Managing Multiple Appointments per Time Slot and the Calendar View

Managing Appointments is the core of the AppointmentPlus scheduling system. In this article, you will learn about how to view, manage or reserve time on the calendar for your active Staff Member schedules.

• Viewing Appointments on the Calendar
• Creating or Managing Appointments
• Creating or Managing Reserves

Viewing Appointments on the Calendar

When logging in, you will start on the Appointments calendar. If you are responsible for managing Appointments, this is the primary area within which you will be working. The calendar enables you to review the activities currently scheduled for active Staff Members. Depending on the settings by your administrator, you may be viewing the calendar for a single day or a week.

Calendar View Options

While the administrator sets the default view for the calendar, you may choose to view the calendar in one of the available formats. To toggle between the Day or Week views, simply click on the button option for your preferred view. Both Day and Week views support viewing the calendars of one or multiple Staff Members.

Day View

When viewing the calendar by Day, you can view one or more Staff Member calendars. The calendar will display each resource as a separate row, with the time of day progressing from left to right. Additionally, you'll see a summary of the utilization of the Staff Member for each time block.

From this view, you have some additional information as well as display options to see Appointment information.

Slot Usage

For each of our example Staff Members, in this image, we can see that Janice is capable of handling 2 Appointments at 8:00 am and already has 1 Appointment booked. Additionally, she is fully booked at 8:30 with 2 Appointments. For Trenton, his capacity is 4 Appointments at each time and if fully booked at 8:30.

Another interesting statistic displayed a percentage booked for each Staff Member. You'll notice that Janice is 19% booked and Trenton is 26% booked. This can allow you to see, at a glance, the utilization of your Staff Members on any particular day.

Expanded View

If you want to view the Appointments for any of your Staff Members, click the + to expand the row. In the expanded view, the name of the Customer for each Appointment will display, along with information on how many slots an Appointment is consuming. You'll notice that Trenton's Appointment at 8:30 is using all 4 slots, while additional Appointments could be added to the 3rd and 4th rows in the 8:00 slot.

Appointment Info Enlarged

To see further Appointment information, including Service, you can click the enlarge () button. In this view, the rows will become larger to show additional information within in Appointment. To return to the previous view, you can reduce () the display.

Week View

Viewing Appointments by Week is very similar to the Day View option. When clicking on the Week button, the calendar will update to group Staff Member calendars by the day of the week. In this image, you'll notice that the first day of the week was the date we were viewing in the Day View. The following 6 days are now available for review.

Similar to Day View, you can expand rows (+) or enlarge/reduce (/) rows as needed. Scroll through the following images to see each of the viewing modes.

Week View - Days

Week View - Date Expanded

Week View - Staff Member Expanded

Week View - Staff Member Appointments Enlarged

Changing the Calendar Date

When you first log in, the calendar will be display the default view for the current date. You may easily navigate to other dates on the calendar and, at any time, return to Today. Within the action bar, you can page forward or backward by the calendar view interval (day or week) or click on the calendar icon to pick a specific date. The calendar will then update to display the Appointments based on the newly selected date.

Viewing Active Staff Members (or Schedules)

If you are an Active Staff Member, you will view your schedule when you first log in. If you are not an active Staff Member, you will view one or more active Staff Members (based on sort order) in the current Location. You may wish to view schedules for another or multiple active Staff Members. To change the calendars you are viewing, click the Staff Members dropdown field. The list will display any active Staff Members for which you are able to manage. Click on any Staff Member and the calendar will update to show their Appointments in either Day or Week views.

Viewing the Appointment Calendar

The calendar displays any existing Appointment, based on the view, date and Staff Members, and all available time slots. Each Appointment listed on the calendar shows the Customer's name or the Customer's company name, depending on your account's configuration. Additional information may be listed next to the Customer's name, including the Service or PO Number, if your account is configured to utilize this information.

Please note: Changes to preferences should be managed in the Classic version of the online scheduling system in the Appointments section of the Settings tab.

Appointment Status

Each Appointment on the calendar displays with a background color, which is representative of the status. If the status changes, the background color of the Appointment changes automatically. Your account may have custom status options and each status will have its own color assignment. You can quickly review the statuses in your account by clicking and viewing the Status Legend.

