Availability Update Requests
When you need to check or update lesson availability for your students, you can send an availability update request to parents and/or students. They receive an email, review their availability in the Family Hub, and conf
What It's For
Availability update requests are useful when you're scheduling a new term, returning from a break, or any time you want families to confirm that their lesson times still work. Rather than chasing replies to individual emails, you send a request through the platform and families respond via the Hub.
Sending a Request
Launch availability requests from the My Students page by selecting one or more students and choosing Request availability. You can start from selected individual students, selected groups, or a mix of both — Octavia turns that selection into the student list the request will be created for.
Before sending, you'll see a preview of the recipients and can adjust:
Audience — choose to send to parents, students, or both. If a student or parent has no email address on file, the platform will warn you before you send.
Due date — optionally set a date by which you'd like families to respond. This appears in the email and in the Hub.
Recipients — the target students are fixed from your selection, but you can toggle individual email recipients on or off from the preview list before sending.
Send a copy to yourself — you can choose to receive a copy of the request email at your own address.
You can send one request to multiple students at once. Each student gets their own separate request, tracked independently.
If a parent is linked to more than one of the selected students, they'll only receive one email recipient entry in the preview list.
What Families Receive
Each recipient gets an email with a link to the Hub's Availability page. If there are multiple students with open requests, parents can update and confirm availability for each one on the same page.
If a family is already in the Hub when a request arrives, a notification appears in their feed prompting them to review. The feed item stays active until the request is completed.
Completing a Request
A request is complete when the family visits the Hub, updates their availability as needed, and clicks Confirm availability for that student. Each student's request must be confirmed separately — confirming for one child doesn't mark the others as done.
Once confirmed, the platform records the completion and removes the prompt from the family's feed. Back on My Students, you can see open requests through the Avail. requested badge on the student row, and you can also see the most recent availability update date when one has been recorded.
Family Requests vs Teacher-Managed Availability
This article is about the request flow: asking families to review and confirm their availability through the Hub.
That is not the only way student availability can appear in Octavia. Teachers and admins can also manage recurring weekly student availability directly from the student's Availability tab in the teacher app, including recording times the student is not available.
That means:
- sending a request does not remove teacher-entered student availability
- cancelling a request removes the Hub prompt, but does not erase teacher-managed availability blocks
- family-confirmed times and teacher-managed times can both contribute to the student's overall scheduling picture
For the teacher-side editing and Scheduler overlay, see Student availability and Scheduler overlays.
One Request Per Student at a Time
The platform maintains one active request per student at a time. If you send a new request for a student who already has an open one, the existing request is reused and a new invite email is sent. This prevents duplicate prompts building up in the family's inbox and Hub feed.
If you no longer want the request to stay visible in the Hub feed, you can cancel it from the student list. This removes the request prompt, but it does not stop the family from updating availability in the Hub itself.
Overdue Requests
Requests with a due date that has passed remain open and actionable — they aren't automatically closed or hidden. Families can still complete them after the due date. The due date is informational only.
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