The CoachAccountable Blog

I had fun launching Version 5.

Then I had fun launching Version 5.1.

Today I don’t have anything quite so big and major to show off, but you know what?  Since 5.1’s release in August I’ve done my usual thing of adding numerous little enhancements.

And absent making some sort of thing about it, many of those little gems are apt to go unnoticed.

So I dunno, let’s make a thing a Thing and call the last 4 months worth of new features Version 5.1.1!

Here’s what’s new:

Drag-and-Drop File Uploads

You can now drag files into the Library >> Files area, or into the Files section of a client page.  Do so and they’ll be immediately uploaded into whatever folder you were looking at.  They won’t have any alternate titles set, or descriptions, nor will any notifications be sent in the case of sharing with a client.  But you can set and do those things if needed as a separate step once they flash into existence.

Up to 20 files allowed in a single drop, super satisfying!

Yeah, anywhere in that blue rounded corner rectangle will do.

Drag-and-Drop Gallery Images

When you’re composing anywhere in the WYSIWYG editor and gallery image inserting is allowed, you’re now able to drag an image file right over the compose window and drop it in.  This will have the effect of automatically adding whatever image to your Gallery (upon save), and save you the trouble of having to upload and then insert it as separate steps.

The image will be inserted wherever your cursor presently is, so get that right before you drop.

High Definition Gallery Images

Speaking of inserting images into your WYSIWYG content, images added now support a max width of 1400 pixels (up from 560), as in they’ll only be downsized to 1400 pixels if needed.  They’ll still be shrunk to fit the standard content width, but this means your high def images will look sharper when viewed on e.g. a retina device.

I’ve also made it so that when an image’s natural size IS much larger than the standard content width, one can click on it to view it full size.

And if the image is too big to view full size in the whole browser window, click it again and cue the scroll bars!

On a related note, when choosing images from your gallery those display as mere thumbnails.  You can now get a closer look by clicking on whichever thumbnail you’ve selected as it displays in the right side panel.

Inline Editing of WYSIWYG Images

Okay, one last goodie to do with images when composing content with the WYSIWYG: if you click on an image a little inline popup will appear, allowing you to set styling properties, alignment and size.

I mean, I think the rounded corners are rather fetching, but if they’re not your thing just uncheck the box.

Nicer WYSIWYG Linking

The UI for adding a hyper link via the WYSIWYG is now a spiffy pop up.  It admits full keyboard control, meaning you can link a bit of content without ever having to reach for your mouse: select the content, hit Ctrl+K, paste or type in your URL, and hit enter.  You’re cursor will be right back where you left it ready to continue your edits.  Have a change of heart?  Hit escape at that pop up and it’ll get out of your way and have you ready to resume.  Smooth as silk.

Ctrl+K got me in this, and enter will get me out.

Ctrl+S Save Keyboard Shortcut

Ctrl+S used to be a shortcut for strike through text, but eh, how often do you use that?  Now, in contexts where saving work in progress is a thing (think composing Session Notes and Journal Entries, working on Worksheets, editing Whiteboards) hitting Ctrl+S will save your work.  It won’t do more presumptuous things like mark things complete or send a Message, so you’ll never be caught off guard.

Me saving that work of adding that hyper link, keeping up the streak of not having to reach for my mouse.

In-Calendar Cancel and Reschedule Links

You know how your clients can readily have your appointments with them automatically pipe into their calendar of choice?  Now in the events as added to their calendar the Description field contains magic links for canceling and rescheduling that appointment.  No login required: total convenience, and super handy for clients who have a VA manage that sort of thing on their behalf.

Those links? They’re real, and they’re fantastic.

Invoicing Details in the Current Engagements Listing

For at-a-glance awareness, the invoicing details of a given Engagement are now listing for Current Engagements as found in the Business Center.

Nice to be able to see those upcoming paydays.

Search Filter in Offerings Sign Ups

Because sometimes it’s nice to be able to search by Offering name or client.

Nice to see how sales are for that particular one!

Offering [appointmentLocation] Magic Tag

If clients sign up for an Offering that entails an Appointment, sometimes it’s nice to have the location of that Appointment (often a URL to join a virtual meeting) be included right in the confirmation email for that Offering.  With the new [appointmentLocation] magic tag you can now have exactly that, in addition to the usual reminders, in-app display, and calendar sync.

If it helps your new clients be more likely to easily find their way to your sessions, I’m all for it.

Group Whiteboard Emailing Options

When emailing a Group Whiteboard, CA will now auto suggest the emails of the various Group Members.

