What people see about substitutions

Recording a substitution is one half of the job. The other half is that the people who need to know see it without being told — which is what the upcoming substitutions view does for anyone holding a link.

Where it shows up

A link holder meets it in two places, and they are fed by the same information:

• On the landing page when they first open the link, as a card.
• In the timetable itself, as a strip under the toolbar, a marker on the menu, and a panel with the detail.

The strip appears only when there is something for that person, and it can be dismissed for the session. When it is quiet, the menu is still the way in — so somebody who dismissed it, or who wants to check nothing has changed, is never left without a route.

A personal link shows a personal list

If the link is scoped to particular people — one teacher, one group — the view knows who its holder is and answers the question they actually have.

Rows arrive already filtered to them and grouped by what they need to do:

• lessons they are covering for someone else,
• their own lessons that have changed,
• and anything still uncovered.

That grouping is the point. A teacher opening their link does not want a list of today's changes across the school; they want to know whether they are teaching something they did not expect to.

A general link shows initials

A link that is not scoped to anyone has no "who am I" to work with, so it shows the whole picture instead — a table of what is changing, plus a day-at-a-glance summary.

By default everyone in that view is masked to their initials. A general link is, by definition, one that could be anywhere.

Absence is personal information. A link pinned in a corridor or embedded on a public page should not announce who is away, so the shared view does not, unless you decide otherwise.

The two switches

Both are per link, in the link's advanced settings.

Cover feed controls whether that link sees substitutions at all. Turn it off and the section simply is not there for its holder — no error, no empty box.

Substitutions show full names replaces the initials with real names for that link, and it is off until you turn it on. Turn it on for a staffroom link where everyone concerned is a colleague; leave it off for anything that leaves the building.

Because both are per link, one timetable can have a named staff link and a masked public one at the same time.

Scope still applies

A scoped link hides lessons outside its scope, and a substitution does not change that — a covered lesson belonging to somebody else's class stays out of view. The link's scope decides what its holder may see; a substitution never widens it.

Where to go next

• Substitutions — recording one.
• The permission ladder — what scope means.