#What coaching is
Coaching connects one coach with one student. The coach keeps a list of students; matches the coach adds for a student, and matches the student shares with the coach, are gathered on that student's page without an invite link per match. There are no groups: every student is a separate connection, and a student may have more than one coach.
Only the coach needs a plan. Keeping students is part of Pro; a student on any plan, Free included, can accept an invite, read what the coach adds for them and share their own matches.
Coaching your own students on Pro is allowed even when they pay you for lessons. A club, or a coaching business with more than one coach, needs a separate agreement with us: see the Terms.
#The Coaching page
Coaching, in the menu bar, appears once you are on Pro or linked to a coach, and gathers both sides of coaching on one page.
As a coach, To review lists every match your students have that you have not reviewed yet, newest first, with Mark reviewed beside each, and below it is a card per student: their XR over every analysed match, the last five against the ones before (marked Improving or Slipping when they differ by more than a tenth), and how many matches they have and how many wait for you.
As a student, each coach has a block with the newest matches they added for you, a link to all of them in Shared with me, your dashboard if your coach has shared it, and Sharing settings.
#Your students Pro
Students, from the Coaching page or your matches page, lists your students with how many matches each has, how many you have not reviewed yet, when the last one was added, and where the connection stands: Not invited, Invited, Linked or Ended.
Add a student takes a name and, optionally, Other spellings: the names
their match files use, such as Smith, Anna or an online handle. One spelling
names one of your students, so a file is filed under the student whose name it
carries. You can add a student and file their matches long before they have an
account, or without them ever having one.
#Inviting a student Pro
On a student's page, Invite creates a link. Copy it to send however you like, or type their address and press Send to have it mailed. A link works once and lasts 7 days, and Revoke stops one nobody has used yet.
The student opens the link signed in and is asked whether to accept you as their coach; Accept links their account to the row on your list, and every match you had already added for them appears on their side at once. An invite cannot be accepted by your own account, or by an account already linked to another of your students.
#Adding matches for a student Pro
Every way a match comes in can name a student:
- Import: the dialog asks Whose match is this? Pick the student, and which side they played. If you played the other side yourself (a lesson match), say so, and the match stays in your own statistics too.
- Bulk upload: under I did not play in these, Whose games are they? can file every match under one student, or Each to the student its names match. A match whose names match none of your students is listed for you to pick; the name at the side you pick becomes one of that student's spellings.
- The match list: select matches, or all that fit a filter, and choose Assign to student from the bar. Assigning a match you played leaves it in your statistics.
A match you add for a student stays yours: it was analysed on your account, the student cannot delete it, and your notes on it are kept if the coaching ends.
#Sharing your matches with your coach
A student shares a match of their own from its Share dialog, where the Coaching section has Share with your coach: one click, no link and no expiry. Stop sharing takes it back. Several matches go at once from the match list: select them and choose Share with coach.
A shared match stays the student's. The coach can open it and write notes on it, and loses it when the student stops sharing it or ends the coaching.
#Sharing rules
A rule keeps sharing without being asked each time. A student turns one on in Settings, under Coaching, with Share my new matches with a coach; a coach saves one with Also assign new matches that fit this filter when assigning from the match list, and a student with Standard or Pro can save a filtered one the same way with Also share new matches that fit this filter. A rule runs over its owner's own matches only, whenever a match is saved or its tags or details change.
Before a rule touches the matches you already have, it says how many it would add and asks. A rule only ever adds: untagging a match or editing it so it no longer fits takes nothing away, and a match you have taken back is never shared again by a rule.
A rule pauses, and adds nothing, if its filter uses something your plan no longer includes or a tag that was deleted. It is listed as paused with the reason, and Save again turns it back on. Your rules are listed with the coaching in Settings for a student and on the student's page for a coach, where Pause, Resume and Delete manage them.
Tags stay private. Neither side sees the other's tags, and a rule's filter is never shown to the other side.
#Handouts Pro
On a match of your own, the Share dialog's Coaching section has Share with all my students, or Choose students for some of them. Students can open a handout and read your public notes, and it is not counted as one of their matches: it has no side, no review mark and no place in their statistics. Take back from all removes it again.
#Reviewing matches Pro
A student's page lists their matches with the ones you have not reviewed first, each marked Added by you, Shared by them or Handout. A match where nobody has said which side the student played asks Which side is the student; your answer teaches that spelling.
Open a match from that page and the analysis carries the student's name above it with Mark reviewed; R marks it or clears the mark. The mark is yours alone: the student never sees it.
Your notes reach the student when they are public, which is how a new note starts. If you make a match public while it carries coaching notes, the Share dialog says how many and asks first, since anyone with the link would read them.
#Emails
Settings, under Coaching, has a switch for each of three emails: for a coach, when students share matches; for a student, when their coach adds matches, and when their coach writes notes on matches the coach added. Each waits until things have been quiet for an hour, comes at most once a day, and goes only to a verified address.
#The student dashboard Pro
A student's page carries a dashboard over every match you added for them or they shared with you that you can still open: the error rate overall, for checker play and for the cube, by position type and cube role, match by match, and the worst decisions across all of them, each a link to the position. It reads each match's newest finished analysis, at the side the student played. A match nobody has said the side of is listed as not counted yet.
Let the student see this dashboard shows it to them too; it is off until you turn it on. A student finds it on the Coaching page, and under Settings, Coaching, as Your dashboard.
#Adding coaching matches to your statistics Standard
A match your coach added for you is the coach's, so it is not in your own Stats. Under Shared with me, the coach's matches are grouped as From your coach, and Add to my statistics copies one into your own matches at the side you played, with the coach's analysis and no new analysis time; Add all to my statistics does every one. A copy is yours to keep, whatever happens to the coaching. Opening it says your coach's notes are on the original and opens it while you can still reach it.
Adding to your statistics needs Standard or Pro. A handout, or a match where nobody has said which side you played, cannot be added.
#Ending a coaching
Either side can end it, the student in Settings under Coaching and the coach on the student's page, with End coaching. The student loses the matches the coach added and the coach loses the matches the student shared, and the coach's notes on the student's own matches are deleted, as when anyone leaves a shared match; the confirmation names both counts. Copies the student added to their statistics stay theirs, and the student stays on the coach's list as Ended, so a new invite can link them again.
If a coach's Pro plan lapses, nothing is deleted: the student keeps reading what they were given and can keep sharing, but the coach cannot add students or matches, and the coach's own rules stop, until Pro is back.