Note: The following information only applies to plans at a service. We also have help articles dedicated to portfolio planning.
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Each room has its own planning area. You can create a plan from your service's main planning area, or from in one of your rooms. The plan will live in the group where it is created (so you will not see a plan in your service's main planning area if it was created within one of your rooms). Learn how to move plans between rooms here.

When a plan is first started (either in the service's main planning area or a room's planning area) it is private to the person who started it. If you share a plan with all educators, every educator at your service will be able to access it no matter where the plan was started. 

Sharing with parents from a room plan is the same as sharing with parents from a service-wide plan – you simply add the children you wish to the plan and share with those children's parents. So if you add only the children from a room to a plan, then only those children's parents will have access to it.

When a room plan is shared with all educators, all educators in the centre will have access to it if they visit the room's planning area, but only educators in that room will receive notifications about it.

Notifications get sent when a plan is started, and when a comment is made.

Categories are shared across the whole service (no matter what room you're in), so each room can see the same list of categories. If an admin adds, edits or deletes a category, these changes will be reflected across your service and all its rooms.

If you wish to have room-specific categories, it's best to name them with your room name, eg. 'Programme – Infant's room' and 'Programme – Over 2s room'.

Planning templates, like categories, are shared across the whole service (no matter what room you're in), so each room can see the same list of templates. If any educator in the service adds, edits or deletes a template, these changes will be reflected across all rooms.

To find your master set of templates, go to the Planning tab on your service's profile page, and tap on 'Templates'.

If you wish to have room-specific templates, these will live in your service's templates area and be available to each room, so it's best to name them with your room name, eg. 'Programme – Infant's room' and 'Programme – Over 2s room'.

If you want to edit or delete a template, you must do it in your service's main planning area, you cannot do it from a room.

If children who are not in your room have been added to one of the templates, then that template will not be available to start a plan from within the room planning area. This means that if you wish to have room-specific templates (and you want to add children to the templates) then you need to make sure that you only add children from your room to them.

When you select children to include in a room plan the selector will only display the children in that room:

Linked stories
When you link to a story from a room plan the linker will only display stories that include children from that room.

Linked plans
When you link to another plan from a room plan, in the linker you can filter plans to only show plans created in that room, or from anywhere.

Linked child notes
When you link to a child note from a room plan the linker will only display notes about children from that room.