Muttmates Training

What the Training module adds

Muttmates Core is the spine of your back office: clients and dogs, the diary, prices, payment links, receipts, reminders, emails and settings. This manual covers only what the Training module adds on top, so if you have not read the Muttmates Core owner's manual, start with that.

Training is what makes Muttmates a trainer's back office rather than a general one. It adds:

• Session reports you write on the booking and email to the owner, with the dog's photo in the header — four set sections, or one open page.
• Courses and workshops. A course is several classes booked and paid for as one; a workshop is a course of one class. Enrol a dog once and it is on every class, charged once.
• Classes on the diary and the class register: present, absent, class done, and homework emailed home to everyone.
• Weekly drop-in — a standing weekly class with its regulars and no course wrapped round it.
• Board & train programmes, on Business and Business + Online plans: a dog stays with you and is trained every day, sold as one programme with one fee.

It also changes the words: with Training on, a booking is called a Session throughout the menus, because that is what you call it.

Your Training page

Your services → Training in the rail opens the page that gathers the whole trade in one place, subtitled One-to-one sessions, classes and workshops, session reports.

Four tiles across the top — Today, Next 14 days, Owing on these and This month — count your one-to-one sessions and the money against them. Beside the heading sit + New booking, + New class or workshop, Take payment, and a More menu holding Class register, + New board & train (Business plans) and + New package.

Under that is the tab row, which is how you reach everything else.

The tabs say where you are; the pills under the open tab say which slice of it. You can move between the course list, the class list and the register without coming back here.

The main column leads with Board & train — the dogs staying now or soon — then Courses, each with its next date, whether it is all paid and how many places are taken. Then Next classes, the coming fortnight, each with a Register button straight to that day's roll. The side column carries On your website and Waiting for a place; dogs waiting also raise a line on the Diary's Needs you.

Setting up what you offer

Everything you sell is a service, and services live under Services & prices, tabbed by area. Training uses two: the Training tab for one-to-one work and, on Business plans, your board & train programmes; the Classes tab for whatever a class or a course is charged at.

Each service carries the Core fields: Price, Minutes, Where (In-home, On premises or Online), Location / address — blank for in-home work, which uses the client's address — and Book online on the plans with a booking page. Three class services are set up for you the first time Training runs: Puppy class — 6 weeks at $180 for 60 minutes, Adolescent class — 4 weeks at $140 for 60 minutes, and Workshop at $45 for 90 minutes. Change the names and prices to yours.

For a course, read those two numbers carefully. Price is the fee for the whole course, charged once per dog, and Minutes is the length of one class. A six-week puppy class at $180 for 60 minutes is $180 for the course and an hour a week — not $180 a week.

Agreements work on classes too: one can be asked for on Training sessions (one-to-one), on Classes, or both, and an unsigned one is flagged on the register before the dog walks in. Travel and add-ons come from Core, through Travel zones and Extras.

One-to-one sessions day to day

A one-to-one session is an ordinary Core booking: + New booking, a client, a dog, a service, a time, and the confirmation and payment link go out as your settings say. The Bookings pill shows the Training slice of the list — one-to-one sessions only, because walks, classes and days each have their own page.

What Training adds to a booking is the report box below it, and two side boxes that appear only when they apply: a Course box when the booking is a class inside a course, and a Board & train box when it is a session on a programme. Each says where the booking sits and whether it carries the fee. Private notes stay private; nothing you write there is sent to the owner.

Session reports — the four sections, or writing freely

The report box is headed Session report — emailed to the client and sits below the booking's own fields. Save the booking first; a report needs a booking to belong to.

At the top is a switch, Write freely. Left off, you get four sections, which suit most sessions.

Empty sections are left out of the email, so a short session can be two lines and still look deliberate. Switch Write freely on and the four fields give way to one open editor called Report, where headings set as Heading 2 or 3 come out styled like the section headings.

The Session report box on the side of the booking sends it. It says whether a report has gone, offers Mark the booking Completed when sent already ticked, and then Email report to client — or Email report again. The button stays disabled until something is written, and Preview the email ↗ shows the report as the owner will see it. The email carries your logo, the dog's photo opposite it, your wording from Branding & emails → Session report email, the sections in order, and any handouts attached to the service.

Every report a dog has had is listed on the dog's own profile under Session reports, newest first, each expanding to show what you wrote. That list is the dog's training history, and the thing to read before a follow-up months later. Core's Reports page sorts every report into To write, Drafted and Sent, and the bookings list carries a Report column saying the same per row.

Courses and workshops

A course is several classes booked and paid for as one — a six-week puppy class, say. A workshop is a course of one class. They are the same record with a different number in one field, which is why they share a screen: Training → Classes & workshops → Courses & workshops, or + New class or workshop.

Save, and the classes are made — one on the diary for each date — with every enrolled dog booked onto each. Each class is titled for you: Puppy class · class 2 of 6 · Tue 15 Sep, 6:00 pm.

The fee, charged once

The course fee sits on the dog's first class. Every other class is $0, "included". The ledger then holds one charge, one payment link and one receipt per dog per course, while the diary still holds six classes with a reminder before each.