Now then, who asked for a resend? Ah yes…

Group Worksheets

For Group Worksheet assignments being viewed in the Group Page’s Stream, your clients can now click on it to bring up the editor for their own work right there on the group page, no need to go back to their Home >> Worksheets area.

If the rules are such that further working on is allowed after marking complete, a client will also be able to do that from the Group Page.

I mean, it’s the little wins, right?

And there you have it!  Any major game changers in here?  Nah.  But there are some quality of life enhancements in here that are worth knowing about.

I hope you and your clients will enjoy!

I got an email the other day with the following subject line:

Critical Vulnerabilities Identified in Your Application

That SOUNDS like an alarming discovery, and if it was true it would be.  But this is the stuff of a form letter that gets thrown around fairly regularly by self-described “security researchers” and “ethical hackers”.

I shouldn’t even put those terms in scare-quotes: folks who find genuine security holes and practice responsible disclosure to get them resolved are doing a great service!  And they deserve to be rewarded.

The email continues:

Hello,

I hope you’re well.

I have identified security weaknesses in your application that may pose risks to user data security and operational stability. It is crucial to address these vulnerabilities promptly to mitigate any potential impacts. Could you please provide a suitable contact point so that I can share detailed findings with your team for immediate attention and resolution?

If your organization has a Bug Bounty program, please share the necessary information for participation. If not, I am committed to collaborating with you to enhance your application’s security posture.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I look forward to your response.

Best regards,
[name redacted]

Sounds good!  I appreciate the thoughtful intentionality here.

But here’s where the “genuine” part of “genuine security holes” often breaks down.  This is a form letter, with no mention of any specific issue.  In my experience, in every single instance these have turned out to be concerns over best practices without any evidence of an exploitable vulnerability.  MAYBE my new security friend was just withholding those details until connected with a suitable contact, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Still, as a responsible steward of everyone’s data in CoachAccountable land I do indeed owe it to everyone to make sure I’m staying on top of things and ensuring the security of that data.

This time, instead of responding in the usual way to ask further details (likely wasting time entertaining the non-impactful nit-pickery of someone who doesn’t necessarily know that this isn’t amateur night) I figured:

You know what?  It’s time CA had a Bug Bounty program.

Let me do this concerned party (and all others to follow) one better by creating a bug bounty program that lays out real cash rewards for genuine issues that may be discovered, making it clear once and for all what counts and for how much.

It now lives here:
https://www.coachaccountable.com/bugBounty

Here are the rewards:

Able to gain access you shouldn’t have? I’m putting my money where my mouth is in betting you won’t be able to, and happy to pay you if I’m wrong.

The Bug Bounty program also makes clear a long list of non-meaningful reports that are out of scope.  As I explain there:

This is a long list. It reflects common “vulnerability” reports that either depend on the unsafe/insecure behaviors of other users (which we cannot control) or are merely ostensible “best practices”, the violation of which cannot actually be meaningfully exploited.

It’s nice to have that in place!  I figure I’ve already done the hard work of securing CA to the point that I’m truly willing to back up that claim of security with real dollars, therefore only good can come of standing by that claim publicly, and inviting whomever to show me otherwise.

With that up and published, I was able to respond thusly:

Hi [name redacted],

I’m well, thanks!

You can find the details of our Bug Bounty program here:

https://www.coachaccountable.com/bugBounty

Cheers,
John

Nine days later, I haven’t heard back.  It must not have been that important.

But I will be very happy to learn of any genuine issues that anyone is able to find, and pay out accordingly. :)

It sounds like a lot when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

And I suppose it is!  Now well past the decade mark (a fine demarcation of the longevity of any software business), CoachAccountable is getting up there.

Of course this year’s biggest news was the release of CoachAccountable 5.1.

Reflections, Metric Templates, Key Insights, Default Landing Pages, pinned Stream items, and new worksheet rules all add to the mix of letting coaches give better and more meaningful experiences for their clients.

But a few other goodies were added to the mix.

Courses got a few enhancements, including new Course Availabilities (which allow you to grant access to Courses and leave it up to your clients to start whenever they choose) and the ability to have Course Content be completable (for greater control of pacing and progress).

Offerings got a few new magic tags and a new type of restriction.

Invoices can now be paid by clients and company personnel without logging in or registering their account, and the history of past sendoffs can now be seen.

Metrics now have the option to show only the most recent data (great for long running tracking).

All told, the release notes of this past year detail 64 releases and 43 bug fixes.

A fine year indeed!

