Reviews & Messaging
How tutors read rating analytics, reply publicly to reviews, and chat with students using quick replies and auto-replies in Tuitionable.
On this page
- Overview
- Reading your rating analytics
- Headline rating & star distribution
- Sub-ratings
- Monthly trend
- Awaiting-reply and pending counters
- Browsing & filtering your reviews
- Replying to reviews publicly
- How to reply
- How ratings affect your search visibility
- Chatting with students
- Messaging basics
- Inbox filters
- Quick replies & AI drafts
- Draft with AI
- Setting up auto-replies
- The two modes
- AI-drafted auto-replies
- Saving your settings
- Anti-spam throttling
- Troubleshooting & tips
- Related pages
Overview
This page covers two parts of your tutoring workflow in Tuitionable: the Reviews dashboard, where you read your rating analytics and post public replies to student reviews, and the chat inbox section, where you message students directly and set up automatic replies for when you are offline or in a live session.
Both surfaces live on the tutor side of the app:
| Area | Where to find it | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews & analytics | Tutor menu → Reviews | /tutor/reviews |
| Chat inbox | Tutor menu → Messages | /tutor/chat |
| Open a conversation | From the inbox list | /tutor/chat/{conversation} |
Your reviews and your aggregate rating are built only from completed, approved sessions. A review never appears until the student has rated a completed booking, and an admin has approved it.
Reading your rating analytics
The top of the Reviews page summarizes how students rate you. Every figure here is calculated from approved reviews only — reviews still waiting on admin moderation are excluded from all of these numbers.
Headline rating & star distribution
Your headline score is the average of every approved review's overall rating (a 1–5 star value), rounded to one decimal place. Next to it, a star distribution bar chart breaks down how many approved reviews landed on each star level, from 5★ down to 1★, with a percentage of your total.
Sub-ratings
Students can optionally rate three additional criteria. Tuitionable shows the average for each, but only across reviews where that field was actually filled in — blank sub-ratings are never counted, so the panel is hidden when no data exists.
| Sub-rating | Field | What it reflects |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | communication_rating | How clearly you explained and responded |
| Knowledge | knowledge_rating | Command of the subject material |
| Punctuality | punctuality_rating | Starting and running sessions on time |
Monthly trend
The trend chart plots your average overall rating month by month for the last 6 calendar months. Months with no approved reviews show no point.
Awaiting-reply and pending counters
Two counters sit alongside the summary so you always know what needs attention:
- Awaiting your reply — approved reviews that you have not yet replied to. A banner at the top links straight to them.
- Pending moderation — reviews of you that an admin has not yet approved. These are counted for your awareness but are not shown in your review list and do not affect your average rating.
Because only approved reviews count, a brand-new review may not change your headline number immediately. Once approved, your aggregate recalculates automatically.
Browsing & filtering your reviews
Below the analytics section, your reviews are listed 10 per page. Each card shows the student (or "Anonymous" if they chose to post anonymously), the overall stars, any sub-ratings, the written comment, and the session subject and date. Filters and sort apply to the list and are preserved across pages.
| Control | Options | Parameter |
|---|---|---|
| Star | All, or a single star level 1–5 | rating |
| Reply status | Any reply, Awaiting reply, Replied | reply |
| Sort | Newest, Oldest, Highest rating, Lowest rating | sort |
Anonymous reviews are displayed to the public without the student's name, but the decision to publish them rests with the student.
Replying to reviews publicly
You can post one public reply to any of your reviews directly from the Reviews page. Your reply appears beneath the student's comment on your profile, labelled "Your Reply" with the date you posted it.
How to reply
- Open Tutor → Reviews (or click View them in the awaiting-reply banner).
- Find the review and type into the reply box under it.
- Click Post Reply. Your reply is saved and timestamped immediately.
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Length | Up to 2,000 characters |
| One reply only | A review can have a single reply — once posted it cannot be edited or removed from the dashboard |
| Ownership | You can only reply to reviews that belong to you |
Replies are final. Because there is no edit or delete option once a reply is posted, proofread before you click Post Reply. If you try to reply a second time, Tuitionable blocks it and tells you a reply has already been submitted.
A calm, thankful reply to a critical review often does more for prospective students than the original complaint. Acknowledge, stay professional, and avoid sharing private session details in public.
How ratings affect your search visibility
Your approved reviews feed two fields on your profile that the search engine reads directly: your average rating and your total review count. Whenever a review is approved, edited, or removed, the platform recalculates both fields automatically.
| Profile field | How it is calculated |
|---|---|
avg_rating | Average of every approved review's overall rating |
total_reviews | Count of your approved reviews |
These fields shape where you appear in the student tutor search:
- Default (Relevance) sort ranks featured tutors first, then by highest average rating, then by most reviews — so a strong rating with a healthy number of reviews lifts you up the list.
- Students can choose a Top rated sort (by average rating) or a Most reviewed sort (by review count) directly.
- Students can apply a minimum rating filter (for example 4.5+, 4.0+, or 3.0+); falling below their threshold removes you from those results.
