> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pcflyers.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How it works

> The club runs on two systems — Schedulemaster and the PCF website. What each one owns, and why that matters.

<Info>
  **Who this is for:** Everyone. If you read one page on this site, read this one.
</Info>

## Two systems, one login

Pacific Coast Flyers runs on two systems that work together.

**Schedulemaster** is the club's operations system. It holds your account, the aircraft schedule,
your flight records, and your balance. It is where you book an aircraft and where the club bills
you. You reach it at
[my.schedulemaster.com](https://my.schedulemaster.com).

**The PCF website** — [www.pcflyers.org](https://www.pcflyers.org) — is everything else the club
needs that Schedulemaster does not do: the public fleet and instructor pages, membership
applications, document uploads, gift certificates, the photo contest, retirement requests, and the
tools club administrators use to run all of it.

**You use one set of credentials for both.** The website does not have accounts of its own. When
you sign in to the website, it checks your username and password against Schedulemaster — so your
Schedulemaster login *is* your website login. See [Logging in](/start/logging-in).

## What lives where

| Schedulemaster owns                                   | The website owns                         |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| Your username and password                            | The public fleet and instructor pages    |
| Your name, address, phone, and email of record        | Your membership application              |
| The aircraft schedule and your reservations           | Documents you upload or email in         |
| Your flight records and account balance               | Gift certificate purchase and redemption |
| Which aircraft you own a share in                     | The annual photo contest                 |
| Whether you are an instructor, and for which resource | Your retirement request                  |
| Whether your membership is active or retired          | Every club administration tool           |

The short version: **Schedulemaster is the system of record for who you are and what you fly. The
website is where you do everything else.**

## Why that split matters to you

Because Schedulemaster is the system of record, the website reads from it rather than keeping its
own copy of your details. That has one consequence worth understanding, and it explains most of
the "why does the website still say…" questions the club gets.

### The website takes a snapshot when you log in

Most of what you see about yourself on the website — your name, address, phone, email, your
certificates and currency, and which club tools you can reach — is read from Schedulemaster **at
the moment you sign in** and then held for the rest of your visit.

**So a change made in Schedulemaster does not appear on the website until your next sign-in.** If
you update your address in Schedulemaster on Tuesday and the website still shows the old one on
Wednesday, you are looking at Tuesday's snapshot. Sign out and back in and it will be current.

This applies to more than contact details. It is also why:

* A new instructor does not see **My CFI Profile** until the next time they sign in.
* A member who has newly bought into an aircraft does not see **My Aircraft** until then either.
* A member whose membership has been retired keeps member access until their session ends.

If something about you looks out of date, **sign out and sign back in before anything else.** It
is the fix more often than not.

### The exception: your schedule

The **Schedules** section on your member profile is the one part that does not use the snapshot.
Every time you open it — and every time you change the date range — it asks Schedulemaster for
your reservations right then. What it shows is live.

## Where changes are made

Some things about you can only be changed in Schedulemaster, some only on the website, and it is
not always obvious which is which.

| To change…                                            | Go to…                                  |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| Your address, phone, or email                         | Schedulemaster                          |
| Your password                                         | Schedulemaster                          |
| Your certificates, ratings, and currency dates        | Schedulemaster — the club updates these |
| Your instructor photo, if you are a CFI               | The website, under **My CFI Profile**   |
| Your aircraft's photos and files, if you are an owner | The website, under **My Aircraft**      |
| Documents the club holds for you                      | The website — upload or email them in   |

The website never writes your contact details back to Schedulemaster on its own. Editing them in
one place does not change them in the other, so change them in Schedulemaster and let the website
pick them up at your next sign-in.

## Announcements

From time to time the club posts a notice that appears in a small window over the page the first
time you visit that day.

* **Dismissing it is remembered by the browser you are using**, not by your account. Dismiss a
  notice on your laptop and it can still appear on your phone.
* **A dismissal lasts a set period — usually the rest of the day** — and the notice returns after
  that until it is taken down.
* **A new notice appears even if you dismissed the last one.** Dismissing is per-notice, so the
  club can put something urgent in front of you without waiting.

If a notice has a button on it, using that button also dismisses it — you do not have to close the
window separately.

## Related

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Logging in" icon="right-to-bracket" href="/start/logging-in">
    One login for both systems, and what to do when it does not work.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Roles and access" icon="id-badge" href="/start/roles-and-access">
    Why the menu you see is not the menu someone else sees.
  </Card>
</Columns>