Looking Ahead to CA’s Thirteenth Year

Last December I put out a feeler to all CA users, toying with the idea of offering a group course teaching ways to give better and more results-producing coaching experiences to clients.

The response I got back from this was most encouraging, but I realized quickly that such a live class would not scale, to say nothing of its synchronous nature putting a major damper on who could participate.

So in lieu of that, I’ve been working on something else to fulfill that aim, something that would be fair to call the CoachAccountable perspective on how coaches can be more powerful in their efforts.  (And spoiler: I’m proud to say it ain’t more certifications and it ain’t tacking on even more hours of logged experience.)

It’s nearly ready.  Can’t wait to show you when the time is right.

Onward and upward!
John

Metrics are where the rubber meets the road.

Build a habit, measure a KPI, track a rating, reach for a goal.  I’ve already said plenty on why Metrics, so let me now focus on why Metric Templates.

Metric Templates allow you to template out common Metrics that you’ll be guiding our clients with, meaning you save a few seconds and clicks for each setup.

This is a nice upgrade for coaches.

But the really exciting new possibility here?  Making one or more Metric Templates available to your clients, something they can use to set up a game of something worth tracking.

This, too, saves ’em a few seconds, which is cool.  But the real magic is how you can now effectively showcase a set of things they might want to track and play at.

When you create a collection that is client facing, you are saying in so many words “Here are things you might find worth moving the needle with.  Set in motion whichever you’d like, and I’ll be here to support you in making meaningful progress in those areas.”

That’s a great dimension to the service you offer, and a very distinguishing one at that.

Make some Metric Templates and share ’em with your client, then let ’em know what’s on offer and they’re free to help themselves.  Slick.

To get you started, I’ve put together a Resource Package full of Metric Templates that you can peruse and install.

When you add thumbnails to your Metric Templates, it all comes together as a very compelling collection for your clients:

Choose as many as you like to create however many desired.

Do this well, and your clients will be inspired by all the things you can support them in making progress on.

More importantly, they’ll be delighted to continue working with you for the coming weeks and months as they make that progress.

Let’s talk about your coachees today.

As your coaching relationships progress, insights, declarations, and results will naturally accrue.

Will these things be forgotten, merely flash-in-the-pan with no lasting impact? Or with they stick around, to be remembered, truly integrated, used for a reference of then-and-now progress and built upon?

Few.  Coaches.  Wrestle.  With.  This.

And yet…

Here’s a street-level report on things, from us coachees.

The default state in coaching is that whatever was created last session is pushed out of awareness by whatever is created in the current one.  Absent structure to record and re-presence past creations, this is a natural consequence of human awareness.

Enter Reflections.

Reflections are your way to have CoachAccountable automatically insert insights, answers to questions, and results that were recorded earlier into subsequent work and content, allowing both you and your clients to stay aware of (and build upon) whatever was created earlier. This steers coaching relationships towards continuity and progress that builds (as contrasted with always starting from a blank slate, dealing only with the moment thus losing sight of the bigger picture).

With Reflections, scenarios like these are possible with CoachAccountable automatically doing the heavy lifting of finding and filling in the blanks for you:

“Over the past 4 weeks, your weekly sales have been $____, $____, $____ and $____.  How are you feeling about your progress during that time?”

“Coming into this Session, [clientFirstName] said they most wanted help this week with _____________.”

“Coming into this session you said you were most excited to get guidance around ______________.  What is your outlook around that now, going forward?”

“Yesterday, you meditated for ___ minutes.
What’s your number for today?”

or, if they entered a zero or didn’t report:

“It looks like you didn’t meditate yesterday.  No worries, you can get right back into the habit today!”

“On Day 1 you said the breakthrough you were most interested in getting was this:
_____________________________________
Three weeks in, how is that going now?”

Forth button in from the right.

I don’t like to traffic in hype cliches.  Nevertheless I believe it fair to say that the ability to automatically re-presence the words and results of your clients in subsequent interactions is a game changer.  You get to create a profound sense of continuity in your relationship, really be in your client’s world by recreating what they’ve said and accomplished, and keep meaningful creations alive and present.

And the client experience?

When presented with our own words and ideas, we pay attention.  Yes, it’s not hard to fill out the usual blank pre-session form as preparation for our upcoming coaching call (“How’s it been going since last time?”, but it’s a vastly different experience to interact with an inquiry that contains our own words (“After last session, you said you were taking on ___________.  How’s that gone since then?”)

For client engagement.
For continuity.
For awareness.
For the experience of being known and heard.
For progress that builds upon itself.
This.  Is.  Cool.

And I can’t wait to see what you create with Reflections of your own.

