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. If your Bobbin organization is connected to TutorCruncher, these records are kept in sync from TutorCruncher and are edited there rather than in Bobbin.
Students
Open Students from the Directory 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.
Click Add student to save.
Note: When you add a Student with an email address, Bobbin emails them a welcome link to set a password and sign in. If it doesn't arrive, an Administrator can resend it.
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 a welcome email, won't receive Bobbin emails and can't sign in themselves. 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 welcome email goes out then.
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).
Reports — Progress Reports for the Student. These are created automatically as Lessons complete, and you can also create one on demand with Generate report.
Linked courses — the Courses the Student is enrolled on.
Lesson activity — a count of Lessons completed and total Lessons.
Contact — the Student's email address, if they have one.
Use the Summary and Lessons tabs at the top to switch between the overview and the Student's full Lesson history.
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.
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. Click Remove to remove the Student from your organization.
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.
Clients
Open Clients from the Directory 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 a welcome link to set a password and sign in. If it doesn't arrive, an Administrator can resend it. 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).
Email notifications — control which emails this Client receives for each Student. There are two toggles per Student: Lesson report emails (sent with each Lesson Report) and Attendance emails (sent when attendance is recorded). Each Student's settings are independent.
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 automatically as soon as you click a toggle. For a full walkthrough, see Managing Client Email Notification Preferences.
Editing or removing a Client
On a Client's profile, click Edit to update their name, email or timezone, or Remove to remove them from your organization. Remember that a Client who is still the primary Client of an active Student can't be removed until those Students are reassigned.
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 receives the same welcome email to set their password, just as they would if you added them individually.
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.
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.
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.