PRICING TIER: All
APPOINTMENT VERSION: Single & Multiple
The Appointments tab of Site Administration is used as the primary resource for managing your schedules. From the Appointments tab you can add, change, and cancel Appointments and Events, as well as view the availability of all your schedules.
The time slots that show after selecting the Appointments tab are referred to as the Appointment Grid. By default, the Appointment Grid shows a day view for all schedules. A preference in the Appointments section of Preferences allows you to change this default to a week or month view. In the default day view, each staff member has their own column on the grid. If you have the system default to showing the week or month view, it will show the week's schedule for one staff member at a time. The staff member can be changed by using the select staff member drop-down menu in the upper left of the appointments page.
Day / Week / Month views
No matter what your default view is for Appointment Grid, you can always change your view by accessing the gear
icon at the top of each schedule. Mouse over the gear icon, then select a different view from the drop-down menu.
NOTE: For each user that logs in, the system will use the default view for their first time (from any new device). For subsequent logins, the system will remember their previous view choice and display the calendar on either Day, Week, or Month based on the view selected when they were last using the system.
Viewing all or one schedule
To view the Appointment Grid for just one staff member, select the staff member's name from the Staff Member drop-down list above the calendar on the left side of the page. You can also select the option to view all staff members from that drop-down list.
If you use the Rooms feature of the system, an additional drop-down list will display above the calendars for selecting your rooms. This list allows you to select to view a particular room or all rooms. If rooms are a key component of your booking, you can set a preference to have the Appointment Grid default to showing rooms instead of staff members. Both the preference to turn on room sharing and the preference to have the Appointment Page default to showing rooms are in the 'Rooms' section of Preferences.
Viewing specific dates
The calendars on the left side of the page allow you to go directly to a particular date by simply clicking on the desired date. Alternatively, you can jump to a specific month or year by selecting from the drop-down lists above the calendar.
The Appointment Grid
The appointment grid displays the existing appointments and all of the open time slots. Each appointment listed on the appointment grid shows the customer's name (or the customer's company name if the preference is set to show company name instead of the customer's first and last name). If you allow booking for children or pets, the name of the child or pet will also display. Additional information can be listed next to the customer's name, including the service, their phone number, their birth date, and their account number. The preference used to display this additional information can be found in the "Appointments" section of Preferences. To view the details for an existing appointment, click on the customer's name on the Appointment Grid. Doing this allows you to change, update or cancel an appointment, in addition to being able to view the details of the appointment.
Appointments will be displayed differently on the Appointment Gird when using the Multiple Appointments Per Time Slot (MAPTS) version of the software. In this version, you have the option of showing the number of slots taken and remaining or showing the customer's names. For example, if you allowed 5 appointments at 9am and two appointments were booked at that time, it would display "2/5". Or, if you were showing the customer's names, it would show their two names on the grid, such as "John Smith, Karen Thomas". This option is set by a preference in the "Appointments" section of Preferences.
NOTE: Multiple appointments per time slot is an alternate version of appointment scheduling that must be enabled on your account by our support team. For a full explanation of how multiple appointments per time slot work, please see the Related Articles section below. In either version of the system, if the customer's appointment is a "Recurring" appointment, the recurring icon will show next to their name. Similarly, if you are processing customer payments through the system and a customer has paid for an appointment, the paid icon will display next to the customer's name.
There are a few icons that might show within your Appointments depending on what features your using:
Tooltip icon: Mousing over the Tooltip icon will show a list of Customer and Appointment details.
Unpaid icon: If the Point-of-Sale plugin is enabled, clicking on this icon allows you process a sales transaction.
Alert icon: If you had entered any data into the "Alert" field for a customer, that data will display if you roll your cursor over the alert icon.
NOTE: The "Alert" field is one of the Customer Fields/Terms preferences. It can be located by going to Settings Tab > Customer Fields/Terms > Alert Field
Each appointment on the appointment grid displays a background color. That background color corresponds to the status of the appointment. If you change the status of the appointment, the background color automatically changes. The system comes with some default appointment statuses. These statuses include Scheduled, Confirmed, Complete, and No Show. Additional statuses can be created in the Lists section of the system.
To save time in updating appointment statuses, you can set a preference to allow for status changing right from the appointment grid. When this feature is enabled, you can change status with one click. This feature is controlled by a preference in the "Appointments" section of Preferences (Appointments Preference #13). This preference will add a multi-colored rectangular icon to each Appointment. To change the status of an appointment, mouse over the icon, then select a new status type. For each open time slot on the Appointment Grid there is an add icon, and reserve icon. Click on these icons to add a new appointment, or quick reserve to make the time slot unavailable. Reserving time slots is described in more detail below.
To add new appointments, you can also click on the white space inside a time slot. See "Setting Appointments" below for details on creating appointments. Unavailable time slots will show as grayed out with a remove () icon. Additionally, a preference in the "Appointments" section of Preferences allows you to click unavailable time slots to book appointments outside of normal hours.
Setting Appointments
Once you have clicked on an open time slot, the Make Appointment box will display. From the Make Appointment box, to make an appointment:
Select the customer from the Select Customer drop down list. Alternatively, if it is a new customer, you may enter in their information at this point and the system will add them as a new customer when the appointment is created. If you have a large number of customers, you may switch to using a customer search box instead of a drop down list. The preference to change this is in the Appointments section of Preferences. The customer information that displays on the left side of the Make Appointment box, including what information is required, is set in the Customer Fields/Terms section of Preferences. Please note that changes to the customer information in the Make Appointment box will change that customer's information throughout your system.
