Plan visibility in Educa determines who can view your plans and when. Visibility depends on whether a plan is in draft or published status, and is controlled by the template you choose when creating the plan. This article explains how visibility works, what families and teachers can see, and how to use templates to control access to your planning content.
Understanding Plan Visibility
When you create a plan in Educa, two things determine who can see it:
Plan status: Whether the plan is a Draft or Published
Template settings: The visibility rules built into the template you selected
Important: You cannot change a plan's visibility after creation. Visibility is locked in by the template you choose. If you need different visibility settings, recreate the plan using a different template.
Draft Plans
Draft plans are works in progress that aren't ready to share with families yet.
Visible only to the plan creator and any linked teachers.
Not shown on a child’s profile and not visible to families.
Teachers can find their Draft Plans under Tools > Planning > Drafts.
Published Plans
Publishing a plan makes it available to the people specified in your template settings.
Visible to the plan creator and any linked teachers.
Templates can be customised to:
Restrict family access entirely, or
Hide certain fields from families.
Plan Comments
Comments on plans follow the same visibility and access rules as the plan itself.
Note: Teachers with site admin access can always view and edit all plans, regardless of visibility settings.
How Planning Templates Control Visibility
Plan visibility is determined by the template you choose when creating a plan. You cannot change a plan's visibility after it's created.
If you need different visibility:
Before creating plans: Ask your Site Admin to set up the right template
After creating plans: You'll need to recreate the plan with a different template
What Site Admins can control in templates:
Whole-plan visibility: Make all content teacher-only (families cannot see the plan at all)
Field-by-field visibility: Show some sections to families while keeping others private
Example: A "Reflections & Next Steps" field visible to families, plus a "Private Teacher Discussion" field that only teachers can see
Note: Changes to a template will affect all existing plans created with that template.
👉 Learn more: Setting Up Planning Templates