TABLE OF CONTENT

• Introduction
• Requirements
• What is the appointment status used for?
• Activation of the appointment status function
  • Activate appointment status for individual services
  • Create and manage appointment statuses
• Booking process with appointment status
  • Receipt of a new booking
    • From the customer's perspective
    • From the perspective of the Calenso partner
  • Update appointment status
    • To update the status of an appointment, click on the three dots on the right side an choose Update Status.
    • Confirmation
    • Rejection
• Display the history of status changes for an appointment
• Summary

Introduction

Would you prefer to have full control over which appointments you accept rather than automatically confirming them immediately? Or does your appointment allocation go through a specific process before the appointment can be confirmed to your customers? Then the appointment status function is just right for you. Here we explain how you can use it.

Requirements

What is the appointment status used for?

If your appointment scheduling process is more complex than an immediate appointment confirmation, you can create individual statuses that an appointment booking must go through before the appointment is confirmed. This allows you to provide your customers with a platform for booking an appointment and achieve a certain level of commitment and thus customer loyalty, even if the appointment is not yet confirmed.

Examples of such a process:

• Appointment request has been received
• Consultation with management
• Appointment is approved by the management
• Ensure representation in the team
• Check availability of resources
• Confirm appointment

If a status requirement is not met, the appointment can be transferred directly to a cancellation status. The customer is then informed that the appointment cannot be kept.

Activation of the appointment status function

Under Settings, click on Booking Widget Settings.

Press the Enable appointment status function button.

Activate appointment status for individual services

Go to the settings and select Services.

Select the desired service and click on the three dots to edit it.

Click on advanced settings to expand the menu.

When the advanced settings menu is open, you will find the switch to activate the Appointment status function for this service.

Create and manage appointment statuses

If you now open the settings, you will now find the menu item Appointment status.

You can create a new appointment status with the "Plus" symbol.

Give the status a name and a short description.

The position indicates the position in the sequence at which the appointment status is taken.

Select whether the status is marked as Start, Booking confirmation or Cancellation.

Start is the logical setting for a status in the first position. This option is generally assigned to all statuses that should not trigger a booking confirmation or rejection.

If the status is marked as a Booking Confirmation, a booking confirmation is sent to the customer as soon as this status is assigned to an appointment booking.

If the status is marked as Cancellation, a cancellation is sent to the customer as soon as this status is assigned to an appointment booking.

Select a color for a better overview.

The color underlines the status and makes it easier to see. Here is an overview of the individual colors:

Once several appointment statuses have been created, their overview could look like this, for example.

Booking process with appointment status

If different statuses have been assigned to a service, as shown above, a booking process looks like this.

Receipt of a new booking

From the customer's perspective

In the first step, the booking process looks exactly the same as always: the customer uses the booking widget to select the relevant service and the appropriate date and time.

After a successful booking, this text is displayed to the customer on the success page:

The appointment page shows the customer that the appointment is still unconfirmed.

However, the confirmation email does not confirm the appointment, but only the receipt of the appointment request.

From the perspective of the Calenso partner

The requested appointment appears in the Calenso dashboard with the corresponding status.

The booking process starts with the status "Is start?" because the status Edit request has been given the predicate "Is start?".

Update appointment status

To update the status of an appointment, click on the three dots on the right side an choose Update Status.

Confirmation

The primary status of the request can be edited and changed to a confirmation, for example.

Customers then receive the official confirmation.

As soon as the appointment has been confirmed to the customer, the usual confirmation is also sent to the booked resource, branch or company e-mail address.

After the request has been changed to a status with the predicate "Is booking confirmation?", for example, the request initially disappears from the overview of unconfirmed appointment requests in the dashboard.

However, if you activate the "Show confirmed appointments" button, you can view the appointment again, which now has the new status "Confirmed".

Rejection

If the appointment cannot take place, select the status Rejection. The reason must be entered in the corresponding text field (below).

The reason given then appears in the e-mail with the rejection to the customer.

Display the history of status changes for an appointment

To see which statuses an appointment has gone through so far, go to History in the overview of unconfirmed appointments (Dashboard) via the three dots at the top right.

An overview of all the statuses passed through appears in chronological order, with the most recent status at the top.

Summary

The appointment status function enables a semi-automatic process for making appointments. This enables you to offer your customers the opportunity to make an appointment. In this way, you create a certain level of commitment and therefore customer loyalty, even if you are not yet able to confirm an appointment immediately.