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Calendar & bookings

/dashboard/calendar

The calendar is the studio's single live schedule. Everything that happens in a room — classes, practices, private lessons, rentals, and workshops — lives here, and families book against it in real time. You can view it by Day, Week, Month, or Agenda, jump to today, and a live line marks the current time.

The Legend button in the calendar's toolbar decodes the colors: click it to see one entry per event type — under the names your studio gives them, including any free event types of your studio's own — plus one per dance level for level-tagged classes. The names, colors, and which types appear at all are yours to change on Settings → Branding, and weeks start on whichever day your studio picks in Settings.

app.idaos.co/dashboard/calendar
The studio calendar in week view showing classes, a private lesson, and a rental, color-coded with a legend
The iPhone app's Calendar tab in week view with a date strip, color-coded event dots, and upcoming classes with open seat counts

Creating a calendar block

Staff build the schedule by adding blocks. Click any empty time slot to open the block editor.

Blocks are color-coded by type, and classes by their dance level — the Legend button above the calendar opens the full color key. You can rename, recolor, and hide event types in Settings → Branding. Use 'blackout' blocks for closures and holidays so families can see at a glance when the studio is unavailable.

  1. 1Click an empty slot on the calendar.
  2. 2Give the block a title and choose its type: class, practice, private lesson, rental, or blackout — shown under the names your studio has given them — or one of your studio's own free event types, which sit at the end of the picker. Admins can also pick Workshop to open the full workshop/camp form with that date and time already filled in (same flow as the Workshops page); those dates then land on the calendar automatically.
  3. 3For a class, optionally tag one of your studio's dance levels — this color-codes the class by level on the calendar.
  4. 4If your studio has more than one location, choose where the block happens — or leave it on 'All locations' to show it on every location's calendar.
  5. 5Set its visibility — members, public, staff-only, or a private invite where you tick specific families.
  6. 6Enter the start and end times, a member rate (the flat price a family pays to book), an optional external rate, and a capacity. Practice slots are the exception — see the note below. Tick 'Hide seat count from members' if you would rather families just see Available or Full — booking still stops when it fills.
  7. 7Under More options, add a description members can see — what to bring, where to meet, what the class covers. It sits apart from Notes, which stay internal to staff.
  8. 8Assign one or more instructors. Whether families see instructor names is controlled by 'Show instructors to members' in Settings (off by default).
  9. 9To repeat it, set a recurrence (daily, weekdays, weekly, biweekly, or monthly) with an end date. Under 'Except these dates', optionally list days to leave out — Christmas, spring break, any week the class doesn't run — and those days simply aren't created. Or choose 'Specific dates' to hand-pick individual days instead.

Note. Practice slots are priced automatically — not by the member rate. Each booking is charged the booking student's plan practice hourly rate × the slot length, so the total can differ per student level (the lowest applicable rate is used for a family). The rate shown on a practice block is only a fallback per-hour rate, used when a booker has no matching plan.

All-day and multi-day blocks

Not everything fits between two clock times. Tick 'All day' on any block to give it inclusive start and end dates instead — one day or many — for feis weekends, camps, and closures. In day and week views, all-day events sit in their own 'All day' lane above the timed grid, with a wash of the event's color across the days they cover; in month and agenda views they lead each day, labeled 'All day'. The option works with every event type and with recurrence, on the web and in the iPhone app, and families see and book all-day events just like any other.

Editing and managing blocks

Open any block to edit its details, change instructors, or delete it. You can delete a single occurrence or an entire recurring series. Duplicate copies a block into a pre-filled form — everything but the date — so repeating last month's masterclass is a couple of clicks, on the web and in the iPhone app. Capacity cannot be set below the number of people already booked, and a block with active bookings cannot be deleted until those are cleared — this protects families who have already signed up.

The edit form also lists every day the block runs under 'Dates in this series', so you can check a whole series without scrolling the calendar — and you can add or remove days right there. Each date you add uses the start and end times and details from the form, keeps the same instructors (and, for a private block, the same invited families), and joins the series, so series edits and deletes cover it from then on. Adding dates to a one-off block turns it into a series and its roster carries over; dates the series already includes are skipped automatically. To skip a day the series already has — a holiday, a cancelled week — remove its date from the list (click the ✕ on the web, tap the date in the app) and save: that day comes off the calendar and the rest of the series is untouched. A date with an active booking can't be removed until the booking is cancelled, and adding a removed date back before saving simply keeps it. This works the same on the web and in the iPhone app.

