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Coach by Wondersome

Coach by Wondersome

By Wondersome
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Description

Coach by Wondersome gives practitioners a structured way to guide their clients through a journey, and gives clients a beautiful portal where they can see exactly where they are, complete milestones, and write reflections.

Whether you’re a life coach, personal trainer, mentor, tutor, instructor, teacher, nutritionist, or any kind of practitioner, Coach by Wondersome replaces scattered emails and spreadsheets with a clear, trackable progress experience your clients will love.

How it works:

  1. You create a Journey, a structured programme with named milestones (e.g. “Week 1 – Setting Your Foundation”)
  2. You assign clients to that journey
  3. Clients log in at /portal/ on your WordPress site and see their journey, milestone by milestone
  4. Clients complete milestones and write rich-text reflections
  5. You get notified when clients complete milestones (via the welcome email or the Pro upgrade for richer events)
  6. Everyone can see exactly how far along the journey they are

What’s included in Coach by Wondersome (free, uncapped):

  • Unlimited journeys, clients, milestones
  • Branded client portal at /portal/
  • Custom portal name, navigation logo, and brand colour
  • Portal welcome message at the top of every client’s dashboard
  • Journey Preview, see exactly how your clients will see a journey before you assign it (signed 1-hour link)
  • Welcome email when a new client account is created (always on)
  • Rich-text editor for milestone descriptions
  • Video URL embeds on milestone descriptions (YouTube, Vimeo)
  • Plain-text and clickable-URL reflections (Pro adds the rich-media embed)
  • Image lightbox in the portal
  • Standard milestone type with immediate unlock
  • Reflection privacy: file proxy + .htaccess hardening + media library filter
  • Self-hosted Poppins typography (no Google Fonts call-out)
  • Built-in SMTP plugin detection, test-email tool, bug-report form
  • Designated Coach Owner so multiple admins on one site can’t accidentally manage each other’s data
  • Mobile-responsive admin and portal

Built for:

  • Life coaches running structured programmes
  • Personal trainers with weekly check-ins
  • Mentors guiding clients through structured growth
  • Tutors and music teachers running multi-week courses
  • Nutritionists tracking client progress
  • Instructors, business coaches, and anyone running multi-step client work

Available as a paid upgrade (Coach Pro by Wondersome, sold separately):

Coach Pro by Wondersome is a separate plugin available from wondersome.co that adds the practitioner toolkit on top of the free plugin:

  • Authoring and workflow: checkpoint sign-offs, scheduled milestone unlocks, per-milestone custom check-in fields (7 input types) with required-field validation, Require Reflection toggle, sequential-only journeys, duplicate journey/milestone, bulk-add milestones
  • Client experience: Resources library (PDFs, links, videos attached to journeys or specific milestones), practitioner notes per client and per milestone, video URL embeds in reflection bodies, file uploads on reflections (image, PDF, doc), re-enrol, pause, resend welcome
  • Reports and data: branded PDF Progress Reports, JSON export and import, Pro insights dashboard widget (pending sign-offs, average completion, reflections this week vs last)
  • Communications: 7 additional email events with per-event toggles (milestone completed, journey assigned, journey completed, reflection submitted, sign-off requested, practitioner note, checkpoint signed off), and a branded login page that matches your portal
  • Multi-practitioner Team plan: up to 5 practitioner seats with strict per-practitioner data isolation, branded invite emails, ownership transfer with a signed time-limited confirmation link
  • Branding: hide the “Powered by Wondersome” footer

Coach Pro by Wondersome requires the free Coach by Wondersome plugin to be installed and active. Learn more at https://wondersome.co/pricing/.

External Services

Coach by Wondersome is designed to keep your client data on your own WordPress installation. Plugin emails are sent through your site’s own wp_mail() (which you can route through any SMTP plugin you choose), and the plugin’s typography is loaded from font files that ship inside the plugin (no Google Fonts request, no preconnect).

