Learn Coachly by doing it

Orientation

Getting around the Drill Board

The board is built around the ice; everything else floats at the edges. Below is the actual board chrome. Tap any button, tab, or mode to see what it is.

• Top nav — Dashboard, Drill Board, Library, Vault, Practice Plans, Evaluations, Roster, Schedule, the team switcher, inbox, and your account.
• Tabs bar — one tab per open drill (⋮ for tab actions, × to close, + for a new tab), the surface picker, minutes, Undo / Redo, fullscreen, the Saved / Saving / Unsaved pill, and Share.
• Left rail — DRAW and MOTION, then FILE (New, Import from photo, Save, Save As) and EXPORT (Print, Export image, Clear, Realism), and PLAY at the bottom.
• Dock — the tools. Tap ⊞ and every tool lays out in one row; tap ⌄ to fold it back.
• Style bar — floats above the dock and follows the tool.
• Drills drawer — your library, on the right edge.

Surfaces

Choosing a surface

Open the surface picker in the tabs bar (it shows the current surface, e.g. Full Ice). The drill remembers which surface it was drawn on.

Clean Slate is a blank surface with a thin outline and no markings. Realism (left rail) toggles a photographic look. Your team logo appears at centre ice on the full surface once uploaded on the Team page.

Drawing

Drawing routes and lines

Pencil P is freehand; Line L is point-to-point. The style bar below is the board's own, and the lines are drawn by the board's own renderer.

Six colours and a size from 1 to 4. Pick them before you draw, or select a line afterwards and change them.

Players & stamps

Placing players, pucks, and equipment

Stamps are single-tap: pick a tool, tap the ice. The stamps below are the board's own artwork, and the colour / number-badge controls are the real style bar. Drop a net on the right half and it turns to face the play.

• X defender and O offence have their own dock buttons. The Players flyout S adds G · LD · RD · D · LW · C · RW · F and a Coach marker.
• Number badges 1–5 appear in the style bar with a player tool active (or press 1–5).
• Shapes & Stamps R: Circle, Rectangle, Triangle, Bumper, Stickhandling, Tire, Hook / Pivot, plus the sport's Multi-puck, Net, and Hockey stick. Puck and Pylon live on the dock itself.
• Overlays: shaded rectangle, circle, or triangle zones — hold Shift for a perfect square or circle.
• Goalie G swaps the dock for nine stances: Butterfly Down, Paddle Down, Goalie Position, Set Position, Goalie Stick, Reverse VH, Paddle Out, Vertical Horizontal, Angle / Post Play.

Editing

Selecting, moving, and restyling

1. Pick Move V — the arrow, first in the dock.
2. Tap an object to select it; drag to move it.
3. Selected lines show anchors — drag an endpoint to shorten or redirect.
4. With something selected the style bar comes back: colour, style, ending, size apply to the selection.

Rotating

Rotating objects

Nets, cones, sticks, hooks, bumpers, stickhandling lines, and every goalie stance rotate. Select one with Move and you get two ways to turn it — the rotate group below is the real style bar's.

• Rotate buttons (style bar): ⟲ 45°, ⟳ 45°, Flip. Two taps make a quarter turn — the fast way, and the easy way on iPad.
• Knob: drag it around the object; it snaps to 15° steps. Hold Shift on desktop for free rotation.

Erasing

Erasing

The Eraser E works two ways: tap a stamp, line, or arrow to remove the whole object; drag across a pencil route to erase only the part under the eraser. The red circle is the eraser.

The Size slider sets the eraser's width. One ⌘Z restores a whole erase drag. To shorten a straight line instead, drag its endpoint with Move.

Saving

Saving, tabs, and the drills drawer

Once a drill has been saved, every change saves itself — the pill in the tabs bar flips from Unsaved to Saving… to Saved. A new drill needs one first save. Walk through the save flow below.

