Every tennis academy groups students differently. Some follow the Hot Shots ball colour pathway. Others use age ranges, skill tiers, or entirely custom labels. Until now, CourtSync offered a fixed juniors/adults/all split with optional ball colour — workable, but not flexible enough for academies with established grouping systems.
Today we are launching configurable age groups — academy-scoped student groupings you define, manage, and apply to lessons. Each group has a label and an owner-chosen calendar colour (hex) that paints lesson slots on your schedule and calendar.
Three grouping methods
In Academy Settings → Age Groups, create groups using any of three methods:
- Age range — e.g., "Juniors 7–10", "Teens 11–15", "Adults 16+" with preset calendar colours you can change
- Ball colour — Hot Shots pathway: seeds descriptive labels (e.g. "Red Ball (Stage 3)") with preset calendar colours; edit labels and colours after seeding
- Custom — free-form labels like "High Performance U12" or "Adult Beginner Social" with your chosen calendar colour
Mix methods as needed. An academy might use Hot Shots labels for juniors and age ranges for teens and adults. Calendar fill always comes from each group's calendar colour, not from a fixed ball-colour enum.
How lessons change
When custom age groups are configured, lessons use age group ID — a reference to your academy's group definition — instead of the legacy age group and ball color fields. The lesson creation form shows your custom groups in a dropdown, and your public academy page filters by these groups.
Parents or students browsing lessons, see your academy's terminology, not generic platform defaults. This makes your public page feel like your brand.
Manage groups over time
Add, edit, reorder, and deactivate groups from Academy Settings. Reordering affects display in lesson creation and public filters. Deactivating (rather than deleting) preserves compatibility with historical bookings and makeup credits.
Default age groups can be seeded when you first configure custom grouping, giving you a starting point to refine rather than building from scratch.
Makeup credit compatibility
Age groups integrate with the make-up credit system. When a credit is earned from a lesson with an age group ID, it can only be redeemed on lessons linked to the same age group record. Legacy credits without an age group ID continue to follow the original age group and ball color matching rules.
Saving the source lesson after you change skill level or age group updates available credits from that lesson automatically, so families see compatible replacement sessions without re-earning the credit.
Calendar colours and multi-sport
Age-group calendar colour drives slot fill on owner and coach calendars. Sport appears as a glyph or badge only — it does not change fill colour. Lesson status overlays (cancelled, postponed) keep their existing solid fills.
Backward compatibility
Academies that have not configured custom age groups continue using the legacy juniors/adults/all fields with optional ball colour. Legacy lessons without an age group ID still map ball colour to a fixed hex for calendar paint only. There is no forced migration — switch when you are ready. Existing lessons retain their current grouping until you update them.
Getting started
Open Academy Settings → Age Groups, review any seeded defaults, and add your academy's groups. Then update lesson age group assignments to use the new groups. Changes appear on your public page immediately.
Full instructions: Configuring age groups.
Your academy's grouping system is part of your identity. Configurable age groups ensure CourtSync speaks your language — on the dashboard and on the page families use to book.