Teacher Scheduling
Teacher scheduling in TimelyChurch connects teachers, classes, and lessons on specific dates. The scheduling system supports teacher assignment, confirmation workflows, lesson selection, and coverage reports.
How Scheduling Works
Teaching is planned on an event. Open the event in the admin area and go to the Classes & Lessons tab -- "Add a session for each class meeting during this event, then assign its lesson and teacher." Each class session on an event has:
- Class -- Which class is meeting (or General lesson (no class)). Each class can have one session per event.
- Lesson -- The lesson to be taught (optional when you add the session; you can assign it later).
- Teacher -- The assigned teacher, if one is locked in yet.
- Class materials sharing -- Whether the session's take-home materials appear on the public event page (see PIN-Protected Take-Home Materials).
See Lessons on Your Sunday: Events & Class Sessions for the step-by-step. The Schedule Grid helps you fill teaching assignments across several weeks at once.
Assigning Teachers to Classes
At Class Creation
When you create a new class, you can select teachers during the creation process. These teachers are assigned as leaders of the class -- and the lead teacher is who gets automatically invited to teach when a session for that class is created.
Through the Class Page
- Open the class from Planning > Classes.
- On the Roster tab, use the Teachers card to add teachers, change the lead teacher, or remove someone.
- Teachers assigned to a class are the default teachers when sessions are created for that class.
See Managing Classes.
On Individual Sessions
You can also pick a Teacher directly on a session, overriding the class's default. This is useful for one-off assignments or when the regular teacher is away.
Teacher Confirmation Workflow
A class's teacher is invited, reminded, and confirmed through the same serving system every team in your church uses for its own positions -- "Teacher" is simply a position on the class, the way "Greeter" or "Sound" is a position on a team.
- A class event is created (or a session is added) — the class's lead teacher is invited as teacher automatically, or an admin picks a specific teacher for the session.
- The teacher gets a personal invitation — on Telegram if linked, by email otherwise — and can confirm or decline in one tap, or from My Schedule in the member portal.
- Confirm locks them in; Decline (or silence, see below) hands the slot to the replacement flow automatically. That only applies to an invitation nobody has answered yet -- once a teacher HAS confirmed and later needs to back out, that's a different flow: see Substitute Teacher Requests.
The class page shows each session's teacher with a small "Confirmed" or "Not confirmed yet" note underneath their name.
Automated Reminders
Unconfirmed teachers are re-pinged on the days the class sets under Scheduling Settings → Remind unconfirmed people (days before event) — the default is 4 days and 2 days before the session, and each class can pick its own days (say, 5 and 1). One reminder per day at most. Open the class, click More tools, and find Scheduling Settings on the Group details tab.
When a Teacher Doesn't Respond
Turn on Move on when someone does not respond in the class's Scheduling Settings and set a Response deadline (days after invitation): an invitation that stays unanswered past the deadline expires and the next eligible person is invited automatically — declines and silences share the same attempt budget. See Cascade Auto-Fill, Sub Invites, and Out-of-Office Badges.
If nobody picks up the slot before anyone ever confirms, the system opens a substitute request the same way it would for any other team position -- see Substitute Requests. That's a different, earlier-stage mechanism from Substitute Teacher Requests, which is what a teacher uses once they've already confirmed and then need to back out.
Lesson Assignment
Admin Assigns a Lesson
- On the event's Classes & Lessons tab, click Assign lesson on the session (or pick the lesson while adding the session).
- The picker mirrors your Drive: folders with their lessons beneath them, Unfiled for lessons not in a folder, and Search lessons... across everything.
- Choose the lesson. Draft lessons can be picked too -- approving one later leaves it attached.
Use View full lesson to open it, or Remove lesson to take it off the session.
Teacher Picks a Lesson
When a teacher's session has no lesson yet, their teaching date on My Schedule in the member portal shows Add Lesson:
- The teacher clicks Add Lesson.
- On Select a Lesson, they search Available Lessons and click Select Lesson.
- The lesson is assigned to that session.
Teacher Creates a Lesson
From the same page, a teacher can choose Create Your Own Lesson -- title, scripture reference, description, objectives, supplies, and materials -- and click Create & Assign Lesson. "Your lesson will be submitted for review by an admin before appearing in the lesson library for others to use." It shows as Pending Review until approved. Whether teachers may create lessons is set with Allow teachers to create lessons in Lesson Settings.
Lesson Needed Notifications
When a session has a teacher but no lesson, TimelyChurch notifies the teacher that they need to choose one. This happens when:
- A new session is created with a teacher but no lesson.
- A teacher is newly assigned to a session that has no lesson.
- A lesson is removed from a session.
Notifications are not sent for past sessions.
Prep Work
Preparation to-dos -- "Print worksheets", "Set up the craft table" -- live on the event:
- The event's Tasks tab holds prep tasks for the day. A class's schedule templates can add them automatically for every event that uses the template (see Team Positions, Templates and Scheduling).
- On the Classes & Lessons tab, Request supplies sends the class's supply needs (items, quantity, urgency, notes) to whoever stocks the classrooms.
Teachers see their prep tasks for the day in the member portal.
Schedule Reports
Under Reports, the Schedules card has three reports that show coverage at a glance so you can spot gaps before they become a problem. They are read-only views of your existing schedule -- they don't change anything -- and each has Export CSV.
- Overview (Schedule Reports) -- For the selected period: the total number of sessions, Teacher and Lesson coverage percentages, how many upcoming sessions Needs Sub, how many upcoming Gaps there are, Top Teachers, and Most Taught Lessons.
- Gaps (Coverage Gaps) -- A focused list of upcoming sessions with No Teacher Assigned, No Lesson Assigned, or marked Needs Substitute. Choose how far to Look ahead: (2 to 12 weeks; 4 weeks by default). Each row shows the class, the date, and the issue, with Fix to jump straight to the schedule.
- Teachers (Teacher Activity) -- Active Teachers with how many times each person taught in the period, and Available to Schedule -- team members not yet scheduled, with a Schedule button.
Tips for Effective Scheduling
- Schedule in advance -- Set up sessions several weeks ahead so teachers have time to prepare.
- Trust the confirmation status -- Every teacher invite uses the same Confirm/Decline every serving position uses, so the class page always tells you who has actually committed and who hasn't answered yet.
- Check the Gaps report weekly -- "No Teacher" gaps are the most urgent; address them first.
- Use prep tasks -- Add prep tasks to a class's schedule template so nothing falls through the cracks.