To get you started, I’ve created a Resource Package that showcases off several ways to use Reflections.

The pair pre- and post-Appointment Worksheet Templates, for example show off a powerful back-and-forth rhythm of re-presencing what client said over a sequence of sessions.

Try it, and others, out in the Course Builder Page Preview mode to see the effect in action.

If you want a really easy way to start using Reflections in your practice today, start using those Reflection-powered pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets with your routine coaching calls.  It’s as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Install them from the Reflections Resource Package
2. Make whatever edits you like to them (to tailor them to your voice and style)
3. Edit your Appointment Type(s) to include those new pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets.

And that’s Reflections!

If you take 5 minutes to install that Reflections Resource Package, it is apt to get your creative juices flowing in a Very.  Good.  Way.  To learn more of the nuts and bolts, see the Knowledge Base article on Reflections.

It’s a serious treat to get session notes.

Speaking as a coachee, getting from my coach their version of “Hey, this is what I’d want you to take from this conversation” is a real gift.

Without fail, it brings back the warm fuzzies of what was great from that session, reminds me to take that coaching goodness out into my life, and is a souvenir that I can revisit later, when I’m stuck or could use a little inspiration.

It is a gift that keeps on giving.

Key Insights put this gift squarely on a silver platter.

What are Key Insights?

Key Insights are just that: short and sweet one-liners that are the most distilled essence of what you want your client to remember.

Key Insights represent the highlight reel of your sessions; the nuggets of wisdom and touch stones that allow recall of the important parts. If your client reviews nothing but those, they’ll be left present to the lion’s share of what mattered in their work with you.

What are Key Insights as a new CoachAccountable feature?

Key Insights are an alternative (or addition!) to the usual ways of composing Session Notes.

They can be positioned below the usual WYSIWYG as well, or even be an outright replacement for it.

When you compose your Session Notes consisting of Key Insights, they’ll be prominently displayed up top, ready for an at-a-glance review:

Clicking on any given card, of course, brings it up in full size.

Better yet, any Key Insights you add as part of your Session Notes are automatically collected in their own section, ripe for review and searching by you and your clients:

Click on any one to bring up the full Session Notes that the Insight originally came from.

Capture the essence of what your clients are getting as a growing collection of memorable one-liners, ready to carry forward and easy to review.  They’ll love you for it.You can even revisit any past Session Notes and add those retroactively, they’ll accordingly be added to their stash of Key Insights.

When your client clicks on a Key Insight, the full Session Notes from whence they came will pop right up, allowing them to jump right back into context.

You and your clients can also “star” any given Key Insight, making it easy to sort or filter down to only those that are starred, which is great for keeping present those that are most relevant week to week.

One click on, one click off. What’s the focus this week?

Clients will only see the Key Insights tab in their Session Notes area once there’s something there to see, so if you’re not into using those today, no worries!  They’ll be available for you to easily start with as a value-add whenever you’re ready.

In the lead up to launching Version 5.1 I got to experience having Key Insights as part of the mix:

Distilled bits of wisdom that helped focus my efforts of getting version 5.1 launched.

It was a treat, and it was effective. :)

If already you share Session Notes with your clients, add Key Insights to the mix to make them even better.

If you don’t, start.  Key Insights make writing good Session Notes dead simple, AND more valuable.

Your clients will love you for ‘em.

CoachAccountable 5.1 has now just launched!

This release is a collection of features designed to let you provide more delightful, difference-making experiences for your clients.

They are:

• Key Insights – Capture the essence of what they’re getting as a growing collection of memorable one-liners, ready to carry forward and easy to review.
• Reflections – Automatically insert your client’s earlier responses into later worksheets, Whiteboards, notes, and other content.
• Metric Templates – Make setup of Metrics super easy, and do so in a way that showcases and gets clients excited about what you can support them with.
• Default Client Landing Pages – Have clients upon login jump to a given Group or Course page when that’s the area of focus for their in-app experience.
• Pinning Stream Items – Pin key items to the top of any Client or Group Stream.
• New Worksheet Rules – Automatic deletion of old, incomplete assignments and new abilities for clients to modify already completed ones.

CoachAccountable Version 5.1 is all about the client experience, specifically giving you more power to deliver more delightful, on-point, and profound experiences for your clients.

Let me show you how!

Key Insights

It’s a serious treat to get session notes.

Speaking from experience, I love getting from my coach their version of “Hey, this is what I’d want you to take from this conversation”.

Without fail, it brings back the warm fuzzies of what was great from that session, reminds me to take that coaching goodness out into my life, and is a souvenir that I can revisit later, when I’m stuck or could use a little inspiration.