There are two narrow exceptions where the plugin reaches out to a third party. Both are documented below.

1. YouTube and Vimeo oEmbed (only when you paste a YouTube or Vimeo URL into a milestone)

When a practitioner pastes a YouTube or Vimeo video URL into a milestone’s “Video URL” field, Coach by Wondersome uses WordPress’s built-in oEmbed system (wp_oembed_get()) to fetch the embed metadata so the milestone page can show the video. This sends one HTTP request to the relevant provider’s oEmbed endpoint to retrieve the iframe HTML; the provider sees the milestone’s video URL plus a referrer header from your site. The response is cached by WordPress for 24 hours, so subsequent page loads do not re-fetch.

  • What is sent: the video URL the practitioner pasted (and the standard request headers WordPress emits, including a referrer pointing at your site).
  • When it is sent: when a portal page or admin page renders a milestone that contains a YouTube or Vimeo URL, and only on the first render within the 24-hour cache window.
  • Service providers and policies:
    • YouTube (Google LLC), https://policies.google.com/terms, https://policies.google.com/privacy
    • Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/terms, https://vimeo.com/privacy

The feature is opt-in by behaviour: pasting a video URL into a milestone is the only way to trigger it. Leave the field blank and Coach by Wondersome never contacts either service.

2. Bug report email (only when you click “Send Bug Report”)

The optional Report a Bug form in Coach, Settings, Tools sends a single email through your site’s own wp_mail() to the Coach support address. The form is never submitted automatically. When you click the button, the email contains:

  • The description you typed in the form
  • The screenshot you attached, if any

  • The System Information block: Coach by Wondersome version, WordPress version, PHP version, site URL, active theme name, and the name of any SMTP plugin you have installed

  • What is sent: only what you typed plus the System Information block above.

  • When it is sent: only when you click “Send Bug Report”.
  • Service provider: Coach support (https://wondersome.co/), terms https://wondersome.co/terms/, privacy https://wondersome.co/privacy-policy/.

Coach’s Privacy Policy: https://wondersome.co/privacy-policy/
Coach’s Terms and Conditions: https://wondersome.co/terms/

Screenshots

Client portal dashboard, a branded space showing the active journey, progress ring, recent milestones, and notes from the practitioner.
Client portal dashboard, a branded space showing the active journey, progress ring, recent milestones, and notes from the practitioner.
Client journey page, with a visual milestone tracker showing exactly where the client is and what's next.
Client journey page, with a visual milestone tracker showing exactly where the client is and what’s next.
Client milestone page, with the practitioner's guidance and an embedded video for the week.
Client milestone page, with the practitioner’s guidance and an embedded video for the week.
Client reflections, every entry the client has written across their journeys with milestone context and a jump-back link.
Client reflections, every entry the client has written across their journeys with milestone context and a jump-back link.
Practitioner dashboard, with journey and client counts, a recent activity feed, and per-client progress across every journey.
Practitioner dashboard, with journey and client counts, a recent activity feed, and per-client progress across every journey.
Journey editor, with the client-facing role label, an industry preset, and a one-click Preview Journey button so practitioners see exactly what their clients will see.
Journey editor, with the client-facing role label, an industry preset, and a one-click Preview Journey button so practitioners see exactly what their clients will see.
Milestone editor, with a rich-text description editor and the ordered list of every step in the journey.
Milestone editor, with a rich-text description editor and the ordered list of every step in the journey.
Enrolments, grouped by journey with per-client progress bars, start dates and status at a glance.
Enrolments, grouped by journey with per-client progress bars, start dates and status at a glance.
Branding settings, where you set the portal name, upload your logos, and pick the brand colour used across the portal and email headers.
Branding settings, where you set the portal name, upload your logos, and pick the brand colour used across the portal and email headers.
Backup/Restore, with nightly auto-snapshots and reversible restore for safe data recovery.
Backup/Restore, with nightly auto-snapshots and reversible restore for safe data recovery.

