This guide is for organizations using Bobbin on its own, without TutorCruncher. In this setup you manage everyone and everything — Tutors, Clients, Students, Courses and Lessons — directly in Bobbin.
Note: Coming from TutorCruncher?
If your organization is connected to TutorCruncher, your Tutors, Clients, Students, Courses and Lessons are managed in TutorCruncher and synced into Bobbin automatically. In that case, follow the Bobbin Guide for Administrators instead of this one.
Signing up
You can sign up for Bobbin directly from our website. During signup you'll be asked for a few details about your organization:
Your company name and a company phone number.
Your country. This determines the currency you're billed in and which curriculum the Course plan browser opens on, so it's worth getting right.
Your marketing and privacy preferences, which we record with your account.
The first time an Administrator signs in, we ask a few short questions about your tutoring business. It only takes a moment and helps us point you at the right parts of Bobbin.
Your sample Course
A new organization starts with one sample maths Course and Lesson, shown on a single card on your Dashboard. It's there so you can see how a Course, Lesson, Report and Progress Report fit together before your own teaching is set up.
The sample data is deliberately kept out of your Students, Tutors, Clients, Courses and Lessons lists, and out of search results, so it won't get in your way or be mistaken for a real record. You can remove it whenever you're ready.
How Bobbin works
Bobbin is built from a few connected pieces:
Tutors — the people who deliver the teaching. See Tutors (for non TC users).
Clients and Students — Students are the learners; Clients are the payers who receive the reports. See Clients & Students (for non TC users).
Courses — group related Lessons into a structured program, with an optional Course Outline. See Courses (for non TC users).
Lessons — the individual teaching sessions. Every Lesson belongs to a Course. See Lessons (for non TC users).
Reports and insights — after each Lesson, Bobbin generates AI insights and a Lesson Report, and builds Progress Reports over time.
Resources — a shared library of files and folders you can attach to Courses and open inside a Lesson.
Setting up your organization
If you're starting from scratch, a good order to work through is:
Add your Tutors, so they can be assigned to Courses and Lessons.
Add your Clients and Students, linking each Student to the Client who pays for them.
Create your Courses, adding the relevant Students and Tutors, and optionally build a Course Outline.
Schedule your Lessons against those Courses.
Deliver Lessons and complete Reports — Bobbin handles the transcript, insights and Client emails from there.
Tip: If you're bringing across an existing set of people, you don't have to add them one at a time. Tutors, Clients and Students can all be imported from a CSV spreadsheet, and Students can be imported without email addresses. See Clients & Students (for non TC users).
How people log in
When you add a Tutor, Client or Student in Bobbin, they receive a welcome email with a link to set a password and sign in. If it doesn't arrive, an Administrator can resend it, and there's a forgot-password option on the login page. Tutors can also use the Bobbin mobile app to run their Lessons and write up notes.
A Student added without an email address won't get a welcome email and can't sign in themselves, which is often the right choice for younger learners. Everything else works as normal, and their reports still reach their Client.
Anyone can turn on two-factor authentication for their own account from their profile settings, and Administrators can reset it for someone at your organization if they lose access to their authenticator app.
Emails Bobbin sends
Bobbin emails everyone on a Lesson when it's scheduled, again shortly before it starts, and if the time changes — each in their own timezone. Administrators switch these on or off for the whole organization in your Email Settings, while Lesson Report and Attendance emails are set per Client and Student.
Emails about your Lessons come from your own address with your branding. Emails about your account — verification, passwords, billing — come from Bobbin's address.
Managing your subscription
Your Bobbin subscription and usage are managed by Administrators on the Billing page. See Managing Your Subscription and Billing for how plans, usage and invoices work.