In Bobbin, the people you teach and the people who pay for that teaching are kept as two separate records: Students and Clients.
Students are the learners receiving Lessons — usually the child. Bobbin generates insights, Lesson Reports and Progress Reports about each Student.
Clients are the paying parents or payers — usually the parent or school. They receive the post-lesson reports and notifications about the Lessons their Students are having.
Every Student is linked to at least one Client, and one of those Clients is always marked as the primary (paying) Client. This guide explains how to view, add, edit and link both, and what you'll find on their profile pages.
Note: Adding, editing and removing Students and Clients is available to Administrators.
Students
Open Students from the People section of the menu to see every learner in your organization. The list shows each Student's name, email and how many Lessons they've completed, and you can use the search box to find someone quickly.
Adding a Student
Because Bobbin needs to know who receives the reports for a learner, every Student is linked to a paying Client when they're created. Make sure the Client exists first.
On the Students page, click Add student.
Enter the Student's First name and Last name, and their Email if they have one. The email address is optional.
Choose the Client who pays for this Student. This becomes their primary Client.
Set the Timezone if it differs from the default.
If you collect recording consent in Bobbin, check the Recording consent already given box. Leave it ticked if the family has already agreed to recording. Untick it and Bobbin emails the Client a consent request, and the Student's Lessons aren't recorded until consent is given. See Recording and sharing opt-outs.
Click Add student to save.
Note: When you add a Student with an email address, Bobbin emails them an invite to join your organization and set a password. Your organization's emails only reach them once they've accepted it, and until then their profile shows Invite not accepted. See Inviting people to Bobbin.
Students without an email address
A Student doesn't need an email address, which is often the right choice for younger learners. You can add one without an email either individually or as part of a spreadsheet import.
A Student with no email address won't get an invite, won't receive Bobbin emails and can't sign in themselves, so they can't hand in homework. Everything else works as normal — they can be added to Lessons, join a Lesson space, and have Lesson and Progress Reports written about them, which reach their Client as usual. You can add an email address later from the Student's Edit dialog, and the invite goes out when you save.
The Student profile
Click any Student to open their profile. From here you can see everything Bobbin holds about that learner:
Clients — the Clients linked to this Student. The paying Client is marked Primary. A Student can be linked to more than one Client (for example, two parents).
Linked courses — the Courses the Student is enrolled on, with how far through each Course's plan they are. Tutor and Client profiles show the same card.
Lesson activity — a count of Lessons completed and total Lessons.
Lesson recording — whether the Student can be recorded and whether their recordings can be shared. It shows Consented, Consent needed or Consent withdrawn. See Recording and sharing opt-outs.
Learning profile — how the Student learns best, if you've turned on learning profiles under Organization > Settings > Beta. See Learning profiles (beta).
Contact — the Student's email address, if they have one.
Use the Summary, Progress reports, Lessons and Attendance tabs at the top to switch between the overview, the Student's Progress Reports, their full Lesson history and their attendance. Progress Reports are created automatically as Lessons complete, and you can also create one on demand with Generate report.
Note: On a Student shared between two Clients, each Client sees only their own contact details on that Student's profile — one guardian's details aren't shown to the other.
Attendance
The Attendance tab lists every Lesson the Student has had, newest first, with their attendance rate at the top (for example, Attended 17 of 20 lessons (85%)). Use All, Attended and Not attended to filter the list.
Each row shows the Course and Lesson time, whether the Student attended, when they joined and left, and how long they were in the Lesson. Any attendance code shows next to it, with its note when you hover over it.
Canceled Lessons, and Lessons where there's no register mark or classroom session to go on, show as Canceled or Not recorded. They aren't counted in the attendance rate.
A Student who joins an online Lesson for less than a minute shows as not attended. Their Tutor can still mark them present.
Tutor profiles have the same tab, showing the Tutor's own attendance.
Editing or removing a Student
On a Student's profile, click Edit to update their name, email, timezone or primary Client. Changing the Client here moves the Student to a different paying Client. To remove the Student from your organization, open the Actions menu and choose Remove.
If you change someone's email address, the new address is asked to confirm it and the old address is told about the change. Your organization's emails to them pause until they confirm. See Inviting people to Bobbin.
Removing someone takes effect straight away — the tidying up of their associated data finishes in the background, so you don't have to wait on the page.
Note: A Client can't be removed while they're still the primary Client of an active Student. Reassign those Students to another Client first.
If a Student or Client also works with another agency on Bobbin, removing them only removes them from your organization. Their records with that other agency are untouched. You also can't change the name or sign-in email of someone who belongs to another organization you don't administer. They can change their own email from their profile, or contact support.
Removing a mistyped Student email
If a Student was added with the wrong email address and nobody has signed in with it yet, you can remove it. Open the Student's Edit dialog, clear the Email field and save. The Student goes back to having no email address, and the old address gets an email saying it's no longer used on the account.
Removing the address signs the Student out everywhere, and they can't sign in again until an email address is added. You can't remove it if:
someone has already signed in to the Student's account. Change the email to the right one instead, or remove the Student and add them again if they were only just added.
the same person is also a Tutor, Client or Administrator, because they need the address to sign in.
In each case, Bobbin shows a message explaining what to do instead.
Clients
Open Clients from the People section of the menu to see every payer in your organization. As with Students, the list shows each Client's name, email and completed Lessons (totaled across all of their Students), with a search box to filter the list.