It is a gift that keeps on giving.

Key Insights put this gift squarely on a silver platter.

What are Key Insights?

Key Insights are short and sweet one-liners that are the most distilled essence of what you want your client to remember.

Key Insights represent the highlight reel of your sessions; the nuggets of wisdom and touchstones that allow recall of the important parts. If your client reviews nothing but those, they’ll be left present to the lion’s share of what mattered in their work with you.

As a new feature, Key Insights are an alternative (or addition!) to the usual ways of composing Session Notes.

They can be positioned below the usual WYSIWYG as well, or even be an outright replacement for it.

When you compose your Session Notes consisting of Key Insights, they’ll be prominently displayed up top, ready for an at-a-glance review:

Clicking on any given card, of course, brings it up in full size.

Better yet, any Key Insights you add as part of your Session Notes are automatically collected in their own section, ripe for review and searching by you and your clients:

Click on any one to bring up the full Session Notes that the Insight originally came from.

Capture the essence of what your clients are getting as a growing collection of memorable one-liners, ready to carry forward and easy to review.  They’ll love you for it.

You and your clients can also “star” any given Key Insight, making it easy to sort or filter down to only those that are starred, which is great for keeping present those that are most relevant week to week.

One click on, one click off. What’s the focus this week?

You’ll find the place to enable and configure Key Insights in your account under Settings >> My Style >> Coaching Work >> Key Insights.

Get the full story, including some great practices around using these, in the Knowledge Base article on Key Insights.

Reflections

This is the one I’m most excited about.  Reflections are a little abstract, but have the greatest potential to profoundly contribute to the power of your work.

As your coaching relationships progress, insights, declarations, and results will naturally accrue.

Will these things be forgotten, merely flash-in-the-pan with no lasting impact? Or will they stick around, to be remembered, truly integrated, used for a reference of then-and-now progress and built upon?

Few.  Coaches.  Wrestle.  With.  This.

And yet…

Here’s a street-level report on things, from us coachees.

The default state in coaching is that whatever was created last session is pushed out of awareness by whatever is created in the current one.  Absent structure to record and re-presence past creations, this is a natural consequence of human awareness.

Enter Reflections.

Reflections are your way to have CoachAccountable automatically insert insights, answers to questions, and results that were recorded earlier into subsequent work and content, allowing both you and your clients to stay aware of (and build upon) whatever was created earlier. This steers coaching relationships towards continuity and progress that builds (as contrasted with always starting from a blank slate, dealing only with the moment thus losing sight of the bigger picture).

With Reflections, scenarios like these are possible with CoachAccountable automatically doing the heavy lifting of finding and filling in the blanks for you:

“Over the past 4 weeks, your weekly sales have been $____, $____, $____ and $____.  How are you feeling about your progress during that time?”

“Coming into this Session, [clientFirstName] said they most wanted help this week with _____________.”

“Coming into this session you said you were most excited to get guidance around ______________.  What is your outlook around that now, going forward?”

“Yesterday, you meditated for ___ minutes.
What’s your number for today?”

or, if they entered a zero or didn’t report:

“It looks like you didn’t meditate yesterday.  No worries, you can get right back into the habit today!”

“On Day 1 you said the breakthrough you were most interested in getting was this:
_____________________________________
Three weeks in, how is that going now?”

Forth button in from the right.

I don’t like to traffic in hype cliches.  Nevertheless I believe it fair to say that the ability to automatically re-presence the words and results of your clients in subsequent interactions is a game changer.  You get to create a profound sense of continuity in your relationship, really be in your client’s world by recreating what they’ve said and accomplished, and keep meaningful creations alive and present.

And the client experience?

When presented with our own words and ideas, we pay attention.  Yes, it’s not hard to fill out the usual blank pre-session form as preparation for our upcoming coaching call (“How’s it been going since last time?”, but it’s a vastly different experience to interact with an inquiry that contains our own words (“After last session, you said you were taking on ___________.  How’s that gone since then?”)

For client engagement.
For continuity.
For awareness.
For the experience of being known and heard.
For progress that builds upon itself.
This.  Is.  Cool.

And I can’t wait to see what you create with Reflections of your own.

To get you started, I’ve created a Resource Package that showcases off several ways to use Reflections.

The pair pre- and post-Appointment Worksheet Templates, for example show off a powerful back-and-forth rhythm of re-presencing what client said over a sequence of sessions.