• Scope: Personal — just you, across all your teams. Team — everyone on this team.
• Folders: pick one or more, or add a new one right in the modal. Save As… copies to a new drill or moves folders.
• Tabs: every open drill gets a tab. Opening a drill that's already open switches to its tab.
• Drawer: DRILLS on the right edge — thumbnails in folders, search, sort. A drill's preview offers Open, Practice, Print, Duplicate.
• Notes below the board: the drawer's NOTES tab holds the description, tags, and age groups. Tap Below board in its toolbar to dock them under the rink instead (full-size board, scroll down); In panel puts them back. Remembered per device.
• Import from photo: a photo of a whiteboard or paper drill becomes an editable drill to tidy up.

Motion

Animating a drill

Motion turns a drill into a short animation. You set a few moments (frames); Coachly fills in the skating between them with a natural ease. Below: the motion toolbar, then a two-frame drill — drag the players in frame 2, then press play.

1. Draw the starting picture in DRAW, then tap MOTION on the left rail.
2. Tap Add frame A. Everything carries forward. Drag players to where they go next.
3. Press ▶ Space. Add more frames for the next moments.

Record

Drag-to-animate. Turn Record on, move as many players as you like, turn it off — that's one new moment. Nothing moved? Nothing added.

Route — a curved path

On the frame where the move starts, tap Route (it grabs the pencil), draw a curved line from the player to where it ends up in the next frame, and press play — the player follows your line. Only curved lines count. Toggle the route in the demo above to compare.

Everything else

Loop, the scrubber (drag to preview any moment), Delete frame Delete, ← → between frames, ⌘D duplicate, and under More ⋯: onion skin, hide paths on play, speed, frame time, blank frame, export video.

Presenting

PLAY mode

PLAY at the bottom of the left rail presents the saved drill full-screen for the bench, a TV, or a projector — a big clean rink, the name and coaching cues, and a countdown set from the drill's minutes. Animated drills play their motion. Try the timer.

PLAY presents the saved drill — save a sketch first. You can also start it from a drill's preview in the drawer (Practice), or run a whole practice plan from the Practice Plans page.

Sharing

Print, export, and share

Toolbar

Using the toolbar

The dock keeps everyday tools one tap away and tucks the rest into flyouts. This is the real dock, shown expanded the way it is after you tap ⊞: every tool in one row. Tap ⌄ to fold it back to the compact pill, then tap Shapes & Stamps, Overlays, or Players to open a flyout, or Goalie to swap in the stances.

• Show all tools ⊞ expands every flyout into one row. Coachly remembers which way you left it, per device.
• The style bar follows the tool: Pencil/Line get style, ending, colour, size; Players get colour and badges; Eraser gets size; Move with a selection gets whatever applies — plus Rotate for rotatable stamps.
• The mode switch (top of the left rail) moves between DRAW and MOTION; PLAY is the last button on the rail.

iPad

On the iPad

• Apple Pencil draws with pressure — light for faint lines, firm for bold. A resting palm is ignored while the Pencil is in use.
• Rotate with the 45° buttons in the style bar instead of the knob.
• Erase part of a route by dragging the eraser across it; Size sets the width.
• The style bar may use two rows on narrower iPads; the rink makes room automatically.
• Show all tools puts every stamp one tap away. Your toolbar layout is remembered per device.

Roster · Schedule

Importing a roster or schedule

You don't have to type a team in. Roster ▸ Import takes a player list and Schedule ▸ Import takes a season — from a spreadsheet, your league or association's export (TeamSnap, SportsEngine, RAMP, Google Sheets, Excel), or a calendar file. Column order doesn't matter and headings don't have to match ours: you match them in the second step.

1. Source
   Choose a file, drop it on the dialog, or just copy the cells in your spreadsheet and paste. CSV and TSV work for both; the schedule also takes an .ics calendar export. Each dialog links to an example CSV if you'd rather start from ours.
2. Match columns
   Every Coachly field shows the column we think it matches, with sample values beside it. Fix any guess with the dropdown; pick skip for columns you don't want. Only Name (roster) or Date (schedule) is required. Untick "First row is a heading row" if your file starts straight with data.
3. Preview
   Every row is checked before anything is saved. Rows with a problem (no name, a date we couldn't read) are skipped and say why; warnings (an email that looks wrong, a jersey number someone already wears) are still imported. Dates like 09/10 show a month/day vs day/month switch when the file is ambiguous.
4. Import
   One click. The roster or schedule updates immediately and you get a count: added, updated, skipped.