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin zip via Plugins Add New Upload Plugin, or install directly from the WordPress Plugin Directory
  2. Click Activate
  3. Go to Coach Settings Branding and set your portal name, logo, and brand colour
  4. Go to Coach Settings Tools and send a test email to confirm delivery
  5. Create your first journey at Coach Journeys Add New
  6. Add a client at Coach Clients Add / Edit Client and assign them to a journey
  7. The client receives a welcome email with their portal login link

Important: Set your WordPress permalink structure to Post name (Settings Permalinks Post name) before activating Coach by Wondersome. This is required for the /portal/ URL to work correctly.

Recommended: Install and configure an SMTP plugin (WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, FluentSMTP, or Easy WP SMTP) to ensure reliable email delivery. By default, WordPress sends mail through your hosting server, which can be filtered or junked by Gmail/Outlook/Yahoo. Coach by Wondersome detects an active SMTP plugin and shows its status in Coach Settings Tools.

FAQ

Does Coach by Wondersome work with any WordPress theme?

Yes. The client portal at /portal/ is fully self-contained and does not inherit your theme’s styles. It works correctly with any theme, including page builders like Divi, Elementor, and Beaver Builder.

Do clients need a WordPress account?

Yes, each client has a WordPress user account with the wondersome_coach_client role. This role gives them access only to the client portal, not to wp-admin. Coach by Wondersome creates the account automatically when you add a client.

Where is the client portal?

At /portal/ on your WordPress site (e.g. yourdomain.com/portal/). You can find the full URL in Coach Settings Portal. Share this link with your clients.

What happens to my data if I deactivate the plugin?

Nothing, by default. The “Protect data on uninstall” setting is ON by default, which means all your journeys, clients, milestones, and reflections are kept in the database even if the plugin is deactivated or deleted. You can change this behaviour in Coach Settings Tools.

Does Coach by Wondersome work with my SMTP plugin?

Yes. Coach by Wondersome detects WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, FluentSMTP, and Easy WP SMTP automatically and routes all email through whichever is active. We strongly recommend installing an SMTP plugin for reliable delivery.

Can I use my own branding?

Yes. You can set a custom portal name, upload separate logos for the login page and the portal nav bar, set logo heights, and pick a primary brand colour (used for buttons, progress bars, and accents in the portal and emails).

Can I change how I’m referred to in client emails?

Yes. When creating or editing a journey, set the “Client-facing role” field to whatever suits your profession, coach, trainer, mentor, teacher, tutor, instructor, guide, etc. This replaces the default “practitioner” in all client-facing emails for that journey. A suggestion is auto-filled based on the Industry/Category you select, but you can change it to anything you like.

What does the paid Coach Pro by Wondersome plugin add?

Coach Pro by Wondersome (sold separately at wondersome.co) layers on the practitioner toolkit: checkpoint sign-offs, scheduled milestone unlocks, custom check-in fields, a Resources library, practitioner notes, file uploads on reflections, branded PDF progress reports, JSON export and import, multi-practitioner Team support, and a branded login page. See https://wondersome.co/pricing/ for the full feature list.

Does Coach by Wondersome contact any external services?

Coach by Wondersome keeps your client data on your own WordPress installation, sends emails through your own site’s wp_mail(), and ships its display font (Poppins) inside the plugin so the portal does not contact Google Fonts.

There are two narrow situations where the plugin does reach out to a third party, both opt-in by behaviour:

  • When a practitioner pastes a YouTube or Vimeo URL into a milestone’s Video URL field, Coach by Wondersome uses WordPress’s standard wp_oembed_get() to fetch the embed metadata from YouTube or Vimeo so the video can render. The response is cached for 24 hours.
  • When you click the optional “Send Bug Report” button under Settings, Tools, Coach by Wondersome emails Coach support with the description you typed plus a System Information block.