Try it, and others, out in the Course Builder Page Preview mode to see the effect in action.  If you take 5 minutes to install that Reflections Resource Package, its apt to get your creative juices flowing in a Very.  Good.  Way.  To learn more of the nuts and bolts, see the Knowledge Base article on Reflections.

Metric Templates

Build a habit, measure a KPI, track a rating, reach for a goal.  I’ve already said plenty on why Metrics, so let me now focus on why Metric Templates.

Metric Templates allow you to template out common Metrics that you’ll be guiding your clients through, meaning you save a few seconds and clicks for each setup.

This is a nice upgrade for coaches.

But the really exciting new possibility here?  Making one or more Metric Templates available to your clients, something they can use to set up a game of something worth tracking.

This, too, saves ’em a few seconds, which is cool.  But the real magic is how you can now effectively showcase a set of things they might want to track and play at.

When you create a collection that is client facing, you are saying in so many words “Here are things you might find worth moving the needle with.  Set in motion whichever you’d like, and I’ll be here to support you in making meaningful progress in those areas.”

That’s a great dimension to the service you offer, and a very distinguishing one at that.

Make some Metric Templates and share ’em with your client, then let ’em know what’s on offer and they’re free to help themselves.  Slick.

To get you started, I’ve put together a Resource Package full of Metric Templates that you can peruse and install.  Hat tip to Michael Hyatt of Full Focus: two years ago he created a Resource Package of Metrics as Courses and generously shared it with the CA user’s group, from which I drew heavy inspiration.

When you add thumbnails to your Metric Templates, it all comes together as a very compelling collection for your clients:

Choose as many as you like to set in motion whichever ones desired.

For the full story, see the Knowledge Base article on Metric Templates.

Default Client Landing Pages

Generally speaking, when a client first logs into their CoachAccountable account with you they are taken to their in-app home page.  And that’s usually just the place to be.

However, in SOME scenarios the home page isn’t actually the focal point of the action.  Here are two that are common:

• When the main focus of their experience with you is in a Group, and
• When the main focus of their experience with you is in a Course.

For these situations, you now can tell CA that a client who is a member of a particular Group, or actively participating in a given Course, that they ought to automatically bounce to that respective Group or Course page upon login.

A Group can be designated as a “default landing page” for its client members, and so can a Course for its participants.  Set those however fitting, and CA will do the rest to figure out who should bounce where.  You can even specifically customize this on a per-client basis.  See the article from the CA Knowledge Base for full details.

Pinning Stream Items

Items within a given Stream (either that of a client or a group) are always sorted chronologically (by item date or most recent comment), with newest items at the top.

In some cases, however, some item (or items!) might be so important that they’re worth always keeping present, i.e. at the very top.

When you have such an item, you can pin it, which will cause it to show at the top of the Stream for both you and your clients (and any other team members).

To pin an item, hover your mouse over it to reveal the little pin icon at the upper right.

One click does the trick. On and off.

New Worksheet Rules

Ever want clients to be able to go back to already-completed Worksheets and make further edits?  Now you can let them.

Revisiting a Worksheet can be a matter of making quick edits, or fully un-marking it complete for a new due date, reminders, and opportunity to mark the complete again.  Your call which.

Speaking of Worksheets, if you have ones that go out at a routine cadence (say a regular tracking form, or pre-Appointment check-ins), you now can set CA to auto-purge NY overdue ones, automatically clearing whatever is no longer relevant in the event that your client hasn’t been fully diligent in completing them.

You’ll find the place to configure these new Worksheet rules in Settings >> Coaching Work >> Worksheets.

Just tell CA how you’d like it to handle these things.

And There You Have It!

I’m excited for the new ways in which the features of Version 5.1 will enable you to create more magic and value for your clients.

Let me end this announcement with a funny story.  The other day I got a very kind note from someone recently inducted into the CA Millennium Club (when you’ve logged in 1000 times):

John! I LOVE CA!!! Its the best best best coaching platform ever! SO simple. So helpful. You thought of everything! Thank you!

To which I replied:

Aw, thanks Leith!

Hey, can I quote you on that?  I’m so shy about asking for reviews, I haven’t had a new one all year [Editor’s note: this is a real fact.].  If you open the top right in-app user menu and go to About… >> Reviews, you can write a review.  A verbatim paste of exactly that would be a real gift. :)

To this, Leith most generously gave me the following:

Done! And very happy to do it. I’m glad you asked for the reviews! Keep asking people!

“Keep asking people!” I consider to be sage coaching, and one that I’ll now get over myself to do.

It remains a delight to keep showing up and do what I can in service of your work as coaches.  If you would be willing to take a few minutes to share a review, I would be honored.