Roster files

Name can be one column or First + Last ("Park, Owen" is understood). Positions accept plain words — Forward, Defence, Goalie — as well as F, C, LW, RW, D, LD, RD, G. Put parents in Parent 1 / Parent 2 columns (Mother / Father, Mom / Dad, Guardian 1 / 2 are recognised too); an email cell may hold several addresses separated by commas. Those contacts are what attendance requests go to, and each new address gets a one-time welcome email explaining what to expect (untick "Send a welcome email" in the preview to skip it). Players already on the roster are updated (matched by name, or by jersey number when the name clearly refers to the same player) rather than duplicated — untick the option in the preview if you'd rather skip them.

Schedule files

Date and time in almost any format — 2026-09-14, 9/14/2026, Sept 14 2026, 6:30 PM, 18:30. Type (game / practice / event) is read from the title when there's no Type column: "vs Flames" or "@ Storm" becomes a game with the opponent and home/away filled in, "Skills practice" a practice, "Parents meeting" an event. From a calendar file, repeating events ("every Tuesday until Oct 23") are expanded into their dates, exclusions respected. Entries already on the schedule — same date, time and opponent or title — are skipped, so importing the league's updated file mid-season only adds what's new. Big files are fine; a full season of 600 entries imports in under a second.

Who can import

Coaches and team managers. Players, parents and game managers see the roster and schedule but not the Import buttons.

Schedule

Attendance & RSVPs

Attendance lives on the Schedule page. Every game, practice and event has its own attendance sheet, and there are two ways it gets filled in: parents and players reply (by email or in the app), and you take attendance at the rink. Both land in the same place.

Before the season: put emails on the roster

Attendance requests go to the contacts on each player's roster card — as many as you like: Parent 1, Parent 2, a guardian, the player themselves. Open Roster, edit a player, and fill in each contact's name, phone and email (an email field can hold several addresses, comma-separated). Every contact with an email gets their own one-tap link, and the sheet shows who replied. New contacts get a short welcome email when you add them (once per address, and you can untick it): who added their player, what to expect, and a parent/player link to join the team in the app — that link can only ever grant parent or player access, never coach. Importing a CSV with "Parent 1 email" / "Parent 2 email" (or Mother / Father) columns does this for the whole team at once — Roster ▸ Import.

1. Send the request
   On the Schedule, open the entry and click Take attendance, then Send request. You'll see exactly who will be reached and who has no email on file before anything goes out. Add an optional note ("full gear", "arrive 30 min early").
2. Parents reply with one tap
   Each contact gets an email with three buttons — Going, Maybe, Can't make it. No account, no sign-in. Tapping records the reply instantly; they can change their mind from the same email any time before the event.
3. Watch the replies land
   The schedule row shows a running count ("9 going · 2 maybe"). Inside the attendance sheet each player is marked replied by email, replied in app, sent (no reply yet) or blank (no email on file). Send again re-sends to everyone who hasn't replied — handy two days out.
4. Take attendance at the rink
   On the day, open the same sheet and mark each player Attended or Absent (or use Set all to). That overrides the RSVP, and it's what the season stats use — average attendance on the Schedule page and the per-player history.

Who can do what

Roles are set on the Team page — pick the role when you send an invite link, or change it later in the member list. The "Who can do what" card there shows the full picture.

What players and parents see

When a player or parent joins from your invite link, the app opens on the Schedule with a one-line question — Which player is your child? They pick the name from the roster once; after that every upcoming practice and game shows their Going / Maybe / Can't buttons, and their reply shows up on your sheet the moment they tap.

Good habits

Send the request as soon as the event is on the schedule, then Send again 48 hours out. Keep roster emails current — the request preview tells you who's unreachable. Take attendance at the rink even when everyone replied; "going" isn't "showed up", and the stats only count what you mark.

Reference

Keyboard shortcuts

Press any key while this post is open and its row lights up.

On Windows, use Ctrl wherever ⌘ is shown.