Knowledge Base

What Appears in Your Calendar

Your calendar combines several kinds of scheduled items in one place:

• Lessons
• Performances
• Exams
• Other events that you add yourself, such as staff meetings, rehearsals, or studio reminders

Each event type uses its own colour so you can scan the calendar more easily.

Lessons can also show extra visual indicators:

• An attendance dot when attendance has already been marked
• An MU badge for makeup lessons

Provisional exams are shown with an unconfirmed label.

Searching and Filtering

Use the Search calendar field to find events by title or other event details. Search results open in a side panel. When you select a result, Octavia jumps the calendar to that event and highlights it.

You can also filter the calendar to show:

• All
• Lessons
• Performances
• Exams
• Other

This is useful when you want to focus on one kind of scheduled activity without hiding the rest permanently.

Changing the View

The calendar has three main views:

• Month
• Week
• Day

Use Prev, Today, and Next to move through time.

In week and day view, you can also change the visible time-grid density using the 10m, 30m, and 60m slot buttons. This only changes how the calendar is displayed - it does not change any lesson duration.

Octavia remembers the last calendar view and date you were using, so when you return, the calendar opens where you left off.

Timezone Behaviour in the Calendar

Opening Event Details

Select an event to open its details.

What you can do next depends on the event type:

Lessons

For lesson events, the details panel can show:

• The lesson date and time
• The lesson location, if one was recorded
• A makeup indicator, if the lesson is a makeup
• Lesson participants
• Lesson notes preview text, where relevant

From the lesson detail panel, you can:

• Mark or update attendance
• Open the lesson notes
• Delete the lesson, subject to the normal billing and makeup safety checks

If you are viewing your own teacher calendar context, lesson-detail actions can also link you through to the related student or group when that information is available.

Performances and exams

Performance and exam events open a simpler detail panel with an action to open the related performance or exam record.

If a performance organiser has added you in the performance's Teachers panel, it appears in your calendar just like a performance you created. To change a performance's date, time, location, or details, open the performance record and update it there; the change is then reflected on every included teacher's calendar.

When Advanced planning is used, your own arrival time, role, planning location, and further notes appear in the event details. They are also included in the event description when you subscribe to your calendar in Apple Calendar or Google Calendar.

These instructions are personal to your attendance at that performance. Other teachers can have different arrival times, roles, or notes for the same event.

Other events

Custom other events open in an edit form rather than the shared detail panel. That lets you update the title, location, notes, repeat settings, and (for one-off events) the students attending directly.

Moving Events in the Calendar

You can move many calendar items directly in the calendar.

• Lessons can be dragged to a new day or time, and resized to change their end time
• Performances are updated from the performance record so changes stay in sync for every teacher involved
• One-off other events can be dragged and resized
• Recurring other events need to be edited from the event itself rather than moved occurrence-by-occurrence in the calendar

Creating Your Own Calendar Events

You can create your own custom calendar items in the Other category.

There are two ways to start:

• Select and drag across a time range in the calendar
• Double-click a day or time slot

This opens a form where you can enter:

• Title
• Location
• Notes
• Students attending (optional, one-off events only)
• Repeat settings
• Optional Count or Until values for recurring events

These events sit alongside lessons and other scheduled items, but they are separate from lesson records. They are useful for anything you want visible in your teaching calendar that is not itself a lesson, exam, or performance.

If you delete a recurring custom event, Octavia warns that the whole series will be removed.

Adding students to an event

By default, an event you create is visible only to you. If you want students to see it too, such as a one-off masterclass or a monthly adult group class, use Students attending.

1. In the event form, select Add students.
2. Search for a student by name, then tick each student who is attending.
3. Select Done. The students you chose appear in a summary above the picker, where you can remove anyone with the × next to their name.
4. Save the event.

Selected students, and the parents linked to them, can then see the event in their Octavia calendars. If they subscribe to their calendar in Apple Calendar or Google Calendar, the event details (title, time, location, and notes) may also appear there. Anything you type in the title or notes is visible to everyone you have added, so keep it suitable for them and their parents. Students you haven't selected cannot see the event.

You can change the list at any time by editing the event. Students you add gain access straight away, and students you remove lose it. If you remove every student, the event goes back to being visible only to you. If you delete the event, it disappears for everyone.

A few things to know:

• Who you can choose from: students whose status at your school is Current or Trial. If you teach in a multi-teacher studio, you can choose students you teach individually or who belong to one of your active groups. A school admin can choose any eligible student at the school. Each student is listed once, even if they have more than one enrolment.
• Groups aren't attached as a whole: you pick individual students. If someone joins or leaves a group later, the event's student list doesn't change automatically.
• One-off events only: students can't be added to a repeating event. If Repeat is set to anything other than None, the Add students button is unavailable. Once you've added students, the Repeat setting is locked; remove the students first if you want to make the event repeat.
• Existing events stay private: events you created earlier remain visible only to you until you edit them and add students.
• This isn't a booking: adding students shows them the event. It doesn't take attendance, send an invoice, use up a lesson pack, or ask them to RSVP.
• Students and parents need Family Hub access to view the event, the same as for their lessons.

Subscribing to Your Calendar in Apple Calendar or Google Calendar

Use Subscribe to this calendar to create a private subscription link for your teaching calendar.

For performances, the subscription includes the same teacher-specific planning instructions shown in your Octavia event details, when the organiser has used Advanced planning.

Once the subscription panel is open, you can:

• Create subscription link
• Copy link
• Open Apple Calendar with the subscription link
• Open the Google Calendar "Add by URL" page
• Renew link
• Disable link

Renewing or disabling the link

If you renew the link, the old subscription link stops working and anyone using it will need to subscribe again with the new one.

If you disable the link, the current subscription stops working completely. You can create a new one later if needed.

After you have subscribed

If you have already subscribed successfully in Apple Calendar or Google Calendar, that external calendar should keep updating normally.

If you need a fresh subscription URL later, Octavia may ask you to renew the link to generate a new one.

Related Articles

• Creating an Individual Lesson
• Creating a Recurring Lesson Series
• Rescheduling a Lesson
• Deleting a Lesson
• How Octavia Handles Timezones

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