Every session is built from blocks. Each block is an item in your agenda that represents an activity in your session, for instance: a theory block, an exercise or a break.
Each block has a duration assigned to it that you can modify, and the start time of the block is calculated from the start time and duration of the preceding block in your session.
To the right of this is a grey vertical bar where you can select a colour-coded category to apply for this block by clicking on the small paintbrush icon.
Apart from the timing and category, for each block you can add the following information:
Title
Description and Additional information - these two columns are visible by default in the Session Planner tool, though you can choose to hide any field you don't wish to see
Goals, Materials, Instructions, Attachments, Assigned to and Background information can also be added to your agenda
If you would like to display different fields within the session planner, you can control which fields are shown and hidden using 'Session Settings'. You're able to adjust the width of the columns in your session plan too - read more about this here.
Creating a block
To create a new block, click on the plus icon on the left of the block, and choose 'Block'
Clicking on the plus icon above or below the block you're currently working on will add a block before or after it:
As well as creating new blocks in your sessions, you can also reuse existing blocks both from your other sessions or from the library of facilitation methods via the Library tab on the right-hand sidebar. See more examples and illustrations in this article about how to find and reuse blocks.
Is there an option to add pre-session activities?
There isn't a dedicated feature to show session-pre work, but the easiest way to represent this would be to create a block with a duration of 0 minutes (so it won’t show up on the left-hand sidebar or add to your session timing), and add there any required pre-session notes.
Moving blocks
One of the essential features of the Session Planner tool is that you can easily move your blocks around the session by simply dragging and dropping them into the right place.
Click on the dotted grip on the top left side of each block, and you’ll be able to drag and drop the block to another position in your agenda.
Similarly, if you think that a certain block should be removed from the agenda but you are not yet sure whether you want to delete it permanently, you can just drag it to the Parking lot area on the right side to park it.
When you do so, your timing will be automatically updated, since the blocks in the Parking lot area do not count towards the overall time of your agenda. If you want the blocks in the Parking lot area to be used again in your session plan, just drag them back to the middle area and into your agenda.
