The share workflow is the bit of AceSense that took the longest to get right. We had every other piece — the analysis pipeline, the per-shot clips, the stroke-quality scores — and the friction was always the last 30 seconds: getting the report to a coach who is not on the app, doesn't have an account, and probably reads it on a phone in the parking lot before their next lesson. The current design is a single-tap share that produces a link your coach opens in any browser, sees the full report, can download the PDF, and replies with notes. This post is the step-by-step, plus the corner cases (link expiry, multi-coach, revocation, what the coach sees vs doesn't), plus the workflow that actually leads to coaches engaging with the report instead of letting it sit in a chat thread.

TL;DR

Open the report → tap Share → tap Copy link or pick a chat app.
Coach opens the link in any browser. No account needed.
They see the full report + per-shot clips + downloadable PDF.
Link defaults to 30-day expiry; revocable anytime.
Data stays in europe-west1 throughout.

The 30-second walk-through

Step 1 — Open the analyzed report

Once analysis finishes (a few minutes after upload), the session lands in your Sessions tab. Tap the session to open the report. (See screenshot 1 — Sessions list with the most recent match highlighted.)

The report has the sticky header with your match metadata and the navigation tabs: Timeline, Heatmap, Strokes, Report PDF.

Step 2 — Tap Share

Top-right corner, the share icon (the iOS / Android system share glyph — square with arrow). (See screenshot 2 — Share icon highlighted.)

The share sheet slides up. Two main options:

Copy link — gives you a clipboard-ready URL.
Send via app — passes the link to your phone's share sheet (Messages, Mail, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc.).

Step 3 — Send

Pick the channel your coach prefers. Most amateur-coach relationships run over WhatsApp or email; both work the same way. Paste the link into your usual conversation thread. (See screenshot 3 — link being pasted into a chat.)

That's it. From the coach's side: tap the link → browser opens → report appears.

What your coach actually sees

This is the question I get asked most. Three things to know:

1. The full report, read-only. Timeline of every shot, the court heatmap, stroke-quality scores per stroke type, per-shot video clips they can play in-browser, and the PDF download button. Same content you see on your phone, rendered for a desktop or mobile browser.

2. Nothing else from your account. No other matches. No account info. No email or phone number. The link is scoped to one session.

3. A "coach mode" view. If they open the link on a desktop, the layout switches to a wider two-column view: video preview on the left, shot list on the right. We built it because coaches scan reports on a laptop between lessons. It's the same data, just laid out for the screen.

Link expiry, revocation, and audit

By default a share link expires 30 days after creation. This isn't punitive — it's because indefinite links accumulate in inboxes and stop being controlled by you. If your coach needs longer access, you can:

Re-share. Generate a new link from the same report. The old one keeps working until expiry.
Extend. From the share menu, tap Manage links → set a custom expiry. Up to 365 days.
Revoke. From the same menu, tap Revoke. The link returns a "no longer available" page immediately.

Every share link has a small audit trail (creation time, last viewed time) visible in the manage-links screen. We don't track who viewed — just that someone did.

Multi-coach and group workflows

If you're a junior with both an academy coach and a private coach, send both the same link. There's no per-viewer accounting; one link works for any number of viewers. This was a deliberate design choice — the alternative (per-coach invitations) added friction without meaningfully changing the privacy story, since anyone with the link can forward it anyway.

If you really need per-coach revocation, generate one link per coach. They're cheap to create and revoke independently.

Sharing the PDF only

Some coaches want the PDF, not the full interactive report. From the report → Download PDF → the file lands in your phone's Files / Photos. Send it via email or print it. The PDF is the same content the coaching report feature page documents — annotated stroke summary, shot tables, heatmap, contact details for follow-up.

The PDF is fully self-contained. It opens on any device without an internet connection.

Why we built it as a link, not an in-app coach account

Coaches told us, repeatedly, that signing up for another app for every player is a non-starter. A junior coach with 30 students isn't going to make 30 accounts on 30 platforms. The only viable workflow is: the player sends a link, the coach reads it on whatever device they have open right now. That principle is why AceSense's coach-side has zero friction — and why we won't add a "coach app" on the critical path.

This is opposite to how some apps approach it. SwingVision's coaching workflow leans on shared in-app accounts. It works for in-stadium teams. It doesn't work for the part-time community coach who runs a Saturday clinic.

What changes when you're in the EU

The full data-residency story is in the EU privacy post, but the short version: the share link is a signed URL pointing to a Firebase Storage object hosted in europe-west1. The video clips, the PDF, the stroke-quality JSON — all served from Belgium. Your coach's browser fetches from EU servers regardless of where the coach physically is.

For EU-resident coaches and clubs, this means there's no cross-border transfer when they view the report. For non-EU coaches, the data is still served from EU servers — they're the recipient, not a transfer point.

A workflow that gets coaches to actually respond

Sharing a link is necessary but not sufficient. The pattern that actually leads to engagement, from what we see in our user data:

1. Within 24 hours of the match. Stale matches are skipped; recent ones are read.

2. With one specific question. "Look at games 3–5 — what's happening on the second serve?" beats "let me know what you think." Coaches scan; specific anchors help them anchor.

3. Followed up in the next lesson. The lesson where you bring up the report is the moment the report becomes useful. Without that, it's an artifact that decays.

4. With a saved insight. Screenshot one stroke or one heatmap zone you want to discuss. Send the link plus the screenshot. The screenshot is the conversation starter; the link is the proof.

What if my coach doesn't have a smartphone?

Use the PDF. Download it, attach it to an email, send. The report PDF is print-friendly — coaches old-school enough to want a printed copy can print and walk it onto the court. Some of our most engaged coaches are doing exactly this.

When sharing isn't the right move

If you're early in a coaching relationship and your coach hasn't asked for video, sharing a 12-page tennis-AI report can feel like dumping work on them. Two suggestions:

Lead with one clip, not the full report. Use the per-shot clip share rather than the full session.
Ask first. "Would it help if I shared a video analysis of last week's match?" is a better opener than dropping a link cold.

The product is a tool for the coaching relationship, not a substitute for it. Use it as such.

How to share your AceSense report with your coach in one tap