New to the community? Start here

We have recently purchased Appointments+ and I really need some assistance in the setup.

How do I as a staff member (or service provider) block out appointments or days on which I have other commitments? Also, how do I get a list of the clients I have booked? It seems to create a list, but I’m only getting my own name as the service provider for every appointment.

We a small training company with 3 facilitators (2 of which are part-time) and 2 training rooms for individual or small group training (i.e. shared resources). We also go out to train at clients’ premises for larger groups or on by special arrangement.

I would like my facilitators to be able to manage their own diaries (within their assigned working hours) and the clients to be able to book or change their appointments.

I would like to be able to do the following:

• To assign a particular number of appointments to a particular course/service e.g. 6 x 1 ½ hour sessions for public speaking yet 8x 1 ½ hour sessions for English pronunciation.

• Allow each service provider (facilitator) to be able to book/cancel/postpone her client’s sessions and book/cancel/postpone ‘blocked out times’ which present themselves as booked appointments (manage her diary on a daily basis)

• To have clients register (and have their details saved) only once they have been provided by us with a login, yet not have to enter all detail every time the make or change one of their 6 or 8 or 12 appointments

• To allow only 2 clients to be able to book their individual appointments at our offices at any given time, yet to allow a 3rd to be able to be booked (with the remaining service provider- with a travel time buffer) at the clients premises – actually, because of the variables involved in this, we would need to make the bookings for the client’s premises telephonically, yet with the assistance of the online diary. Here we would book out a couple of days for group training (again the blocking out of multiple appointments, say over 2 days without having to select each appointment)

• To require approval from service providers should clients change bookings

• For the service providers / facilitators to be able to see what their upcoming appointments are, as a list or, ideally in weekly calendar form

I look forward to your reply.

Many thanks.

Kind regards,

Michelle

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 7:50:13
  • Jack Kitterhing
    • Code Norris

    Hi there Michelle,

    Hope you’re well today! Welcome to WPMU DEV. :slight_smile:

    How do I as a staff member (or service provider) block out appointments or days on which I have other commitments?

    Technically there is the exceptions setting, but while you can allow a service provider to manage their own working hours, they wouldn’t have access to the exception setting, as that is controlled by the admin, we could give them access to it, but that would require giving them access to all settings of the plugins, which I presume wouldn’t work here?

    To allow them to manage their own working hours, go to your wp-admin > appointments > settings, scroll down to “Accessibility settings” and change “Allow service provider set working hours” to “Yes” and save. :slight_smile:

    Also, how do I get a list of the clients I have booked?

    Add this shortcode to any page you’d like to display the worker calendar on. Which is the service providers calendar of booked appointments.

    [app_worker_monthly_calendar]

    That should do what you need there. :slight_smile:

    I would like to be able to do the following:

    • To assign a particular number of appointments to a particular course/service e.g. 6 x 1 ½ hour sessions for public speaking yet 8x 1 ½ hour sessions for English pronunciation.

    • Allow each service provider (facilitator) to be able to book/cancel/postpone her client’s sessions and book/cancel/postpone ‘blocked out times’ which present themselves as booked appointments (manage her diary on a daily basis)

    This can be done by the above, but by also enabling the “Allow service provider confirm own appointments” in the accessibility settings, that would then allow the service providers to manage all their own appointments. :slight_smile:

    To have clients register (and have their details saved) only once they have been provided by us with a login, yet not have to enter all detail every time the make or change one of their 6 or 8 or 12 appointments

    By default you could use the standard WordPress registration system and then perhaps a plugin such as https://wordpress.org/plugins/new-user-approve/ which would mean you’d then need to approve them before they show, there details could then be saved. :slight_smile:

    To allow only 2 clients to be able to book their individual appointments at our offices at any given time, yet to allow a 3rd to be able to be booked (with the remaining service provider- with a travel time buffer) at the clients premises – actually, because of the variables involved in this, we would need to make the bookings for the client’s premises telephonically, yet with the assistance of the online diary. Here we would book out a couple of days for group training (again the blocking out of multiple appointments, say over 2 days without having to select each appointment)

    We do have a buffer add-on and depending on the exact setup this is definitely achievable, so say if you had the two providers, if they are already booked, that will block out the other appointments and then the 3rd would still be available for booking, what sort of time buffer would be needed (the length of time?).

    Currently though Appointments+ can’t handle multiple day appointments, so while you could manually book a appointment, you’d need to book them in blocks so they don’t go over 24hrs.

    • To require approval from service providers should clients change bookings

    Currently a client could cancel without requiring approval, could you explain a bit about how you’d like this to work, perhaps there’s a workaround :slight_smile:

    For the service providers / facilitators to be able to see what their upcoming appointments are, as a list or, ideally in weekly calendar form

    Would the app_worker_monthly_calendar, work for you there? The shortcode above. :slight_smile:

    Thanks!

    Kind Regards

    Jack.