On the right side of the Make Appointment box, select the applicable staff member (if you clicked on a staff member schedule from the grid, the Make Appointment box will default to that staff member, but you may select a different staff member if needed). If you have only one staff member, you can set a preference to hide the Staff Member drop down list and automatically default to that staff member. This preference is in the Staff Member section of Preferences.
Select the room, if applicable (this only applies if you are using the Rooms feature).
Select the service. Similar to staff members, if you have only one service, you can have the Service drop-down hidden via a preference in the Services section of Preferences.
The duration of the service will show the default duration that you set for the service. If you have changed the default service duration for a particular staff member and that staff member is selected, it will display the specific service duration for that staff member. You may also change the duration from its default value for the service when making an appointment.
The Date and Time for the appointment will default to the values for the time slot you selected on the appointment grid.
Appointment status can be changed, if so desired. When an appointment is first created it defaults to the Scheduled status.
Special Instructions for the customer can be entered. Any data entered into this text box will be seen by the customer in their appointment confirmation email.
Appointment Notes are any notes specific to the appointment. They are not visible to the customer. These notes are appointment specific.
If you have the preference set to allow recurring appointments, you can select if the appointment is a one-time or recurring appointment. If you select recurring, additional options for defining how the appointment recurs will display.
The Created By drop down defaults to the person logged into the system. By default, the user can change this value if their access level is at the administrative level. A preference in the Appointments section of Preferences allows you to hide this field and have it default to whomever is making the applicable change. When you make an appointment, it records this information.
Customer Notes display at the bottom. This is an on-going list of notes for the customer. It automatically puts a date stamp on any notes you enter. The customer can not see these notes. Any notes you had previously entered for the customer will display when you make appointments for an existing customer.
Canceling Appointments
To cancel appointments, click on the customer's name on the appointment grid. Doing this will bring up the details of the appointment. At the top is a Cancel Appointment button. If you click on this button, it will cancel the appointment and open up the time slot for another appointment. The system will record the appointment in the customer's appointment history as being canceled.
Canceling appointments causes a cancellation confirmation email to be sent to the customer. If you don't want this email sent, you can uncheck the "Send email to Customer" checkbox on the View Detail page when canceling the appointment. You can set this to never send this email via a preference in the E-mail section of Preferences.
A cancellation notification email is also sent either to the staff member or another designated email address at the company (or both). You set who this email is sent to in the E-mail Notifications section of the system. This email can also be unchecked when canceling the appointment or disabled completely.
Changing Appointments
To change appointments, click on the customer's name on the appointment grid. The Appointment Detail page will then display. You may then change the staff member, the service, the room (if applicable), the date, or the time. You can also change the appointment status and add notes. When your change is complete, click on the Update button to finalize the change. As with canceling an appointment, emails can be sent to both the customer and the staff member when an appointment is changed.
Reserving Time
There are two ways to reserve time. Reserving time allows you to block out time that is unavailable, such as for lunch or for a meeting. Note: Reserved Times will automatically reserve all "Spots" in a time slot when using the Multiple Appointments Per Time Slot (MAPTS) version of the system. You can click on the Quick Reserve icon on any time slot to block out just that particular time slot. Alternatively, you can select the "Reserve Time" tab at the top of the Appointment Detail Page (after selecting an open time slot) to reserve multiple time slots. Note: This option should also be used to create Recurring Reserved Times.
If you set a recurring reserved time, you can edit or cancel it via the "Recurring Reserved Time Maint" link that displays below the calendar to the left of the Appointments Grid.
Recurring Appointments
When you are setting appointments, you can select to make the appointment recurring via the Type drop-down list on the Make Appointment page. When you select this option, additional fields display allowing you to set the parameters of the recurring appointment (every day, every week, every Friday, etc.). When you finalize the recurring appointment it will display any dates in which the appointment was not set due to the time slot not being available.
You can edit or delete recurring appointments by using the "Recurring Appointments Maint" link below the calendars on the Appointments page. If you need to change or cancel just one of the appointments of recurring appointments, you can do so directly from the Appointment Grid. Each appointment within a Recurring Appointment can be changed without impacting all of the other appointments that are part of the Recurring Appointment.
The Recurring Appointments feature is enabled via Appointment Preference #6 in the "Appointments" section of Preferences.
Status Change Emails
You can configure the system to automatically send out emails when you add and update appointments status types. The status types linked to automated email notifications are:
Scheduled
Confirmed
Complete
No Show
Any custom status you create
TIP: These emails can be found in the E-mail Notification section, accessed through the Settings section of your account. (Click: Settings Tab > Notifications)
Multiple Appointments Per Time Slot
Most companies use the Single Appointment Per Time Slot option when utilizing DaySmart Appointments. This allows you and/or your customers to book one appointment (customer) per each available time slot. However, for some organizations, an arrangement that allows for multiple appointments to be added to a timeslot is required. Because of this, we allow client accounts to be set up in one of two different software versions: (1) Single Appointment Per Time Slot (system default), and (2) Multiple Appointments Per Time Slot (must be enabled on your account by our support team).