Updating your time zone and notification settings

Why your time zone and notification settings matter

If your coaching sessions keep showing up at the wrong time, or you're missing reminders for tasks and group calls, there's a good chance your time zone or notification preferences are misconfigured. These two settings are small but they control almost everything time-sensitive on your Coachful account — from session booking confirmations to daily habit reminders inside your program.

Getting them right takes less than two minutes. This guide walks you through exactly where to find each setting, what each option does, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls so your coaching experience runs smoothly.

TL;DR — Quick answer

• Go to your Profile → Account Settings → Time Zone to update your time zone.
• Go to Profile → Notifications to control which emails, push notifications, and in-app alerts you receive.
• Changes take effect immediately — no page refresh required.
• If you're traveling or changing locations permanently, update your time zone each time to keep session times accurate.

How to update your time zone

Your time zone setting is the single source of truth for how Coachful displays scheduled events — booking confirmations, session reminders, group call start times, and program task due dates all reference it. If your coach is in New York and you're in London, Coachful handles the conversion automatically, but only if your time zone is set correctly.

Step-by-step: changing your time zone

1. Sign in to your Coachful account at app.coachful.co/sign-in.
2. Click your profile avatar in the top-right corner of the dashboard.
3. Select Account Settings from the dropdown menu.
4. Scroll to the Time Zone section.
5. Click the time zone selector and type your city or UTC offset (e.g., "London", "Sydney", or "UTC-5") to filter the list.
6. Select your correct time zone from the filtered results.
7. Click Save changes. The update is applied instantly across your entire account.

After saving, navigate back to your Bookings tab and you'll see all upcoming sessions now display in your updated local time. Existing calendar invites synced to Google Calendar or Outlook will not change retroactively — those are fixed at the time they were created — but any new bookings will reflect the correct zone.

What if my coach's platform uses a different domain?

Some coaches use a custom domain (e.g., coaching.sarahsmith.com) powered by Coachful. Your account settings are the same regardless of which domain you log in through. Your time zone preference is stored at the account level, so updating it once covers all programs and coaches you work with on the platform.

Understanding your notification settings

Coachful sends notifications across three channels: email, push notifications (mobile app and browser), and in-app alerts (the bell icon in your dashboard). Each channel can be toggled independently, so you don't have to choose between "all notifications" and complete silence.

Types of notifications you can control

• Session reminders — Email and/or push reminders before a 1:1 session or group call. You can typically receive these 24 hours before and again 15 minutes before your session starts.
• New messages — Alerts when your coach or a squad member sends you a message in the real-time chat.
• Program updates — Notifications when your coach publishes a new week, adds tasks, or updates program content.
• Habit and task reminders — Daily nudges tied to your program's habit schedule or task due dates.
• Booking confirmations and cancellations — Transactional emails sent when a session is booked, rescheduled, or cancelled.
• Payment receipts — Confirmation emails after a successful charge or payment plan installment.
• Squad activity — Alerts for new posts, replies, or announcements in your cohort squad or community squad.

Step-by-step: updating notification preferences

1. Sign in at app.coachful.co/sign-in.
2. Click your profile avatar → Account Settings.
3. Click the Notifications tab.
4. You'll see a grid of notification types on the left and channel toggles (Email, Push, In-App) across the top.
5. Toggle each combination on or off based on your preference. Changes are saved automatically — there's no separate save button on this screen.
6. To enable push notifications in your browser, click Enable browser notifications if prompted, and accept the browser permission pop-up. This step is only required once per device.
7. On the Coachful mobile app, open your device's notification settings for the Coachful app and ensure notifications are allowed at the OS level. Then return to the in-app Notifications tab to select which types you want delivered to your phone.

Pro tip: If you attend group coaching calls with participants across multiple time zones, keep session reminder push notifications turned on. That 15-minute heads-up has saved countless clients from missing calls they had mentally scheduled for the wrong hour.

Enabling push notifications on mobile

Coachful is available as a native mobile experience on both iOS and Android. If you installed the app from the App Store or Google Play, push notifications work through your device's standard notification system. Here's how to make sure they're enabled:

iOS (iPhone / iPad)

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Scroll down and tap Coachful.
3. Tap Notifications and make sure Allow Notifications is toggled on.
4. Choose your preferred alert style (banners, lock screen, notification center).

Android

1. Long-press the Coachful app icon and tap App info.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Toggle All Coachful notifications on, or expand the categories to control each type individually.

Once OS-level notifications are enabled, return to Account Settings → Notifications inside the app to fine-tune which events actually trigger a notification. The OS toggle is the gate; the in-app settings are the filter.

Managing email notification frequency

One of the most common complaints clients have before adjusting their settings is email overload — especially if they're enrolled in an active program with daily habits, a busy squad, and regular sessions. You don't have to go fully silent to fix this. Coachful lets you keep transactional emails (bookings, payments) turned on while muting activity-based notifications (squad replies, habit nudges) that may feel like noise.