- Your rating and review count also appear on your public profile and in the structured data search engines read.
With no approved reviews yet, your average is treated as 0 for ranking purposes — a few early, genuine reviews can make a noticeable difference to where you land in search engine.
Chatting with students
The tutor chat inbox (/tutor/chat) lists your conversations, each one linked with a single student. Opening a conversation shows the full thread and a composer for sending messages and files.
Messaging basics
- Text messages up to 5,000 characters.
- File attachments up to 10 MB each, limited to safe types:
pdf, jpg, jpeg, png, gif, webp, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, txt, zip. - Live delivery — new messages and the other person's typing indicator update automatically; read receipts mark your messages as seen when the student opens the thread.
- Reply, react, and pin — quote a specific message to reply in context, add an emoji reaction, or pin an important message for quick reference.
Inbox filters
The inbox can be filtered to help you triage:
| Filter | Shows |
|---|---|
| All | Every conversation |
| Active | Threads with a message in the last 7 days |
| Quiet | Threads with no message for 7+ days — students who have gone silent |
Quick replies & AI drafts
To save typing the same things over and over, the conversation view gives you one-tap quick-action buttons that drop a ready-made line into the composer, where you can edit it before sending.
| Quick action | What it inserts / does |
|---|---|
| Reminder | A short "session is coming up" nudge |
| Share Notes | A line introducing notes from the last session |
| Praise | A quick "great work today" message |
| Send File | Opens the file picker to attach a document |
| Schedule | Jumps to your bookings to set up the next session |
Draft with AI
Draft with AI button in the composer can write a first-draft reply for you. The drafted text lands in the composer for you to review and edit before sending. AI drafting draws on your tutor AI credits; your remaining balance is shown right inside the chat panel.
Setting up auto-replies
Auto-replies let the platform AI answer a student on your behalf when you genuinely cannot respond — so an incoming message never sits unacknowledged. Open the Auto-reply settings panel from the conversation view (the robot icon, or the Auto-reply quick action) to configure it.
The two modes
| Mode | Triggers when | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Offline | You are genuinely away — no recent presence in the app | offline_enabled toggle + offline_text message (up to 500 chars) |
| Busy | You are currently in a live, in-progress session | busy_enabled toggle + busy_text message (up to 500 chars) |
If both apply at once, Busy takes priority over Offline — a student messaging you mid-session gets your "in a session" note. The offline reply only activates when you are truly away; if you are sitting in the chat and able to answer, no auto-reply is sent.
AI-drafted auto-replies
Your offline auto-reply can be drafted by AI to actually acknowledge what the student wrote, using your subjects and their message for context, while making no promises about availability, scheduling, or pricing. Your configured offline text is used as the tone reference and as the fallback — if AI is unavailable, Tuitionable quietly sends your plain canned text instead, so a reply is always sent out.
Saving your settings
- Open Auto-reply settings in any conversation.
- Toggle Offline and/or Busy on and write each message.
- Click Save. Your settings apply across all of your conversations.
Keep auto-reply messages short and sweet. A good offline message sets an expectation ("I'm away right now — I'll get back to you within a few hours") without committing you to a specific time.
Anti-spam throttling
Auto-replies are deliberately limited so a student firing off several quick messages does not receive several identical bot responses.
- There is a 5-minute throttle per conversation: once an auto-reply (or any message from you) has been sent in a thread, no further auto-reply fires in that thread for 5 minutes.
- The auto-reply itself counts as a message from you, so the student's next message inside the window will not trigger another reply — the conversation never loops.
- The throttle is tracked independently per conversation, so one busy chat does not affect auto-replies in another.
Auto-reply only sends a single acknowledgement — it is a simple "I've seen this," not a back-and-forth bot. You still need to reply personally when you are back.
Troubleshooting & tips
| Situation | Why & what to do |
|---|---|
| A new review isn't in my analytics | Only approved reviews count. It stays in pending (counted separately) until an admin approves it. |
| My average dropped after a review was removed | Removing a review recalculates your aggregate immediately. The change reflects the new set of approved reviews. |
| I can't edit my reply | Replies are one-time and final. Compose carefully before posting; there is no edit or delete. |
| My message won't send | Check the body text is under 5,000 characters and any attachment is an allowed type under 10 MB. A hard-blocked word in the text will also stop the send. |
| My auto-reply isn't firing | Offline auto-reply only sends when you're genuinely away, and a 5-minute per-conversation throttle prevents repeated replies. Confirm the mode is toggled on and its message isn't blank. |
| No "Draft with AI" button | You might have run out of AI credits. Check your AI usage; drafting of message needs available credits. The rest of chat is unaffected. |
Related pages
- Dashboard, Sessions & Analytics — your tutor homepage, streak, and performance metrics.
- Managing Bookings — confirming, completing, and rescheduling sessions that lead to reviews.
- Reviews & Ratings — how students submit the reviews you reply to.
- Messaging — the student side of the chat system.