.
  2. On Course Structure, set Maximum Capacity and the Number of Occurrences.
  3. Select Edit session titles, then give each session a Title on Lesson Details.
  4. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

The occurrence count is what creates the session rows. Set it before you name the weeks, because dropping from six to four removes the last two titles with them.

Tip

Total capacity is sessions times pets, and it is the number to sanity-check. Eight pets across six weeks is 48 pet-sessions, which is 48 places to fill, not eight.

Publish one intake and watch it fill

Back on Courses, each row is one intake. The coloured bar and the chip tell you its state, the left column tells you when the next session runs, and the panel on the right opens the enrolled dogs.

  1. Open Courses, then Manage on the template's card and Publish New Course.
  2. Fill in Course Setup and Scheduling, selecting Next after each.
  3. On Review & Publish, select Publish New Course.

The inline Add pet only appears while there are places left. A full course still takes an enrolment, but you have to mean it, through Manage, then Enrol Pet.

Dog training: one-to-one work is not a course. A course is a cohort on fixed dates, and a block of private sessions belongs in packages, where the credits are drawn down as they are used. Puppy school: publish the next intake before the last week of the current one. A cohort that graduates with nothing to move into is the easiest enrolment you will ever lose.

Check

A course nobody can see on your website is almost always still a template with no intake published from it. The template is the recipe; clients book the intake.

Move a dog, and decide who hears about it

Someone misses a week or the whole class shifts night. Move to Another Course pairs the sessions they are leaving against the ones they are joining, so you can read the swap before you commit it.

  1. Open Courses, then Manage on the course and View Course.
  2. On the pet's card, open its menu and select Move to Another Course.
  3. Under Sessions to move, choose Entire Course or Select Sessions, then select Next: Choose Course.
  4. Under Target course and sessions, pick the course, then select Next: Review.
  5. Read the pairing, answer Notify customer?, then select Confirm Move.
  6. Check the dates in Move Attendee, then select Move Attendee.

The notify line is the part to slow down on, and it has no default. Send notification sends the owner an email and an SMS for every lesson that moves. Move silently moves the booking and tells nobody, which is what you want when you are fixing your own mistake.