Approving who attends

Each bookable event has an attendee roster. You can approve, decline, or remove individual bookings right from the event — and everything waiting on you collects in the Booking Requests tab at the top of the Calendar page, which wears a badge with the count of pending requests. The tab holds two lists: Time suggestions — times families have proposed for practice, a private lesson, or studio rental — and booking requests awaiting approval.

Approving a request for a priced slot also raises the charge: it appears in Outstanding payments for that family, and the family pays it from their Payments page on the web or in the app. Free slots are simply confirmed.

Every decision reaches the family on its own: approvals, declines, and cancellations go out by email — and as a push notification when the family uses the iPhone app — whether you decide on the web or in the app.

Workshop and camp dates

Dates that belong to a workshop or camp appear on the calendar like any other event. Families who click one open the same package, dancer, and date selection they would from Workshops — and pay once — without hunting for the offering on that page first. If they already registered, the calendar links them to view that registration in Workshops. Staff see the roster — one entry per registered dancer — with a Manage in Workshops button. In the iPhone app, tapping a workshop date opens that workshop (and registration) in the app.

Your studio's own free events

Beyond the built-in types, a studio can add free event types of its own — a performance, a show rehearsal, a parade — under Custom free event types on Settings → Branding. Events of a custom type are always free: when staff create one there are no price fields, just a capacity and the usual details, and on the calendar the event wears the name and color the studio gave the type — in the legend, on the event chips, and on its details — on the web and in the iPhone app.

Families sign up for one the same way they book any other slot: open it, pick the student, and confirm — no charge, ever. Whether the spot confirms instantly or goes to staff for a quick review first follows the studio's booking rules for these events; they start on staff review, so a sign-up may show as pending until the studio approves it.

Reviewing time suggestions

When a family suggests a time, it appears under Time suggestions with who asked, the type, the time, and the cost — the same amount the family saw when they sent it. Approve it to publish the slot and book it for that family at that cost: the booking is confirmed right away and the charge lands in their Outstanding payments, so they can pay immediately. Decline it to clear the request instead — either way the family is notified automatically, by email and by push in the iPhone app. Approving and declining are admin actions; instructors can see the list but not decide.

You do not have to keep checking the tab: every admin is emailed the moment a request comes in, and can get a push alert on their phone too. Both are on by default — the email is controlled under Notifications (user menu → Notifications), the push alert in the iPhone app.

The calendar remembers where you were

Web dashboard

Leave the Calendar page and come back — from the sidebar, or after approving a request or finishing a booking — and it picks up where you left off, reopening on the dates you were last looking at instead of resetting to the current week.

Studios with more than one location

If your studio runs more than one location, a location filter appears next to the calendar's view switcher. Staff start on all locations; families start on their own home location and can switch to All locations (or any other location) whenever they like. An event assigned to 'All locations' shows up whichever location you are viewing, and opening any event shows where it happens — on the web and in the iPhone app. Setting locations up is covered on the Multiple locations page of this guide.

On the iPhone app

iPhone app

The Calendar tab shows the same live schedule in Day, Week, Month, or Agenda view. A date strip up top carries colored dots for each day's events, every event card shows its time and type — bookable events also show how many seats are open — and tapping one opens its full details. A class's open-seat count appears on its detail sheet instead, counted from who actually holds a seat in the class. Staff add events with the New event button — with the same all-day option, member-visible description, seat-count hiding, and recurrence choices (including 'Except these dates' for skipping holidays) as the web — and admins approve time suggestions and booking requests from cards at the top of the list. Editing an event shows the same 'Dates in this series' list as the web, with the same options to add more dates to the series or remove dates from it. Wherever you hand-pick days in the app — 'Specific dates', 'Except these dates', or adding dates to a series — tap Add a date, choose the day in the sheet that opens, and confirm with Add; each chosen day appears as a chip, and tapping a chip takes it back off the list. Families browse and book the open slots just like on the web, the Suggest a time button proposes practice, a private lesson, or studio rental with the same type choices, length shortcuts, and up-front cost as the web, and the same 'Attend this class' panel appears on classes a dancer's plan can claim. Your studio's own free event types are in the app too: they appear in the type picker when staff create or edit an event, their events carry the type's name and color across the calendar and home screen, and families sign up for them at no charge, just like on the web.