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Using your Calendar: Scheduling Appointments, Events, Busy Time & Promoting Bookings

In this article you’ll learn how to schedule 1-on-1 appointments and group events directly from your Calendar.

Once you create an appointment or event, learn how you can easily streamline your business by sending links and campaigns to share and promote your appointments and events.

For a complete calendar experience, you’ll also learn how to block off busy time on your calendar (aka mark as busy). This easy feature allows you to quickly block off time slots during which you are unable to accept bookings from clients.

Tip: Sync your account calendar with your existing calendars for a complete and accurate calendar view. For more, visit the Setting Up Your Calender & Availability article.

Overview of appointments & group events

1-on-1 appointments are for meetings between you and one client.

Group Events are for events led by you with multiple clients, such as a class, a workshop, or webinar.

You can manage client participation for both 1-on-1 appointments, and group events. Here's how:

  • For 1-on-1 appointments, you can decide whether you require client confirmation (by checking Request client confirmation), or finalize the appointment yourself on the spot.

  • For group events, you can register clients yourself, or invite clients to register through your online scheduler or by sending them a direct link.

You can add a new appointment or event to your calendar in two ways:

1. From your Service Menu: Create an appointment / event for one of your existing services.

  • This will automatically populate your appointment details with all the details you set for this service, like duration, location, price, staff member, etc.

Note: You can always go to your My Services Settings to change these details, or to create a new service you’d like to book from.

2. By creating a Custom appointment / event: Create a custom  appointment / event on the spot without drawing from your service menu.

  • This will allow you to give a custom name to your appointment / event, and provide all the details from scratch.

Important: To allow your clients to manage their appointments with you online, or to register for your event online, make sure online scheduling is enabled for the relevant service under Settings > My Services.

Scheduling an appointment with a client

To create a new 1-on-1 appointment from your calendar, and send a confirmation or invitation to your client, follow these steps:

Step 1: From your Calendar, click New and select Appointment. Or, from a specific time slot, click and select Appointment.

Step 2: Select the relevant client from the list that opens.

Note: You can also add in a new client right from here. Just click the + new client icon.

Step 3: At the top of the New Appointment dialog, select a service from your service menu, or create a custom appointment.

Learn more: To learn about the difference between specific services and custom appointments, see the Appointment & Group Event Overview section above.appt1.png

Step 4: Depending on whether you chose from service or custom in Step 3, edit or fill out your appointment details, such as location, duration, staff, price, etc.

Important: If you have multiple staff members, select the correct staff member for this appointment.

Step 5: Customize these additional appointment settings for a customized and advanced experience:

  • Repeats: If you’d like to schedule a series of appointments with the client, check the Repeats box.

In the example below, four total meetings are scheduled, which take place every other week:
appt2.png

  • Additional recipients and email notes: use this section to add a personal note to the client you’re meeting with. And to send the meeting invite to additional recipientsTo change the settings for this specific appointment, click Edit.
  • Schedule as tentative until approved by client: Check this box if you require the client’s confirmation to finalize the appointment.
Note: If you wish to change any of the service details and notification settings for all appointments of this kind, and not just for a specific appointment, change the settings for that service from your Settings > My Services page.

Step 5: At the bottom of the New Appointment dialog, click Send.

Here’s what happens once you hit Send:

1. The appointment is saved to your calendar.

2. You and your clients both receive a booking confirmation, with all the appointment details.

Note: If you’ve selected request client confirmation, your client will receive a link to accept or decline the appointment, with all the appointment details, instead of a booking confirmation.
Note: You can take a variety of follow-up actions from each appointment by going to its Appointment page. Simply click on any appointment right from your calendar to open it. From the Appointment page you can edit or cancel the appointment, reschedule it, create an invoice for it, charge a payment, and more.
Tip: Save time by copying an appointment! Click an appointment and select the ⋮ icon > Duplicate. A copied appointment will have the same settings (including the client selected) - then you can change the date and time of the appointment.
Duplicate.png

Scheduling a group event

To create a new group event from your calendar and open it to online registration or register clients yourself, follow these steps:

Step 1: From your Calendar, click New and select Group Event. Or, from a specific time slot, click and select Event.

Step 2: At the top of the New Event dialog, select a service from your service menu, or create a custom event.

Learn more: To learn more about specific services versus custom events, see the appointment & group event overview section above.
Important: Custom events will not show on your online scheduler.

Step 3: Depending on whether you chose from service or custom in Step 2, edit or fill out your event details, such as location, duration, staff, price, etc.
appt3.png

Important: If you have multiple staff members, make sure you select the correct staff member for this event.

