Music departments run very differently from other areas of the school — and often differently between schools too. This guide walks you through the most common scenarios for setting up Activity Selection for music, helping you find the approaches that work best for your department.
We also recommend sitting down with your dedicated School Success Manager before you get started. They'll take the time to understand how your school currently manages music selections and recommend the best setup in Clipboard for you.
Setting up Music Tuition Selections
There are two common approaches schools take when collecting tuition selections.
Option 1: Student selects an instrument, school assigns the tutor
In this setup, students or parents choose the instrument they want to study. Music admins can then place them with a specific tutor afterwards.
How this works in Clipboard:
When selections come through, a banner will appear at the top of your Teams area alerting you that students have selected an instrument but aren't yet in a team. From there, you can:
Go to Teams and click Place in Teams
Use the power filters in Team Power View to sort students by their Custom Field responses — for example, filtering by preferred tutor
3. Add each student to the appropriate tutor's team
This gives you full flexibility to place students wherever is most suitable, regardless of what they may have indicated in their Custom Field responses:
Option 2: Student selects a specific tutor
In this setup, students or parents choose both the instrument and the tutor they'd like to have lessons with. Clipboard can automatically assign them to the correct team as soon as a selection is made.
How to set this up:
Create your tutor teams in the Teams area first
Link each tutor option to its corresponding Current Team in the Linked Teams field.
Once this is set up, students will be automatically added to their tutor's team the moment a selection is made — no manual placement required.
Tip: Consider adding a "No preference" option for students who are new to the school and haven't met the tutors yet.
Setting up Ensemble Selections
Here are three common scenarios for ensemble selections that Activity Selection is used for:
Expression of interest for audition-based ensembles
Use this approach when places in an ensemble are competitive and require an audition first.
Best practice: Create a separate Activity Selection Group specifically for expressions of interest in joining the ensemble, with a short open and close window that aligns with your audition period.
Recommended workflow:
Create an audition team (e.g. Jazz Band Audition) for the Activity
Add this team to the Linked Teams field for the Activity in the Activity Selection Group
Create an Audition Session on the Schedule. Once students make their Activity Selection, they will automatically appear on the Roll for the Team 'Jazz Band Audition' at that Session.
After auditions, drag and drop successful students from the audition team into the confirmed ensemble team (Column View is helpful here):
5. Use the Email Teams feature in the Teams page to notify successful students and their parents or guardians
6. Email the remaining unsuccessfully auditioned students in the audition team to let them know the outcome.
Age-based ensembles (open to all eligible students)
Use this approach when any student in specific year groups can join an ensemble — for example, a Middle School Choir open to all Year 7–9 students.
How to set this up:
In the Activity Selection setup, add eligibility requirements to each option. For example:
Middle School Choir — Years 7, 8, 9 only
Senior School Choir — Years 10, 11, 12 only
Students and parents will only see the options they're eligible for, keeping the selection experience clean and straightforward.
Tip: Link these Choir Options to update your Current Choir Teams, and add your rehearsal Sessions to the Schedule in advance. When students make a selection, they'll automatically be added to the Team, the Session Roll, and the rehearsal will appear in their Clipboard Calendar.
Invite-only ensembles
Use this approach when you want to restrict who can see and select a particular ensemble — for example, a string quartet with only four positions.
How to set this up:
Go to Settings and create a specific Tag (e.g. "Invite-Only Music 2026"). We recommend including the year in the Tag name so you can easily bulk-add and remove it each year.
In the Activity Selection Group setup, set the Tag as an eligibility requirement for that Activity:
3. Attach Tags to Students or Bulk attach the Tag to each student you want to invite.
Only students with that Tag will see the ensemble as a selectable option. Their siblings or other students won't see it at all.
Managing Rolling Selections throughout the Year
Music departments often need to accept new selections throughout the year, not just at the start of a term or semester. However, students who have already made selections need to be protected from self-withdrawal, as there are specific school guidelines to follow when withdrawing from, e.g. instrument lessons instead. Here's how to manage this effectively.
Lock Selections to prevent self-removal
We strongly recommend turning on Locked Selections for music activities. It means students and parents can make new selections while the Activity Selection Group is open, but they cannot remove a selection themselves.
To turn this on, go into the Activity Selection Group setup and enable the locking option for each relevant Activity:
Staying on top of new selections
Activity Selection Digest Emails give you a daily summary of the Activity Selections made across your Departments and Activities, so you don't have to keep the Selections List open to stay across incoming selections.
When new selections are made without automatically placing students in their Linked Current or Planned Team, they must be manually placed in Teams on the Teams page. The banner at the top of your Teams page will flag any students who have made a selection but haven't yet been placed in a team.
You will also see the new Activity Selections listed on the Selections List.
Tip: Use the email feature on the Teams page to quickly notify a tutor when a new student is added to their group.
Setting up a Formal Withdrawal Process
Rather than allowing students or parents to deselect an activity themselves, many music departments prefer a formal withdrawal process. You can also set up a separate Activity Selection group to manage this.
Recommended setup:
Create a new Activity Selection Group (e.g. 'Music Withdrawal Form') with a short open and close window at the end of the semester
Add the relevant instruments or activities as options, and link each one to a 'ceasing tuition' Team
Lock Selections, so that responses are retained and can't be removed
Set the Requirement so that only parents can submit this form (if your school's policy requires parental sign-off)
Add Custom Field questions to collect any feedback you need (e.g. reason for withdrawal, acknowledgement of your refund policy).
Once the withdrawal window closes:
Review the students who submitted the form
Remove each student from their tutor's Team in Clipboard
Email the relevant tutor to let them know
Email the withdrawing student and parent to confirm the withdrawal has been processed.
Empty the withdrawal teams so they're ready for next semester — go to Manage Teams, select all students, and save and empty the student list.
Activity Selection Group Setup Tips
General recommendations
Always include the semester or year in your Activity Selection group description (e.g. "Semester 2, 2026"). When you duplicate the group for the next period, this information is retained, making it easy to update.
Set open and close dates that match your enrolment window. For expressions of interest, keep the window short and align it with your audition schedule.
Use Custom Field questions to collect the information you need upfront — preferred tutor, experience level, terms and conditions agreement, and so on. Questions can be required or optional, and support text, number, dropdown, multi-select, and checkbox formats.
Consider setting Minimum and Maximum Activity limits if your school has requirements around how many music activities a student can select. This helps prevent over-commitment.
Add payment through Clipboard if your school collects tuition fees directly. If tutors invoice families themselves, leave payment disabled for those activities.
Hyperlink your Terms and Conditions details
You can hyperlink to your school's terms and conditions within the Activity Description or Custom Fields. Note that the document must be hosted on a website (not as a PDF) for this to work.
For additional support, contact support@clipboard.app.