Drop-in booking lets students use a prepaid class package to book individual dates of your recurring group classes from the student portal. It is not the same as enrolling in a class — a drop-in student attends only the dates they book, and each booked date uses one ticket from their package.
Your school may use different names for students, teachers and classes. If you don't see the menu items below, ask your admin to check your permissions.
How it works
Packages — you sell a fixed number of classes, for example 5 or 10, as tickets on a student's fee
Booking — the student picks any upcoming date of the classes you offer that still has a free seat
Capacity — each lesson date is capped by its classroom's maximum capacity, counting enrolled students, substitutes and drop-ins together
Balance — every booking deducts one ticket; when the balance reaches zero the student cannot book again until you sell them a new package
Cancelling — a student can cancel a booking before the lesson starts; whether the ticket comes back depends on your refund window
Before you start
You need:
The ticketing system — your booking payment options must be set to tickets, so packages can be tracked as a ticket balance
A classroom on every bookable lesson — with Maximum students capacity set, because that figure is what limits drop-in bookings
Student portal accounts — students book for themselves, so they need a portal login
Always give a bookable lesson a classroom. A lesson with no classroom, or with a classroom that has no capacity set, has no seat limit — any number of students can drop in, and the lesson can be overbooked beyond the room. Check this before you sell your first package.
See How to use the ticketing system for lesson bookings and How to add and manage classrooms to set those up.
Turning on drop-in booking
Go to Settings → Registration pages → Drop-in booking.
Switch on Activate drop-in booking.
Under Select what classes to display, choose All scheduled classes, All active and scheduled classes or Selected classes, then pick the classes.
Optionally set How far ahead students can book (days).
Optionally set Cancel at least this long before a lesson to get the ticket back (hours).
Click Save changes.
If the class selection is left on None, students have nothing to book. This selection is separate from the booking page, so the two can offer different classes. Booking classes and ended classes are never offered for drop-in.
Settings
How far ahead students can book (days) — how many days ahead dates become bookable; leave empty or 0 for the default of 56 days (eight weeks)
Cancel at least this long before a lesson to get the ticket back (hours) — the refund window, in whole hours
Cancelling and getting the ticket back
Students cancel from Your upcoming drop-in bookings on the drop-in page. Cancelling is possible any time before the lesson starts, and it always frees the seat. The refund window decides what happens to the ticket:
Refund window set, for example 2 hours — cancelling 2 or more hours before the lesson returns the ticket; cancelling later frees the seat but the ticket stays used
Refund window empty or 0 — cancelling any time before the lesson starts returns the ticket
The help text under this setting currently says the opposite for an empty value. An empty or 0 value always returns the ticket. To make late cancellations use the ticket, enter a number of hours.
Selling a class package
Open the student's profile and add a new fee.
Set the payment frequency to Custom.
Enter the number of classes in the package, for example 10, in the tickets field.
Save the fee and record the payment as usual.
Custom packages do not renew and do not expire unless you give the fee a from and to date. When the student buys another package, add a new fee the same way — the tickets are added to their balance.
What students see
Students open Drop-in booking in their portal sidebar. The page shows their remaining ticket balance and every date of the offered classes within the booking window that still has a free seat.
Find a date and click Book.
Confirm — the booking uses one ticket.
The date now appears under Your upcoming drop-in bookings, where it can be cancelled up until the lesson starts.
Dates the student is already enrolled in, has already booked, or that are full do not appear in the list. Booked drop-in students show up on the lesson's register like any other attendee, so teachers take attendance as normal.
Limitations
No refund after the lesson starts — cancelling is only possible before the lesson's start time, and a missed booking still uses the ticket
Removing a student from the lesson does not return the ticket — only a cancellation by the student from the portal gives it back
For what else students can do in their portal, see The student portal.