Breaks and fine-tuning your timetable

The scheduler builds a conflict-free timetable for you — but you're always in control. This guide covers breaks (lunch, gaps between locations) and the hands-on gestures for adjusting a schedule exactly how you want it.

Adding and editing breaks

A break blocks out your own time so no lesson lands there. Add one in the schedule wizard's Breaks step, or right on the timetable: tap a break to change its start time or length, move it, or delete it.

Because a break is your time, it takes priority over lessons. If moving or lengthening a break would overlap existing lessons, the app re-homes those lessons automatically and shows you a preview before anything changes.

The one thing a break won't override is a locked time slot or a group lesson — those are commitments with other people in them. If you try to move a break onto one, the app tells you there's a conflict; and if your usual break time falls inside a locked slot, that day simply has no break, because you're already committed then.

Lessons slide earlier automatically

When you move a break so it frees up earlier time, the lessons after it slide forward to fill the gap — you'll see exactly which lessons move in a preview, and confirm before it applies. Preferred (★) lessons are never demoted out of a starred time, and nothing moves to a time the student isn't free.

Editing lessons by hand

Tap a lesson to edit that student — name, activity, duration, or availability — without leaving the schedule.
Long-press and drag a lesson to a new day or time to rearrange it. As you drag, the grid colours the drop target: green where the time is free, orange where it's already taken but the app can reshuffle to make room, and red where it can't go — a locked slot, or a time the student isn't free. It snaps to a clean 5-minute grid. Drag-to-rearrange is a Pro feature.

Drop a lesson onto an orange (occupied) time and the app reshuffles the lessons in the way to make room — always previewed before it applies. This is one of the app's smartest touches; see Reshuffling: how the app makes room for the full story.

Pinning a lesson

Once you're happy with where a lesson sits, you can pin it so it stays there. Tap the lesson, then turn on Pin this lesson in place. Group lessons can be pinned the same way — tap the group and use Pin this group in place.

A pinned lesson keeps its day and time when you regenerate the schedule, and won't be moved by a reshuffle. It also stays put even if it no longer matches the student's stated availability — a pin is you overriding the scheduler on purpose.

When you tap Regenerate on a schedule that has pins, the app asks what you want: Keep Pinned rebuilds everything around your pinned lessons, or Regenerate All clears the pins and starts completely fresh.

Pinning is available on every plan.

Pinning vs. locked time slots. They sound alike but do different jobs. A pin is applied afterwards, to a lesson already sitting in a generated schedule, to stop it moving. A locked time slot is set up beforehand, in the wizard, to force a group to an exact day and time regardless of anyone's availability. Use a pin to keep a good result; use a locked time slot to declare a fixed commitment. Locked time slots are a Pro feature; pinning isn't.

Reading and zooming the grid

Pinch to zoom in and out of the timetable.
Days per view (in Settings) lets you choose how many days fill the screen at once — fewer, wider columns on a phone; more on iPad. The rest scroll sideways.
Lessons are colour-coded by activity, so all your piano students share a colour, all your violinists another. You can override any activity's colour from the schedule's palette button.

Good to know

You can move a lesson yourself by long-pressing and dragging it — drag-to-rearrange is a Pro feature, while tapping a lesson to edit it is free.
When you move a break, any lessons it would overlap are re-homed automatically and later lessons can slide earlier into freed time; you always see a preview and confirm first, and every change can be undone.
Regenerating rebuilds the whole timetable from scratch. If there are lessons you've placed just how you want them, pin them first and choose Keep Pinned when you regenerate — everything else is rebuilt around them.
If the day columns feel tiny, set Days per view to 3, 4, or 5 in Settings for wider columns and swipe sideways for the rest.