It stays true as things move. Enrol a dog in week three and the fee lands on their first class with you, not one they missed. Trash a class for the weather and the fee moves to that dog's next. Take a dog off the course and they come off every class still to come, and anything paid becomes credit.

The Classes box beside the course is where you watch this: how many places are taken and how many are waiting, then each class by date with its dogs and a link to that day's register. Underneath is what is still to come in, and Send links to all owing, which sends every unpaid dog on the course a link at once — by text where texting is on and the client has a mobile, otherwise by email.

Dates that move together, or not

Class dates is filled in from First class × Classes × Every, minus any Skip dates. After that it is yours: change one row for a one-off, add rows, take rows away, and the classes on the diary follow. Change First class, Classes, Every or Skip dates and the whole list is laid out again. Move a class on its own screen and its row on the course follows, so the two never disagree; classes already held stay where they were.

Places, the waiting list, and what the owner hears

Enrol more dogs than there are places and the last ones move to the Waiting list automatically, with a notice. When a place comes free, move a row up into Enrolled and save; the dog is booked onto every remaining class and hears from you as any enrolment does.

That is one email — the course confirmation, from their first class, with the whole list of dates and their own class in bold, the fee, what to bring and the payment link. After that a reminder goes before each class. The wording is yours under Branding & emails: Course / class confirmation, Class reminder (email and text) and Class notes / homework, each able to use {course} alongside the usual placeholders.

The course list shows every course with its First class, Classes, Enrolled out of the places, and Money.

Classes on the diary

Training → Classes & workshops → Classes lists every class. Each carries a When, a Capacity (eight for a class), a Service (price & length), a Where / notes — where the class is held, which goes into every confirmation and reminder — and a Dogs list, with a booking per dog. Because a class is a group session, everything Core does works on it unchanged: the diary, reminders, payment links, receipts, credit, statements and agreements. Its On the diary box lists the dogs with Present and Absent on each row.

You do not usually make a class by hand: a course makes its classes when you save it, and a weekly pattern makes them as the dates come round. By hand is for a one-off that belongs to nothing.

A class from a course carries a Course box naming the course, which class of how many, and the other dates. Dogs enrolled on the course are booked on from the course; a dog you add on the class alone is a guest for this class only — what you want for someone catching up a missed week.

The class register

This is the screen you hold while the class fills up. Training → Class register and Muttmates → Classes today land on it, and it works on a phone. The rail's Register entry opens the register hub instead — one place to start a morning when more than one kind of dog turns up in a group — with an Open register button through to that day's class register.

It opens on today, with arrows either side of a date picker and a Today button. Every class on that date is a card: its name, the time it runs from and to, where it is, how many places are booked, how many are present, and a link to the course. Then each dog:

• the dog's name, the owner's name, and the owner's phone as a tappable link
• the first line or so of the dog's notes, and the dog's markers
• what state they are in — Present, or Expected, Arrived, Collected or Absent — with the time they were marked, and done once the booking is completed
• flags where they matter — due $45, fee paid, agreement unsigned — and the buttons Present, Absent and Open

Tap Present as each dog arrives, and again to undo. Absent marks a no-show, and tapping it again puts the dog back to expected. Nothing here needs saving.

At the foot of the card is Class done. It asks you to confirm, then completes the bookings of everyone marked present and marks anyone unmarked absent — one tap at the end of the hour, and the diary is tidy.

Notes and homework

Under each class on the register — and in a Class notes & homework box on the class's own screen, for when you are back at a desk — is one box for what you covered and what to practise. Save keeps it on the class. Save & send to everyone emails it to every owner in the class, one email each with their name and their dog's, in your Class notes / homework wording. Once sent, the box says when, and warns that sending again sends whatever it says now.

Weekly drop-in

Not every class is a course. A standing Tuesday-night group whose regulars come when they come is a weekly drop-in: Training → Classes & workshops → Weekly drop-in makes a weekly pattern of the Class kind, and the classes create themselves.

A pattern asks for a Name, whether it is Active, From and Until, the Days it runs, the Time, a Capacity, the Service (price & length), a Where / notes, and its Regulars. Leave Until blank and it rolls on; set it and you get a block, with every date created now.

Muttmates creates the sessions ahead once a day — fourteen days by default — and books the regulars onto each as it is made. After that each class is its own thing: drop a dog for one week, add a guest, trash it for the weather, and the pattern is untouched. Change the pattern and only classes not yet created pick it up; Regenerate remakes the future ones nobody has paid on.

The difference from a course is the money: a drop-in class is charged at the service's price per class, so each week is its own charge, link and receipt. That is the right shape for a class people dip in and out of, and the wrong shape for a programme you want paid up front.

Your What's on page and putting it on your website

Muttmates gives you a public What's on page, and Training fills it: a card for every course or workshop whose first class is still to come, and one for every weekly class not part of a course. If you run the Events module too, its open days and talks share the page.

