Plan, run and evaluate a session

A training night goes better when the plan is written before you get to the ground, is on the phone in your pocket when you arrive, and gets one honest line afterwards about how it went. The Session Planner does all three from your squad's Training page. You build or pick a plan, put it on the night, run it block by block with a timer, and tell your technical director whether it worked.

Planning your sessions in Clubhouse for the first time? Nothing needs setting up: your Planner tab opens on the club's library, and any night your technical director has already planned shows its plan. Work through it in this order.

1. Read the methodology your sessions are built on, in Read your programme's methodology.
2. Put a plan on your first night, under Put a plan on a night.
3. Draw a drill of your own when the library hasn't got the one you want, in Draw a drill.
4. Run it, then say how it went, under Run the session and Say how it went.

• Plans hang off the training nights already in your squad's schedule. If a night is missing, it needs adding to the schedule first, as Run your training week explains.
• Your programme has to have session planning switched on. If it doesn't, the Planner tab says so instead of showing the library.
• Putting a plan on a night tells nobody. Players and families don't get a message, so you can change your mind as often as you like before the session.

Training has three tabs: Upcoming, Complete and Planner. The first two are the nights themselves, and Planner is where the sessions and drills you plan from live.

Planner has four tabs of its own:

• Sessions holds whole training plans, yours and the club's.
• Drills holds single drills. Draw a drill covers making one.
• Set pieces holds your plays.
• Library is the Clubhouse library, ready-made drills and sessions you can copy.

New makes a New session, a New drill or a New play. Methodology in the header opens your programme's methodology, so you can check what the club wants worked on before you plan.

Each upcoming night without a plan shows Plan this session in its row, which opens the night builder straight on the skeleton for that night (the same start as Quick start below). To choose how to start, open the night instead and, on its Session Plan tab, choose Plan this night. Clubhouse asks How do you want to plan this night? with three ways in:

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1. Quick start starts from the skeleton for this night's phase, age group and length, so the blocks and minutes are already laid out.
2. From library opens Choose a session. Sessions that suit the night are listed under Suggested for this night, with everything else under All sessions. Pick one and choose Use on this night.
3. Reuse last runs the squad's previous plan again. It's greyed out, with the reason, when the squad has no previous plan yet.

Quick start opens the night builder. Across the top, the plan's minutes are counted against the night's booked time, so you can see when it's Fully planned or how far over you are.

• Add block adds a block, and Choose a drill puts a drill in it. Each block's menu has Swap drill, Duplicate, Move up, Move down and Remove block.
• Open a block to change its Minutes, its Coaching points and My notes for this block.
• Start from the standard plan replaces the blocks with the skeleton again. It asks first, because it can't be undone.
• Save draft keeps it without putting it on the night. A draft can be part-done.
• Assign to tonight puts it on the night and takes you back to where you started: the Training list, or the night itself with its plan showing.

You can also start from a session you already have. On the Planner tab's Sessions tab, the row menu's Use tonight asks Use on which night? and lists your next upcoming nights, with the reason against any you can't use.

Once a night has a plan, its row on Training shows the plan's name and who made it: My plan, Planned by TD or TD plan · adapted.

Open a night from Training and the Session plan card sits beside the squad. On a phone, switch between Squad and Session Plan at the top.

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The card shows every block in order, with its minutes, and a pill for where the plan came from: Coach plan, Planned by TD or TD plan · adapted. Your technical director's TD note and any Session notes sit under the blocks. Tap a block to see the drill, its coaching points and tonight's notes, and Run from here starts the session at that block.

On your own plan, Edit plan reopens the builder. The menu beside it has Swap for another session and Remove plan. Removing the plan puts the night back to unplanned and leaves the session in the library.

Once the night has started, the plan is locked as it ran, so what you evaluate is what happened.

Your technical director can plan a night for the whole programme. You'll see Planned by TD on the night, and the plan is theirs, not yours to edit directly. When your squad needs something different on the night, adapt it rather than replace it, so your technical director can see what you changed and why.

1. On the night, choose Make changes.
2. Change the blocks the same way as in the builder.
3. Fill in Why did you change it?. Your technical director sees this next to the changes.
4. Choose Save changes.

The night now shows TD plan · adapted, with the number of changes and your reason. Choose Edit to change it again.

To undo it all, choose Back to TD plan. Clubhouse asks Back to the TD plan? and, once you confirm, deletes your changes so the night runs your technical director's plan again. The library is untouched.

Run mode puts the plan on a dark, full-screen view you can read on the touchline, with one block at a time and a timer for each. The screen stays awake while it's open.

Start it with Run session on the night, or the Run pill on today's row on Training.

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• The picture is the block's drill at the top. Its View pill switches between the plan and 3D, and Full screen makes it fill the screen. Show a drill or a play in 3D covers 3D on the night.
• The words under it are the block's coaching points, then Set-up, anything new This week, the Step up and Step down, and your notes. Full drill opens everything written for the drill.
• The timer is the ring at the bottom. Tap it to start, pause, resume or restart the block. It turns amber for the last 30 seconds and buzzes when time is up, and it keeps counting if the phone locks.
• Moving on is up to you. Next shows the next block's name and turns green when time is up, but it never moves on by itself. Swipe across the words to go forward or back, or tap the strip of blocks along the top to jump to one. On the last block it reads Finish session.

The top bar shows which block you're on and whether you're running over. Exit and Finish session both take you back to the night. If the phone locks or the page reloads, Run mode picks up in the same block.

On an iPad, Run mode adds a rail down the left with the session's name, its total minutes and every block, ticked as you finish them. The coaching points get a column of their own, beside the rest of the block, Set-up stays open, and the back button reads Previous. A phone turned on its side puts the picture on the left and the words on the right.

Plenty of grounds have no signal, so the plan saves itself to your phone before you get there. Each planned night on Upcoming shows one of two lines:

• Ready offline ✓, with the time it was saved, means this device can run the night with no signal.
• Open on signal to save for offline means it hasn't saved yet. Open Training on this device while you have signal and it saves itself. There's nothing else to press.

It's per device, so open Training on the phone or iPad you'll take to the ground. Plans for the next fortnight are kept. Offline, everything runs except your notes, which say Notes need a signal.

After the night, one tap tells your technical director whether the plan worked, which is how next season's plans get better. You can answer once the session has started.

1. Open the night and find How did it go? under the plan.
2. Choose Evaluate.
3. Pick Went to plan, Changed on the night or Didn’t work. If you adapted the plan, Changed on the night is already picked.
4. Add a line for your technical director if you want to, then choose Save.

Your answer shows on the night with its time, and Edit changes it. Saved with no signal, it waits on your phone and sends when you're back online, so keep the page open.

On the Complete tab, each planned night shows how it went: ✓ went to plan, ↻ changed on the night, ✗ didn't work, and a dot when it hasn't been evaluated yet.

• The night's row on Upcoming shows your plan's name and My plan, Planned by TD or TD plan · adapted.
• Ready offline ✓ shows on the night on the device you'll take to training.
• Run session opens the first block, and the timer counts down when you tap it.
• After Make changes and Save changes, the night shows TD plan · adapted with your reason.
• After you evaluate, the night on Complete shows ✓, ↻ or ✗ instead of a dot.