You could leave one here.  Or here.  Or only 5 folks have ever left one here, so that’d be great.  Or all three.  And like Leith did you can leave one in-app from the About >> Reviews area, which will land it on CA’s own reviews page.

I’m not even trying to cherry pick just 5-stars, so if you’re in some other camp in your fondness level for CA I would honored to see a review from you, too.  Frankly the overwhelming presence of 5’s and almost nothing else probably looks suspicious anyway, so that’ll help to keep things looking real. :)

Right then, that’s all I’ve got for 5.1’s announcement.  Thanks for reading, and I hope these additions add real magic to how you show up for and serve your clients!

For the 3rd year in a row, I’m proud to have CoachAccountable sponsoring the Texas Coaches Coalition (TCC) All Texas Retreat and Conference.  This time I thought it would be fun to move on up to the Diamond sponsorship tier, and for it I get to have a 1-minute video featured on their social media.

It’s a interesting challenge to sum up CoachAccountable in only a minute.  After all, it’s effectively 9 apps in one: that’s a lot of ground to cover.

Having only one minute gave me an excuse to focus on the part of CoachAccountable that I think is most magical.  Yes, yes, it does business and administrative automation galore, but for my tastes the real magic of CA lies in what it brings to the experience of being coached, making already-good coaching much more lasting, results-based and difference making.

In one minute, you (or anyone else) can glimpse how and why it pays to make your coaching more than conversations.

And that’s what CoachAccountable does!  Well, that and scheduling, invoicing, contracts, courses, groups, file sharing, team coordinating, engagement managing, program purchases, and bunch of other things.

It’s all good stuff, but to me, the giving clients more part is what enables you to be a stand-out coach.

My thanks to the TCC for prompting this creative work.  I look forward to actually attending this year, it’s good for me to get out now and then! :)

Courses have a new feature today: you can now make Courses have Page Content that is itself “completable”, i.e. able to be marked complete as an actionable step in order to progress through the Course.

Now, this is sort of a weird, very much niche feature, I feel a little self conscious even touting it with any real excitement.  So let me back up a little bit to explain why this is cool.

CA Courses, in contrast to the lion’s share of other course platforms, are meant to be highly participatory: with CA courses you can assign your clients Action items with reminders that will ping their phone or email, you can assign your clients Worksheets that they are mean to fill out and complete with real deadlines, you can have them track meaningful Metrics over the span of the course to see how real results are unfolding.

This is all quite opposed to just sitting back and consuming content, hoping for the best.

So for most online courses as hosted on most online course platforms, the only thing to do is read through, maybe watch a video or two, and scroll down and click the “Next” button or whatever.  (Or if it’s all video, the “auto play next” action will commonly just shuffle you right along through.  Passive consumption at its finest, yeesh!)

All of which is to say a client’s progressing though a CA Course has always been a matter of doing those real-life participatory bits, rather than just marking blocks of content “complete”.  With CA Course Pages, you can create blocks whatever content (including with videos embedded!), but there wasn’t a way for your participants to mark those complete.

But now there is!  Edging CA Courses yet a little closer to what is otherwise familiar and expected from a Course platform (while still retaining that unique, participation-centric vibe!), you can now set your Course Page Content as something that for participants to mark complete:

The ‘Enable clients to mark this content “Complete”‘ checkbox is the key!

When the page content is complete, the “Mark Complete” button will appear in the flow of the Cours as you’d expect it to:

“Mark complete” is a fine default, but you can make the button say whatever is fitting.

Completeable Course Content in Action

There are a couple of things worth noting about Course Content joining the ranks of “completable” items in CA Courses:

Step Based Course Progression: As is always the case, a course participant will advance to the next Step in a Step-based Course when there are no more completable items that remain to be completed (not counting, of course, those that are marked as “Can be skipped over”!).

So that means if you have portions of your Step-based Course that are heavy on content and lean on things for your clients to actually do, you can make the the Page Content itself completable to prevent clients from accidentally blazing through the steps when there is otherwise nothing to complete.

Progress Bars: When you make a Page Content item completable, AND have progress bars enabled, you can give it some non-zero progress weight, meaning the progress bar display for the participation can get filled up in response to marking those complete, just as other completable items.

No Due Dates or Deadlines: One aspect that is unique to Page Content is that, unlike Action items or Worksheets, there is never a due date.  This makes completable Page Content an handy stopping point for clients to take a break before continuing with real deadlines, allowing total control in going through a self-paced Course.  You can create Page Content items that precede actual assignments, like so:

This is a nice way to tee up a timed assignment: your client can start the clock when they’re ready.