A card shows your picture (or the name's initial on your brand colour), a small line saying what it is — Workshop, 6 classes, Weekly class — the name, a when-line reading something like Tuesdays 6:00 pm · 6 Oct – 10 Nov, the venue, the fee marked for the course or a class, and a places pill: Full, Last place, 3 places left, or 8 places. Your blurb and what to bring follow, then a button: Book a place, Enquire where online booking cannot take it, or Join the waiting list when it is full, which opens your enquiry form with the class already named.

The On your website card on the Training page has what you need: See the page, the address under Link to it for a menu item on your own site, and under Or embed it a snippet you paste where the cards should appear, which sizes itself. On your Muttmates site, the shortcode [mm_events] does the same job.

Taking a course place online

On the plans with online booking — Solo + Online and Business + Online — with booking switched on and the course's fee service ticked Book online, a course appears on your booking page as an offer of its own, grouped under Courses & workshops.

The offer is the course, not one class: the number of classes, the first date and the last, the venue, how many places are left and what to bring. It shows while the first class is far enough ahead to satisfy your notice period and there is a place free.

Booking it enrols the dog exactly as you would from the editor: a row on the course, every class booked, the fee on the first, and the course confirmation with the dates and the payment link. If you take a deposit, the first class is held pending in the usual way, and if the hold lapses the dog comes off the course and the place goes back.

On the client login, a class inside a course cannot be cancelled by the owner — the fee is for the course, so cancelling one class of six makes no sense. Their link reads Need to change it? and sends you a request instead, and their booking list names the course and which class it is.

Board & train programmes

A board & train is a dog who stays with you and is trained every day, sold as one programme with one fee. It is a Business and Business + Online feature, listed as such under Settings → Plan; on a Solo plan none of it appears, though a site that moves down keeps its records and gets them back on the way up. Training does the whole thing on its own; if you also run Boarding or Daycare, each adds its part.

The programme

A programme is a Training service with This is a board & train programme ticked. Its price is the fee for the whole programme, charged once; its minutes are one session. Ticking the box reveals the rest.

The enrolment

Training → Board & train → + New board & train asks for the Client, the Dog, the Programme, the Check-in date and time, and the Session time — the daily session, and the handover. With Boarding on you also pick a Kennel type (the stay) and a Kennel; with Daycare on there is In daycare during the day. Then What the owner wants, in their own words, which heads the programme report; What they're bringing; Sessions; Online catch-ups; and Private notes.

Save, and the work is laid out: one session a day from check-in for the programme's nights, rest days left out; the handover on check-out day, the one the owner comes for; and a catch-up for each date you add. Each is an ordinary one-to-one booking on the dog, so the diary, reminders, staff assignment and the session report all work as on any lesson. The Sessions list is then yours — move a row, add one, take one away, and the bookings follow.

One fee

The programme fee sits on the first session. Every other session, the handover and every catch-up are $0, "included". One charge, one payment link — Send the payment link on the enrolment — and one receipt. The owner hears once: the confirmation from the first session, naming the programme, the dates, a session most days, a report after each, and the handover on the last, with Bring underneath.

The programme box beside the enrolment is the whole picture: the dates, the nights, how many sessions are done, then every session numbered, with H for the handover and C1, C2 for catch-ups, marked fee where the fee sits and report sent once that day's report has gone. It also says how many catch-ups are still to arrange.

The daily update is the session report

There is no separate daily-diary screen, and there does not need to be one. Write each day's session report on that day's session and email it. The owner gets it with the dog's photo, the same shape as any other report — and it builds the dog's history at the same time.

At the end, the Programme report box pulls it together. It reminds you what the owner wanted and gives you How the programme went to write — where the dog started, where they are now, and the three things to keep doing at home. Save & email the programme report sends that summary with every session's report rolled up under it, day by day.

Beds, and what Boarding and Daycare add

If the programme says how many dogs you take at once and you go over it, the enrolment still saves and you are told to check the beds — a double booking you know about beats a refusal you have to work around.

With Boarding on, picking a kennel type makes a real stay: on the kennel board with a board & train tag, with check-in, check-out and the daily photos, at $0, because the programme fee covers it. With Daycare on, ticking In daycare during the day puts the dog on every open daycare day of the stay as a free day, so the daycare register has them. Trash an enrolment and its future sessions, handover, catch-ups and the stay go with it; anything completed stays as the record it is.

Packages, courses, drop-ins and pack offers

Four things sell more than one session at once, and they are not interchangeable.

The rule of thumb: dates fixed and shared with other dogs is a course; dates fixed and the dog alone is a package; dates not fixed yet is a pack offer.

Settings and set-up reference

When something goes wrong

The course saved but no classes appeared. A course needs a fee service and a first class before its classes can be made. Fill both in and save again.

Dogs I enrolled ended up on the waiting list. You went over Places. Raise the number and save, or move rows back into Enrolled.

The Email report button is greyed out. Either nothing is written in the report yet, or the client has no email address. The box says which.

A dog was charged for a class that should have been included. Open the course and save it: the money goes back to the account as credit and pays the course fee from there.

There is no Board & train tab, or + New board & train is missing. The tab is a Business feature. The button appears once a service is ticked This is a board & train programme.

A course is not showing on my What's on page. Check that its first class is still in the future and that Don't list is off. A course whose first class has passed comes off by design.