Short version: a new student’s time has to fit three calendars at once — the teacher’s, the student’s, and the studio’s opening hours. Checking them by eye works until the week you are busiest. Encore checks all three for you, suggests the times that fit, and refuses the ones that don’t, naming the lesson that is in the way.
The situation
A parent calls on a Monday. Their daughter is starting piano, they would like a thirty-minute lesson after school, and they would prefer a Wednesday. The studio has three teachers, a full-ish timetable, and a group theory class on Wednesday afternoons.
The usual way to answer is to open a spreadsheet or a paper diary, scan the teacher’s column, find a gap, and hope that nobody else booked it since the diary was last updated. It mostly works. When it doesn’t, you find out on Wednesday afternoon, when two families arrive for the same half hour.
What actually has to be true
For the new lesson to work, every one of these must hold:
- The teacher is free at that time every week — not just this Wednesday, but every Wednesday the lesson runs.
- The teacher is willing to teach then — inside the hours they have told you they are available.
- The student is free — they are not already in another class at the studio at that time, such as a group class or a second instrument.
- The studio is open.
A double-booking is almost always one of these checks being skipped, usually the first one.
Doing it in Encore
Tap + on the calendar and choose Enrol a student (or Add a student first, then Enrol … now). Pick the student and a private lesson type. As soon as you choose a day, Encore lists the free times for that teacher on that day as buttons: tap one and it fills the start time.
Those suggestions already account for:
- every class the teacher currently teaches, private or group, so a time that overlaps any of them is never offered;
- the teacher’s availability, if they have set it — or, if they haven’t, the studio’s opening hours (the suggestions then say within studio hours, a nudge to set real availability).
If you type a time instead of tapping one, Encore still checks it. Pick a time the teacher isn’t free and a note appears under the form before you save: Heads up: Emma isn’t free on Wed at 16:00. Pick a time the student already has a lesson and you’ll see that too: Heads up: Mina already has Violin on Wed 16:00–16:30. (For a clash with a group class, the timetable’s own check below catches it.)
When the timetable says no
Suggestions are advice. The rule underneath them is not: the timetable will not book a teacher or a student into two lessons at once. That guard sits in the database itself, so it holds even if two people are scheduling at the same moment on different computers.
When it stops you, the message says what is in the way rather than just “conflict”:
Emma already teaches Piano on Wed 16:00–16:30. Choose another time.
That is usually enough to decide what to do next — offer 16:30 instead, or move the lesson to another teacher.
Placing a group class
The same checks apply when you add a whole class on the Timetable. Tap an empty spot in the grid and a new class opens at that day and time. Choose the teacher and their free times appear, just as in the enrol form. When families join a group class later, the class picker shows each class’s day, time and seats left, so a full class is obvious before anyone is promised a place.
What to record
Nothing extra. The enrolment itself is the record: which student, which lesson type, which teacher, which weekly time and from which date. If the time changes later, move the lesson on the timetable and Encore re-checks the teacher and the student at the new time.