Sessions Overview

Find out what sessions are and how you can use them.

Introduction

Sessions can be used to create recurring or one off club events. These might be training sessions, social events or virtual sessions. Sessions allow you to set capacity limits, enabled waiting lists, take payments or simply provide information to members.

Creating Sessions

Sessions can be created from the admin area at Admin->Sessions->Add Session. The table below outlines all of the options and a description about what they mean.

General
Title

A meaningful name for the session.

Description

Additional details about the session. The description field allows for advanced formatting including but not limited to image uploads, adding YouTube or Vimeo videos, linking to other websites and various heading and formatting options.

Location

Provide information about the location of the session to help them find the meeting point.

Cost

Sets the cost to the member for the session. If no cost is set and bookings are enabled, the session will be considered free and no charge will be made by the platform for the session.

Session Running Cost

The session running cost is used for reporting purposes. ClubPal can track bookings and report on if a session breaks even or loses money. If you don't want to track this you can leave this at zero.

Session Leader(s)

Select from any members registered on the platform to be displayed at session leaders. Any members assigned as a session leader will be able to view the list of bookings for that session.

Categories

Categories allow you to set useful labels on a session. These will be shown on the session details page, and when clicked a list of all sessions in that category will be displayed. This can be useful to group sessions of the same type together e.g. intervals. Categories are also used for reporting so you can see statistics such as attendance grouped by category.

Colour

The colour property allows you to select from a preset list of colours used to display the session in lists. This can be useful to visually group sessions of the same type together in lists. For example, you could set all swimming sessions to be blue, and all running sessions to be red.

Schedule
Start

Sets the start date and time for the session. NOTE: If the session is set to recurring, the start date cannot be changed, although the time can.

End

Sets the end date and time for the session.

Recurring?

Enable this for recurring events, or leave off for one off events.

Frequency

Sets the frequency that a recurring session will repeat. Sessions can repeat Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly.

Every

The interval to repeat e.g. if the Frequency is set to weekly and this value is set to 1, the session will repeat every week.

Ends

Sets how long the recurring session will repeat for. The options are: None; session will repeat forever or until cancelled. After; THe session will repeat for the configured number of sessions. Until; the session will repeat until the configured date, with the last session being on or before the date set.

Booking
Enabled

If bookings should be possible for a session, enable this option. If disabled, members will not be able to book on to a session and no payments will be taken for paid sessions.

Session Capacity Limit

If a capacity limit is required, set the value here. If there is no limit, set the value to 0.

Booking Window

The number of days before a session starts that bookings can be made, and the time of day that bookings will open. This can be useful to stop members block booking several weeks in advance leading to a high rate of cancellations.

Members Only?

If enabled, bookings can only be made by people with a Membership Status of Active, Lapsed or Trial. Other users will not be able to book on to a session.

Cancellation Window

Sets the number of hours before a session starts that a booking can be cancelled. If set to 0, bookings can be cancelled up until the session begins.

Coaches Required

If Coach Bookings are enabled under Admin->Settings->Sessions, this value lets you set the number of coaches required for the session. Coach bookings are not limited by this number; it is used for display to show coach coverage.

Allowed Payment Methods

Sets the payment methods available when booking the session. If more than one method is selected, the member will be able to choose how they want to pay when they book. The options available are based on the Session Settings payments methods enabled in Settings->Payments. See the Payments Documentation for more details.

NOTE: Only available when the session Cost is greater than zero.

Allowed Passes

When Pass is enabled as a payment option, select the passes that are valid for booking this session. See the Passes Documentation for more details.

Participant Information

Information to display to members booked on to the session e.g. Zoom details for virtual sessions. This will only be shown to members with a Confirmed or Coach booking.

Editing a Session

To edit a session, go to the Session Details page on the front end and select the ellipses then Edit session. If it's a recurring session then select either Edit all occurrences to edit all instances of the session, or Edit this occurrence to make changes to just that instance of the session. This can be useful if the session start time or location has changed for a one off session, or the session instance has a different session leader.

NOTE: Some settings cannot be changed when editing a session instance.

Cancelling a Session

Sessions can be cancelled from the session details page by users in the Administrator or Coach roles. For a recurring session you can choose to cancel a specific instance of the session. To cancel a session, visit the session details page then click the ellipses to show the menu and select Cancel. For recurring sessions, edit the session and change the session end date to the desired date to end the series.

When cancelling a session, all members booked on to the session will be emailed informing them the session has been cancelled.

Paying For Sessions

If you want to take payments for sessions on the ClubPal platform, you will need to connect your account to a payment platform. For more information about payments and a list of supported payment platforms, please refer to the Payments Documentation. If you have not connected a payment account, the only payment option available will be "Payment in person".

ClubPal currently supports paying for sessions with either a credit or debit card at the time of booking, or with a pre-purchased Pass. For more information about Passes, please see the Passes Documentation

Coach Bookings

Coach bookings can be enabled at Admin > Settings > Sessions, allowing members in the Administrator or Coach role to book on to a session as a coach. This can be useful when you want to track coach coverage for sessions to ensure you have adequate coaching for a session. You can also set the number of coaches required for a session giving you an overview of coaching provision when viewing sessions in a list. Coaches can book on to a session from the session details page. Alternatively, an administrator can manually add the coach to the session from the same page.

Global Options

Global options for Sessions can be set at the Admin > Settings > Sessions page.

Booking Confirmation Message

The booking confirmation message allows you to customise to message shown when a user confirms their booking. You can use this area to add a disclaimer or terms of the booking.

Default Passes

Allows you to set the passes that will be valid for new sessions when they are created.

NOTE: This will not change existing sessions, but will be used for any new sessions created.

Show Bookings

When enabled, the list of users booked on to a session will be shown to all logged in users.

Default Booking Window

The default booking window used when creating a new session.

Default Cancellation Window

The default cancellation window used when creating a new session.

Days To Label As New

Sets how long a session will be labeled as New after it is created. Set this value to 0 to hide the New label.

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