A sensible default setup for most clients:

• Email ON: Session reminders, booking confirmations, payment receipts, program updates from your coach.
• Email OFF: Individual squad message replies, habit completion nudges (use push notifications for these instead — they're less disruptive).
• Push ON: New direct messages from your coach, session reminders (24hr and 15-min), habit reminders.
• In-App ON: Everything — in-app alerts are silent and non-intrusive; they just stack in your notification bell.

Coaches on Coachful can also configure which notifications their clients receive at the program level — so if you're seeing too many or too few reminders, it's worth letting your coach know. They may be able to adjust the program's default reminder cadence from their end.

Time zone settings and calendar sync

If you've connected your Google Calendar or Outlook to Coachful, session events are written to your calendar using the UTC start time of the booking. Your calendar app then converts that to your local time zone using your device or calendar's own time zone settings. This means there are actually two time zones in play: Coachful's setting and your calendar app's setting. They should match.

If a session looks correct inside Coachful but shows an hour off in Google Calendar, the most likely cause is a daylight saving time (DST) discrepancy — either Coachful or your calendar is using a region that doesn't observe DST while the other does. Fix this by:

1. Confirming your Coachful time zone uses a named region (e.g., "America/New_York") rather than a raw UTC offset (e.g., "UTC-5"). Named regions handle DST automatically; raw offsets do not.
2. Checking that your Google Calendar time zone settings also use a named region.

Troubleshooting common issues

My sessions are showing the wrong start time

Nine times out of ten, this is a time zone mismatch. Go to Account Settings → Time Zone and confirm you've selected the correct named region — not just the UTC offset. If you recently moved or are traveling, the platform doesn't auto-detect location changes, so you'll need to update it manually.

I'm not receiving session reminder emails

First, check your spam or promotions folder — coaching platform emails occasionally get filtered. If they're not there, go to Account Settings → Notifications and confirm that Session reminders → Email is toggled on. Also check that the email address on your account is correct under Account Settings → Profile. If you signed up via Google or Apple login, verify which email those accounts are linked to.

Push notifications stopped working after a phone upgrade

When you restore a phone from a backup or switch to a new device, app notification permissions sometimes reset to their defaults (denied). Reinstall or re-open the Coachful app, then go through the iOS or Android steps above to re-grant permission. After that, toggle a push notification off and back on inside Account Settings → Notifications to refresh the device token.

I keep getting notifications for a program I completed

Completed programs can still generate notifications if your coach hasn't archived the program or if you remain in an associated community squad. Ask your coach to archive your enrollment, or manually mute squad notifications by going to the squad, tapping the settings (gear) icon, and selecting Mute notifications.

My in-app notification bell is always empty even though I get emails

In-app notifications are controlled by a separate toggle from email. Go to Account Settings → Notifications and ensure the In-App column is toggled on for the event types you care about. If it was recently turned off (perhaps accidentally during a settings audit), toggling it back on will resume in-app alerts for future events.

I changed my time zone but my coach sees a different time for our session

Your coach sees session times in their own time zone. Coachful converts the single UTC booking time into whatever local time zone each party has set. So if a session is at 3:00 PM your time and your coach is 5 hours behind, they'll see 10:00 AM. This is expected behavior — you're both looking at the same moment, just displayed locally. If the times seem genuinely misaligned (e.g., both of you see an inconvenient hour), contact your coach to reschedule to a mutually convenient slot.

Best practices for staying on top of your coaching schedule

Beyond the settings themselves, a few habits will help you stay consistently engaged with your program:

• Review your settings after every trip. If you travel across time zones for work or vacation, update your Coachful time zone when you arrive — and again when you return. It takes 10 seconds and prevents a week of confusion.
• Use push notifications for messages, email for events. Real-time messages from your coach deserve immediate attention; push is faster. But session reminders are easy to dismiss on a phone — email gives you a searchable paper trail with the call link included.
• Don't mute booking confirmations. Even if you find other emails noisy, keep booking confirmation and cancellation emails on. They contain your video call link and any pre-session notes your coach sends.
• Check the in-app notification bell weekly. Some lower-priority updates (like program content changes) only appear in-app. A quick scan of the bell icon each Monday morning keeps you in sync with what your coach has published.

Ready to get the most from your coaching experience?

A correctly configured time zone and a notification setup tailored to how you work means no missed sessions, no late surprises, and a coaching relationship that stays on track from week one. These two settings are foundational — once they're right, everything else on the platform just works.

If you're not yet working with a coach, explore the Coachful coach directory to find a specialist who fits your goals. Already have an account? Sign in to your Coachful workspace now and take two minutes to confirm your settings are dialed in. And if you need more help navigating the platform, browse our full help center for guides on everything from booking your first session to using the mobile app.