Adding a Client
A Client is the paying parent or payer, so they're added on their own — there's no need to link them to a Student at this stage. You'll link Students to them when you add or edit those Students.
On the Clients page, click Add client.
Enter the Client's First name, Last name and Email.
Set the Timezone if it differs from the default.
Click Add client to save.
Note: When you add a Client, Bobbin emails them an invite to join your organization and set a password. Reports, join links and other emails from your organization only reach them once they've accepted it. If it doesn't arrive, use Resend invite from the Actions menu on their profile. Unlike Students, a Client does need an email address — it's how they receive reports.
The Client profile
Click any Client to open their profile. A Client's profile is built around the Students they pay for:
Students — every Student linked to this Client. A Client can have several Students (for example, siblings). Next to each Student you'll see which emails the Client gets about them, for example Lesson reports and Attendance, or Emails off.
Email notifications — to change which emails this Client receives for a Student, click the menu (three dots) next to the Student and choose Edit email notifications. There are two switches per Student: Lesson report emails (sent with each Lesson Report) and Attendance emails (sent when attendance is recorded). Each Student's settings are independent.
Client manager — the Administrator who manages this Client. Only Administrators see this card.
Activity — a count of Lessons completed and the number of Students linked to the Client.
Contact — the Client's email address.
Tip: Notification changes save as soon as you switch them. For a full walkthrough, see Managing Client Email Notification Preferences.
Choosing a Client's manager
Each Client can have one Administrator who manages them. The manager gets that Client's attendance emails, so it's worth setting one for each Client if different Administrators look after different families.
Open the Client's profile.
On the Client manager card, click Change manager.
Pick the Administrator, or choose Use company owners to clear it, then click Save manager.
If a Client has no manager, the card shows Uses company owners, and their attendance emails go to your company owners instead. See Managing Client Email Notification Preferences for how this works.
Editing or removing a Client
On a Client's profile, click Edit to update their name, email or timezone. To remove them from your organization, open the Actions menu and choose Remove. Remember that a Client who is still the primary Client of an active Student can't be removed until those Students are reassigned. Changing a Client's email works the same way as for Students: the new address is asked to confirm it first.
Sending Clients their classroom links
On the Courses page, click Export join links to download each Client's Students' classroom links, or to email every Client their own Students' links in one go. See Sending Clients their classroom links.
Exporting a Client's Lesson Reports and attendance
For a Client who pays for lots of Students, such as a school, you can download a PDF covering all of their Students to share with them.
Open the Client's profile and click Export at the top of the page.
Under Report, choose Lesson reports (every Lesson in the period, with the date, Tutor, Student, attendance and that Lesson's report) or Attendance (each Student's attendance over the period, with anyone below 90% flagged).
Under Timeframe, choose Academic year to date (from 1 September), Last 4 weeks, Last month or Custom dates. You can cover up to a year.
Click Download PDF. Large reports can take a minute or two.
Only Lessons that have taken place are included, so canceled, planned and still-running Lessons are left out. Reports still waiting for approval, or written for Students whose Lesson Reports aren't shared with this Client, are left out too. A Student counts as attending if they joined the online classroom or their Tutor marked them present. If a Lesson reports export is very large, Bobbin will ask you to choose a shorter date range.
Importing people in bulk
If you're setting up your organization or adding a lot of people at once, you can import Tutors, Clients and Students from a CSV spreadsheet instead of adding them one at a time. Prepare a spreadsheet with one row per person and upload it — Bobbin checks the file and flags any rows that need fixing before the import runs.
Students can be imported without an email address, so you can bring across a list of younger learners without inventing addresses for them. Everyone imported with an email address gets an invite, just as they would if you added them individually, and your organization's emails reach them once they accept it. If you upload the same file again, anyone already added is skipped and isn't emailed twice.
Finding people
Each list has a search box, and the filter dropdowns on the larger lists let you type to search rather than scrolling, which keeps things quick as your organization grows. You can search by first and last name in either order.
Bobbin's global search covers your Students, Tutors, Clients, Courses and Lessons. It returns only your own organization's real records — the sample data on a new account is left out — and only the people and records you're able to open, so every result leads somewhere. Internal Bobbin accounts don't appear in your Student, Tutor or Client lists either.
Exporting someone's data
If a Student, Client or Tutor asks for a copy of their data, an Administrator can request an export under Organization > Settings > Data export. The export is emailed to you as a CSV file.
A Student's export includes their own Lesson recordings and transcripts, even if they've opted out of recording. Lessons where a different Student opted out are left out. It also includes their attendance for each Lesson: the register mark, when they joined and left the online classroom, any attendance code (with a plain-English description) and any attendance notes.
Transcripts, notes, learning profiles, AI-generated content and recording links in the file can mention other people. Before you send the file on, remove other people's details and any recording link that shows them, then delete your copy once it's sent.
How Clients and Students link together
The link between a Client and a Student is flexible, so Bobbin can match how families and schools really work:
One Client, many Students — a parent paying for two or more children.
One Student, many Clients — a learner linked to more than one payer, such as two parents. One of them is always the Primary (paying) Client.
You set the primary Client when you add a Student, and you can change it any time from the Student's Edit dialog. Notification preferences are held separately for every Client–Student pairing, so each Client only receives emails about the Students they're linked to.