Followable Items: As with other completable items, you can now drag items onto a Page Content item.  This allows you to make sequences to the tune of “When this item is complete, reveal the next” as long as you like:

This sort of daisy-chaining works in Day-based Courses, too!

And there you have it!  Courses now work just a little more like the conventional “consuming content is all you’re here for!” course platforms (making them truly more compatible with courses you may already have on another platform), while retaining the strong emphasis on actually doing the work to get results out of whatever one is learning (meaning your tried-and-true courses can now be imbued with real participation and accountability).

Enjoy!

Here is a parable of two professionals that work to help people.

These two, both of whom work to promote well-being and performance in the physical realm, afford us an understanding of coaching styles that vary in a seldom-considered way.

I regularly see (and am a raving fan of) both The Chiropractor and The Trainer.  In case you’re wondering, they are real people, but for our purposes their real-world identities aren’t important.  What matters in this exploration is they ways in which they work, and the experience of being on the receiving end of their considerable talents.

To see The Chiropractor is a treat: it’s like a mini vacation.  It’s all about hearing you, observing what’s going on with you, and giving you what you need to walk out of there better than you came in.  Tell The Chiropractor what’s wrong, and they can often make it right.  If you have something tweaked or out of order, they’ll do some sort of magic on your body to adjust things back in place and get you on the road to healing.  Just show up, be in communication, and get taken care of.  Even mere maintenance: if you’re generally good but want to keep it that way, a little crack, twist, and/or realignment of this and that will have you feeling great.

I love seeing The Chiropractor.  It’s easy, it’s pleasant, it makes my body work and feel better.  Time and money well spent.

To see The Trainer, by contrast, is decidedly un-vacation-like.  I’m there to work.  The Trainer, too, will hear you, observe you, and give you what you need to walk out of there better than you came in.  But The Trainer’s form of “giving it to you” is more a matter of guiding you through intentionally challenging exercises, and encouraging you, expecting you, sometimes even chiding you to give if your all to do them.  To receive what The Trainer has to give you is to go beyond your usual norms of exhaustion that will leave you feeling like jello at the end, and really feeling it tomorrow (and possibly the next day or days¹).  Speaking of the next days, to get what The Trainer has to give you also means doing the work between those visits, and do so with utmost attention to maintain precisely correct form (which make the work not just physically challenging, but mentally as well).  The Trainer will tell you, unapologetically, that you need to do so in order to build strength, without which you are just spinning your wheels, wasting your time and theirs.

I love seeing The Trainer.  It’s challenging, it kicks my butt and cares nothing for my comfort, and it is building lasting changes in my body that make it less apt to hurt in the first place and more able to show up for life.

Looping Back to Coaching

In these practitioners we see parallels in the ways coaching gets done, and in a way that mercifully sidesteps established definitions for judging coaching competence and holy wars bickering over what is and is not “true” coaching.  Consumers of coaching care not for those things anyway.

What The Chiropractor and The Trainer have in common is power to do genuine good for the people they serve, enabled by deep expertise in their modalities and competent execution.  Both are masterful in their work; in our metaphor here we take that as table stakes for a hire-worthy coach.

Where they vary is the degree to which their clients need to show up.  In that regard, The Chiropractor and The Trainer represent two endpoints defining a spectrum of coaching styles.

In terms of the degree to which client needs to show up, and the degree to which coach has purchase to direct client and hold them accountable to do the work², a given coach’s style sits somewhere along the spectrum between The Chiropractor and The Trainer.  No coach would cop to being The Chiropractor, it’s far too close to coaching’s less trendy cousin, therapy.  This is not to knock therapy: it has its place and is capable of good outcomes, just like physical therapy.  It’s simply not the place where people who are well go to get even better.  Likewise, coaching that resembles therapy is a pale imitation of what coaching is capable of.

The services of The Chiropractor are easier to sell.  The results of The Trainer have greater reach.

The Chiropractor works harder on the client’s body doing those adjustments.  The Trainer works harder to gain the client’s trust and buy-in to do the work themselves.

There is space, and indeed demand, for practitioners all along the spectrum.

As an avid consumer of coaching services³ I’ve ben on the receiving end of a broad range of styles.  I have fondness for the coaches who are more like The Chiropractor.  I have eternal gratitude for the lasting, transformative differences I’ve gotten from those who are more like the Trainer.  My report from the field is that the latter is far harder to find.

If you want to differentiate yourself as a coach, be more like The Trainer.