As the coronavirus continues to spread, we’ve been thinking hard about how we can support studios that use Tula, so they can continue to support their students and their communities. We’re all going to need a lot of yoga and meditation in the months ahead.
I’m happy to announce today Broadcast Links, an update we’ve made that will help our customers broadcast their classes online using their preferred video platform, while still leveraging the Tula credits system, payments system and registrations system.
With this update, our hope is that our customers will be able to:
Continue to hold regular classes for customers remotely in the event of local quarantines or business shut-downs.
Provide a remote option for people who don't want to come to studios, while studios are still open
Provide enough value that members continue to keep their memberships
Satisfy obligations for people on annual plans
Add a Broadcast Link to Any Class
On every event page, you’ll now see a “Broadcast” icon (it looks like a bullhorn) next to the others you’re already familiar with. Click that icon to expose the area where you can insert a broadcast link.
Once you’ve added a broadcast url, any student that registers for the class will see the “View Broadcast” link.
Importantly, you can continue to leverage our already built-in functionality that allows you to determine whether payment is required or not in order to register an event. This in effect provides a way for you to put the ‘view broadcast’ links behind a paywall. Of course, you can still allow people to register without paying if you prefer, and simply check them in and take payment virtually when they join.
A few important details
There are a few important details to keep in mind to ensure a quality experience for you and your students.
In order for students to see the ‘View Broadcast’ link on the calendar, they must be logged in. So if they register and pay without logging in, they won’t see the link.
Because the logic around showing the ‘view broadcast’ link is tied to whether people are registered to the event, we recommend checking students at the end of class. This will ensure that if anyone drops for some reason like a connectivity issue, that they’re able to easily re-join the class.
EDIT 3/23/2020: We now continue to persist the ‘view broadcast’ link once a student has been checked in so you can now check students in, in real time, just like you would at your physical studio.
Choosing a video platform
We recommend using Zoom. They offer a fantastic product at an extremely reasonable rate; it’s easy to use and works great on every platform - whether Android, iOS, PC or Mac.
As studio owners ourselves we know first-hand some of the anxiety our customer are feeling, and we hope this update helps you come up with some creative ways to continue to operating your businesses while expanding the ways in which you’re able to serve your customers.
As always, if you’re a customer of Tula and have any questions, simply email us at help@tulasoftare.com.