When an instructor can't teach, two questions matter: which classes are now uncovered, and who's taking them. Coverage lives on the Schedule tab of your dashboard.
The coverage schedule
The coverage view is your answer to "what does next week actually look like." For a date range, it shows:
- Classes with open coverage — nobody assigned to teach them
- Classes with a substitute already assigned, and who it is
- Instructor absences already recorded
Ask Becky about coverage for a date range and she'll read this and name what's open before you touch anything. She won't tell you an assignment or an absence changed until a fresh read of the schedule confirms it did.
Making coverage changes
Marking an instructor unavailable, assigning a substitute, removing an absence, and changing who covers a class all happen on the Schedule tab, with you doing the clicking. That's deliberate: a coverage assignment can notify clients, so it isn't something that should happen on your behalf while you're mid-sentence.
Coverage vs the other two tools
It's easy to mix these up:
- Coverage — a class is happening, but someone else is teaching it.
- Instructor time block — a range of one instructor's day where no client can be booked at all.
- Blackout — the whole studio is closed on that date.
There's also a fourth, quieter mechanism: the instructor assigned to a weekly schedule slot. When you assign an instructor to a slot, future appointments at that same day and time that had nobody assigned get rebound to them in the background. For a permanent change of teacher on a recurring class, changing the slot is usually the right move — coverage is for the one-off.
Common questions
A class shows open coverage but it's on the schedule. Will it still run? Open coverage means no instructor is assigned yet, not that the class is cancelled. Assign someone, or cancel it explicitly.
Do substitutes get notified automatically? Coverage changes can send client notifications, which is why the assignment stays with you in the dashboard. To tell your team directly, use a staff announcement.
Still stuck? Contact support — we answer real emails from real people.