Step 4: Customize these additional appointment settings for a customized and advanced experience:

  • Repeats: If you’d like to schedule a series of events, check the Repeats box.
    In the example below, 10 weekly events are scheduled.
    appt4.png

    Note: When you send clients an invitation to a repeating event, they are automatically enrolled in each session of the event. However, when clients register themselves for an event, they will need to sign up for each session of the event separately.

  • Invitation-only event: Check this if you do not wish to make this event available to all via your online scheduler. If you select invitation only, only clients who receive a direct link from you can sign up for the event.

  • Notifications: This setting includes the email & SMS event reminders & follow-ups your clients will receive for this event.
    To change the settings for this specific event, you'll need to click     Edit on the event page after you create the event.

Note: If you wish to change any of the service details and notification settings for all events of this kind and not just for a specific event, change the settings for that service from your Settings > My Services page.

Step 5: At the bottom of the New Event dialog, click Create Event.

Here’s what happens once you hit Create:

1. Your event is saved to your calendar, and you’ll receive an email confirmation.

2. If you’ve enabled online booking, clients can now sign up for your event online!

Note: Your event will not show on your online scheduler if you selected invitation only or have created a custom event.

3. You can start registering clients for the event yourself.

4. You can send a direct link to clients to sign up for your event.
Learn more in the section below: Promoting bookings.

Note: Easily edit, reschedule, or cancel your event from its Event page. Simply click on the event straight from your calendar to open it.

Blocking off busy time

You can mark any time as Busy Time, even within your working hours.

You might need to do this on the go in case something comes up, you’re on vacation, or you just need to make sure no one books appointments with you.

Click anywhere on your calendar or from your busy time slot and click Mark as Busy.

This will ensure you are not available for appointments during that time.

Tip: If your regular availability changes for a longer period of time, like a day or a week, use the Edit date availability feature from your calendar to adjust your availability for that time to maintain a streamlined booking experience. For more, visit the Setting Up Your Calendar & Availability article.
Learn more: To learn more about your calendar settings, visit the Setting Up Your Calendar & Availability article. To learn more about the types of services you can offer, either as appointment or group events, visit the Adding & Defining Services article.

Promoting bookings with direct links & announcements

You can promote bookings in two ways:

  • You can send direct booking links to your clients via email

  • You can send your clients a professionally designed email / SMS announcement.

Note: This option is only available for Group events, and not for appointments.

1. Promoting bookings with direct links

Whether you’ve created a new service you want to promote, or just want to boost bookings for existing services or for a specific time frame, emailing clients a direct booking link is a great way to go.

Since you can send your booking link to as many clients as you like, including to entire lists of clients (using Tags), the link is a great way to get the word out and increase bookings fast.

You can send direct booking links for both appointments and events.

To send a direct booking link to any of your services in order to get clients to book an appointment or register for an event, simply go to Calendar > Schedule New and select Invite to schedule.
    

Note: For your convenience, you can either pre-select a service and/or pre-assign a staff member for this booking invitation. Or, you can let clients choose from your list of services and/or list of available staff.
Note: You can also easily send a direct booking link anytime by selecting Invite a client to schedule straight from your Quick Actions menu.
Learn more: To learn how you can generate client lists via Tags for your booking link recipients and other marketing efforts, visit the Targeting Marketing Recipients article.
Tip: After meeting with your client, you can use the appointment Follow-up actions to invite your client to book a new follow-up appointment. Use the  icon on the Appointment page to open the Follow-up actions menu.

2. Promoting group events

Once you’ve created your new group event, you can either register clients yourself, or send your clients a direct invitation link allowing them to register themselves.

The registration and invitation link options are easily available from your Event page. The Event page opens up automatically after you’ve created the event or anytime you click on your event from your Calendar.

To promote your event to more clients or to lists of clients using an action-driving announcement via Email or SMS, follow these easy steps:

Step 1:  Click the Promote this Event button from your Event page.

Step 2: Follow the New Announcement dialog prompt.

Step 3: You’ll see your event announcement template in editing mode. From here, you can edit the text, add a compelling image, change the text coloring, etc.

Step 4: Click Done to save your changes.

Note: This takes you to your Marketing > Announcements page. Your announcement is now saved and you can get back to it anytime.

Step 5: To send your new announcement to clients or to schedule delivery for a later time, click Send & choose your mode of delivery: Email / SMS.

Step 6: Select your recipients by tags, or select individual clients on the spot.

Learn more: To learn about how to generate client lists from tags to focus your marketing efforts, visit the Targeting Marketing Recipients article. For more on sending announcements, visit the Creating & Sending Announcements article.

 

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