Teacher Guide › Your teaching › When you can teach
Step 4
When you can teach
Your organiser has to fit a lot of workshops into a small number of rooms and hours, and they'd rather not put you down for the Saturday morning you're arriving in. So they can ask you to mark the times you can't teach. It takes about a minute, it's entirely optional, and it makes their job considerably easier.
This is the whole idea, and it's worth reading twice. Yuimaru assumes you're free the entire event until you say otherwise. You never tick "I'm available" — you tick the few sessions you're not. So there's no way to accidentally shrink your own weekend by filling this in half-way, and if you never fill it in at all, nothing bad happens: you simply stay available throughout.
How you'll be asked
Usually by email — "let us know by [a date]", with a link straight to the screen. The date is a nudge, not a deadline: answering late still counts, and never answering leaves you marked available. Your organiser can also send a reminder to just you, and Yuimaru won't email you again once you've answered.
You can also get there yourself at any time. Sign in to the Back Office and open Your workshops; next to each festival's name is an Availability link. Once you're on it, it sits in the bar across the top alongside your other screens.
The screen
It's headed Availability with the line "Mark the sessions you can't teach. Anything you leave alone counts as fine — you don't have to fill this in, and leaving it empty means you're available throughout."
Under it, one block per day of the festival. Each day lists that day's session times as a row you can tap:
Tap once to mark a session Can't teach; tap it again to change your mind. The times shown are the festival's own session times, so one tap says exactly the thing your organiser needs to know. You'll see the same time only once even if it runs in eight different rooms — you're answering "can you teach this session?", and which room it lands in is their problem, not yours.
Something that isn't a whole session
"I can't teach before noon on Saturday" doesn't line up neatly with the session times, so underneath the rows there's a plain from / to pair. Type a start and an end, press Add, and it's recorded as a time you can't teach. Remove it the same way.
If your organiser hasn't laid out a day's sessions yet, that day offers only the from/to pair — there are no session times to tap at yet. You'll see "No sessions laid out for this day yet — give a time range instead."
Saving
Press Save. Next to the button, Yuimaru tells you where you stand in plain words — "Available throughout", or "3 times you can't teach". Come back and change it whenever you need to; it's not a one-shot form.
You'll see "This event hasn't set its dates yet, so there's nothing to mark up." Nothing is wrong — your organiser simply hasn't picked the days. Check back later, or wait for their email.
What your organiser does with it
Two things. First, it shows on their people list as a small chip next to your name — "Available all week" or "2 restrictions" — so they can see at a glance who they've heard from.
Second, and more usefully, Yuimaru can draft the timetable for them, and when it does, your blocked times are a hard rule: it will not put you down for a session you said you can't do. If your organiser also asked which times you'd prefer, that's treated as a wish — leaned towards where it fits, never at the cost of leaving a workshop unplaced.
Marking a time doesn't shift anything that's already scheduled. Where and when your workshop runs stays your organiser's decision — availability just tells them what to avoid next time they rearrange things. If a session is already in the wrong place, tell them directly.
Common questions
Do I have to fill this in?
No. If you don't, you're treated as available for the whole festival — which is usually true, and is exactly what your organiser would assume anyway. Fill it in when there's something real to say.
I marked one morning. Am I now unavailable for everything else?
No — the opposite. You're available for everything you didn't mark. The screen only ever records times you can't do, so marking one morning takes away exactly that one morning.
I missed the deadline.
Fill it in anyway. The date only exists so the reminder email can name one — nothing locks, and a late answer counts just as much as an early one. Do tell your organiser, though, in case they've already arranged the timetable.
Can I say I'd rather teach in the afternoon?
Not on this screen — it's only for times you can't do. Yuimaru does understand preferred times, but they're set by your organiser, so just tell them. They'll be glad to know.
Can I change it after I've saved?
Yes, as often as you like. Open Availability again, adjust, and press Save. If the timetable is already settled it's worth a message to your organiser as well, since they may not be looking.