Scheduling time with families that fits everyone’s availability can be challenging. With the new event creation and sign-up features, teachers can quickly set up events, invite families to select time slots, and seamlessly sync these events to their primary school/work calendars.
Designed to simplify scheduling for parent-teacher conferences, family nights, and classroom events, the new event creation and calendar sync capabilities make the process much easier for busy teachers. Teachers can view their school calendar within their TalkingPoints calendar, while events created in TalkingPoints will automatically sync back to their school or work calendar—keeping everything organized in one place.
Additionally, families can book appointments directly through TalkingPoints, making it easier for everyone to manage their schedules and stay on top of important classroom and school events.
When will these calendar and event features be available?
These features will be available for back-to-school 2025 as part of TalkingPoints Foundations.
Who will have access to these features?
Event and calendaring features will be available in TalkingPoints for Teachers (web app only) for users who are associated with a school or district using TalkingPoints. It is not available at this time for other users (e.g., principals, staff).
Where can users access these features?
Teachers can access their calendar and event creation functions by selecting ‘Calendar’ in the left navigation.
What scheduling options are available to teachers?
Teachers will be able to create and schedule available times to sign-up for events and then send out invitations to families or individual contacts. The family contact will then be able to select from available times and confirm their participation in the event. This helps with the following scenarios:
Sending to a whole class or group – for example, invites for teacher conferences can be sent to all family contacts enabling them to select from a set of available times
Sending to one contact - a teacher can send an invitation to one contact to select a time slot from the teacher’s available times
Can teachers use the calendar and event functions to add class activities or events - including those that do not need sign ups - to family calendars?
Yes. Teachers can notify classes or groups about an event (e.g., “Testing Day”), and the event is sent similar to an announcement, but it does not require a response from the family. This capability is not available for partner preview, but will be available for back-to–school 2025.
How does it work to create an event?
When creating the event, teachers can select the invitees, give the event a name, and provide a brief description and event length, and then identify times on their schedule available for the event(s) to be scheduled.
Once the event is created, teachers can choose to invite family contacts now or later - if later, they can schedule the invitation send date and time.
The invite will go out to families and they will be able to sign up for a time slot. When families have signed up for a specific time, the calendar will update for the teacher, and the students name will show - in the ‘Calendar’ view. Time slots in gray are available times not yet booked. The purple ones show where a family has signed up for that time slot.
How will families interact with this feature?
Family app users will see the events they've signed-up for and be able to manage those events. They will also see events the teacher has scheduled that do not require RSVP.
SMS To sign up for an event, SMS users will receive a link that takes them to a webpage where they can view available times and select one.
With the initial back-to-school release, families will only be able to accept / sign-up for events; they cannot modify or delete/cancel an event.
Will teachers be able to sync their school/work calendar with the TalkingPoints calendar?
Yes, to help enable the creation and signing up for events, teachers can sync their school/work calendars (e.g., Outlook, Gmail, etc.) with the TalkingPoints calendar. Note: Only the teacher will see the synced calendar entries - these will not be visible to families.
The calendar sync is a two way sync - meaning that events created and scheduled from the TalkingPoints calendar will sync back to the teacher’s other work/school calendar to make it easier to track everything on a single calendar.
How does the teacher calendar sync work?
Teachers will initially see a blank calendar when they select ‘Calendar’ from the left navigation menu. They can then select to sync their calendar using one of the options shown.
After the sync steps are complete, the teacher will see their activities and events in their TalkingPoints calendar. Teachers will also be able to click in to a given day to see a listing of events/activities for the selected day.