Both are documented in full in the External Services section of this readme, including Terms and Privacy links for each provider.

Is Coach by Wondersome GDPR-compliant?

Coach by Wondersome is built to support GDPR compliance. Client data is stored only on your own WordPress installation. You remain the data controller for all client data on your site.

How do I back up my Coach data?

Coach by Wondersome ships a built-in Safety & Backups page (Coach, Safety & Backups, admin-only). It takes snapshots of all nine Coach DB tables (journeys, milestones, clients, progress, reflections, notes, resources, custom fields, field responses) directly inside your own database. Nothing is sent off-site. By default the plugin takes a snapshot every night and after every plugin update, plus you can take a manual snapshot any time. Restores are reversible (a pre-restore safety snapshot is taken automatically). Both automatic behaviours can be disabled in the Settings tab. This is a safety net for routine “before I touch this” moments, your hosting provider’s full-site backups remain the authoritative recovery path for catastrophic loss.

What are the hosting requirements?

  • PHP 7.4 or higher (PHP 8.0+ recommended)
  • WordPress 6.0 or higher
  • MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.4+
  • HTTPS (SSL certificate), required for the client portal login

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Contributors & Developers

“Coach by Wondersome” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Translate “Coach by Wondersome” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.0.3

  • Fixed: on installs from WordPress.org, the Settings link on the Plugins page, the View details and Upgrade to Pro links, and the confirmation prompt shown before deactivating were all bound to a fixed folder name and quietly did nothing. The deactivation prompt is the one that mattered: it is the warning that tells you whether deleting the plugin will take your data with it.
  • Fixed: View details now asks WordPress.org for the right plugin, so the panel fills in instead of coming up empty.
  • Fixed: a bookmark saved before the rename now opens the right screen. The admin pages were renamed, and an old link landed on “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page”, which looks like a permissions problem rather than a page that simply moved.

2.0.0

  • The plugin is now Coach by Wondersome. Sprigly has been renamed to Wondersome. The old name was too close to an existing product in an adjacent space, so the brand moved rather than risk confusion.
  • This is an ordinary update. Update from Plugins as you normally would. The plugin stays active, its WordPress.org address is unchanged, and nothing needs to be installed or deleted by hand. The plugins list and the admin menu now read Coach by Wondersome and Coach.
  • Your data, settings and logins are unchanged. On the first load after updating, the plugin carries your journeys, clients, milestones, reflections, notes, resources, custom fields, settings and user roles across to the new internal names automatically. Nothing needs to be re-entered, and your clients’ portal logins keep working.
  • Your previous data is left in place, untouched, so a rollback to 1.8.2 loses nothing. It is cleaned up in a later release.
  • Coach Pro must be updated at the same time. Coach Pro 3.0.0 and later require this version. Update both together.
  • Fixed: admin sub-pages were falling back to the default grey WordPress background instead of the intended Coach styling.

1.10.0

  • Not released on WordPress.org. An interim rename to “Coach by Sprigly” that was overtaken by 2.0.0. Sites updating from 1.8.2 go straight to 2.0.0 and skip it.

1.8.2

  • Security: hardened the Add Client handler. Only regular (non-privileged) accounts can be enrolled as clients; administrator and practitioner accounts are now rejected on both the existing-user and new-client-by-email paths. Normal client enrolment is unaffected.

1.8.1

  • Fixed: The “Login Page Logo” branding field was mislabelled on the free plan. Branding the WordPress login page is a Pro feature, so on the free plan that logo never appeared on the login screen. The field is now labelled “Brand Logo” on the free plan with copy that matches what it actually does (it sets your logo in the portal header and on client emails when no Portal Nav Logo is set). The “Login Logo Size” control, which only affects the Pro branded login page, is now hidden on the free plan. Pro installs are unchanged: the field stays labelled “Login Page Logo” and the size control remains. Any previously saved logo size is preserved.

Full history: https://wondersome.co/coach/changelog/

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