You may also be able to modify the status from the Appointment popup box, depending on the settings of your account.

Appointment Detail View

From the calendar, you can easily view details for an Appointment on the calendar. To view the details for an existing Appointment, simply click on the Appointment box (Customer's name) on the calendar. A small Appointment recap will display with additional details. From this recap, you may change the status or click to Edit the Appointment.

Available time slots will display with a white background color. Any time slot that is unavailable due to schedule configuration (exceptions, days off, templates) for the active Staff Member will be displayed with a grey background.

Note: If your account supports creating Appointments in unavailable time slots, simply click into an unavailable slot to either Book or Reserve time.

Creating or Managing Appointments

Creating a New Appointment

You can quickly create a new Appointment from the calendar. Simply click in an available (white) time slot and choose Book. The Book window will display on the right side of the calendar. 

Note: Required or optional information for Customers is controlled through the Customer Fields/Terms settings,

How to use the Make Appointment window:

1. Search for or create a new Customer
   1. If the Customer does not have a current profile, skip to the first required field and begin entering information.
   2. If you are creating the Appointment for an existing Customer, you may update any information, like phone number or address, and it will be update their profile when you book the Appointment.
2. Set Appointment details:
   1. Confirm Staff Member (defaults based on where you clicked on the calendar)
      1. You may choose an alternate Staff Member
   2. Choose Service
   3. Confirm Date and Start Time (defaults based on where you clicked on the calendar)
      1. If you changed the Staff Member, this information may need to be set based on the new Staff Member's availability.
   4. Set the duration of the Service. 
      1. The amount of time will display the default duration the selected Service or based on the Staff Member's specific duration.
      2. Alternately, you may change the duration from its default value for the Service when making an Appointment.
   5. Set the status, if it should be different than the default value. 
3. Enter optional notes:
   1. Customer Notes: Visible internally to the Staff Member (or other administrators) viewing the Appointment.
   2. Special Instructions: Sent to the Customer in their Appointment confirmation email.
   3. Appointment Notes: Visible internally to the Staff Member (or other administrators) and are specific to the individual Appointment.
4. See the Created By user, which will default to you, the user logged in.

Editing Appointments

To edit an Appointment, click on the Appointment and click Edit. The Edit window will display and you can modify any of the information for either the Customer or the Appointment, such as the Staff Member, the Service, the date or the time. If you change details for the Customer, these will be saved to their profile for all other Appointments. In addition to editing Appointment details, you may also change the status and add more notes. Click Save when you are done. If enabled, the Customer or Staff Member will receive a Change Notification email with updated information. 

If you close the Appointment without saving changes, you will be prompted to discard the changes or continue editing the current Appointment.

Canceling an Existing Appointment

To cancel an Appointment, click on the Appointment from the calendar. From the pop-up window, click  (delete) button. You will be prompted to confirm the cancellation and, if you proceed to cancel, the Customer's Appointment history will be updated with this change. Depending on your account's setup, a Cancellation notification email may to be sent to the Customer or the Staff Member. If you have questions about these settings, please contact your account administrator.

Creating or Managing Reserves

What is a Reserve?

Do you ever need to block out time on your calendar, or a calendar of your Staff Members? Maybe for a doctor's appointment outside of the office, a team meeting or reserve time for lunch? You can easily create a Reserve that will block that time from being available for Customer Appointments.

Reserves display with a gray background on the calendar with the reason information shown and Customers cannot book at this time.

Creating a Reserve

Click on the calendar time where you need to Reserve time from being available. Click Reserve in the pop-up window, enter any additional information, adjust the duration as needed and click Save. This Reserve will then remove that time from being available as open time in which other people can create Appointments. Note: If your account is configured to allow booking in unavailable times, other administrators may still be able to book into a time slot within which you have created a Reserve.

Alternately, you can click Reserve from the action bar. Complete all necessary information by selecting the Staff Member, date and time and click Save.

Editing a Reserve

If you need to modify the details of the Reserve, click the item on the calendar to open the Edit Reserve window. On this page, make the necessary changes and click Save. The calendar is updated with the changes.

---

Article updated May 3, 2019

Supports Multiple Appointments version - Available on all pricing tiers