Streamline appointment bookings and elevate your customers’ experience using Ontraport’s self-scheduling feature.
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Self-scheduling
Course Instructor
- How to create and personalize your booking page
- How to set your availability
- How to create booking page templates for different appointments types
- How to set up event-based automation
- How to create and send confirmation notifications to your clients
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Transcript
Booking appointments can be a major challenge for anyone whose business trades time for money, and setting up a third party scheduling integration just adds more complication.
Using our self scheduling feature, your clients can book their own appointments, saving you time and ensuring a seamless experience for your customers.
In this video, you'll learn how to use Ontraport's self scheduling feature to streamline your appointment bookings. We'll cover it in two steps, setting your availability calendar settings and creating a booking page, personalize it, and publish. Before creating your booking page, you'll configure your availability settings so Ontraport knows which windows of time you are available for appointments.
Navigate to your personal profile, then click the calendar tab. Scroll down until you see the availability section. Add all the calendars you want Ontraport to check for your availability.
Consider adding your work and personal calendars so you don't get appointments booked when you have a team meeting or a doctor's appointment.
No one will see your techno line dancing appointment. They'll just see that time is unavailable.
In the calendar for booking appointments field, select the calendar you want to book appointments on from the drop down. This is also where you designate the host's time zone. This time zone ensures your booking page offers only dates and times when you are available.
You can choose your integrated calendars in these sections if you're integrated with Google Calendar, And the two way sync means that all of your appointments will appear both in Ontraport and Google. In the when can events be booked section, choose when visitors can book appointments. You can add multiple rows here. So say you want the same schedule Monday through Thursday and different hours for Friday, just add a new row, choose Friday, and the times you want.
Now that you've completed your availability settings, you're ready to create a new booking page. Your booking pages are where your visitors schedule their appointments with you. Now on to step two where we'll create a new booking page.
Go to calendar, then click booking pages from the drop down menu. Click new booking page.
There are six pages of customizable settings in the booking page editor. One quick but important thing to note here is that as you progress through the booking editor, you'll want to click next rather than save to move from one page to the next. If you click save before you've gone through all six pages, your booking page will be published prematurely.
The details page allows you to customize your booking page settings, such as the page's hosted URL and length of your appointments. You'll create a separate booking page for each type of appointment you offer and title it with a short description of the appointment that your customers can see, such as annual pet exam or dental cleaning.
On this details page, you can set the title, such as tutoring session. This is what people see at the top of your booking page. The event template field is where you connect your booking page to an existing event template, but you don't have to. Just pick none if you don't need that. Connecting to an event template is really helpful if you have an automation set up around your events, such as emails leading up to the appointment and follow-up after.
The domain determines where your booking page will be hosted.
Availability is like your personal availability on the calendar. This is great for making sure your bookings are never outside of your standard business hours. Booking time zone lets you set the default time zone for your appointments.
Any guests outside of your time zone will see available times in their time zone, but your team will see them in the one you select here. Duration lets you set how long your meeting is and your visitors can see that at the top of your booking page.
I'll set the annual pet exam for thirty minutes.
Appointments can be booked every sets the intervals where your visitors can book. It prevents visitors from booking at odd times like four zero seven. Minimum booking notice, this lets you choose how far in advance visitors can book appointments. For example, if you choose twenty four hours, then visitors can't book same day appointments.
This prevents appointments from showing up on your calendar without time for you to prepare.
Future limit sets a cap on how far out your appointments can be booked. For example, if you choose two weeks, visitors can only book appointments in the next fourteen days.
Buffer time lets you choose how much time you have in between appointments.
Restrict cancellations, when toggled on, prevents cancellations within a specific time frame. When enabled, you'll see the minimum cancel notice setting that lets you choose how much time your guests have to cancel their appointments without penalties. Booking terms is what your guests will see when they fill out your booking form. This is where you can tell your guest all about the terms of the appointment they're about to book.
Now let's move over to the host tab. This is where you can determine whose calendar the events will be booked on. You can choose specific users or roles. Specific users is a great option when you want visitors to book with a specific person or people on your team. The everyone in a role is crucial for a clinic where multiple practitioners are available for appointments. For example, book your checkup appointments with users with the role veterinarian.
When you choose the everyone in a role option or add two or more users from the specific users option, you'll see round robin options.
If you select maximize fairness, it means each team member will receive an equal number of bookings. This is perfect for ensuring that workloads are evenly distributed among your practitioners.
If you choose maximize availability, customers will get appointments as soon as possible with the first available representative.
Moving on, custom fields are the form fields that your guests fill out to book an appointment. We have the basic contact information, but you can add your own custom fields. Maybe you need a bit more information about their pet's health history or tutoring needs for their class.
If you wanna get really slick, you can pre fill fields for identified visitors using the merge field selector. Click on the merge field icon to select the contact information you'd like to prefill your form with.
Now let's look at the confirmation settings. If you toggle on the automatically RSVP host when booked, your response status will be attending by default. If you turn it off, it will not be set. The send confirmation email sends an email as soon as users book. The easiest way to go is to use the default confirmation email. That default email will include a link where users can reschedule or cancel their appointment.
If you decide to customize your own, select it from the drop down or click new message to create one on the fly. When you create your own email, there's an attach ICS file check box.
An ICS file makes it easy for your guests to add your event information to different calendars, such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and so on.
Use our merge field link to take guests to your reschedule page. Click the merge field drop down, click the arrow next to calendar event, then select modify event.
Use the who should receive the email confirmation setting to send it to the host and the guest, just the guest, or just the host.
Form settings is where you'll customize your form settings such as your opt in settings and thank you page. If you wanna create a personalized thank you page with users merge fields to display your visitors information, check out the create a custom booking page section in the support center article. Here, customize your booking page style such as logo and background color.
When you're done customizing your settings, click the save button in the top right corner to publish your booking page.
And that's it. You've now set up a booking page and a booking calendar, making it easy for your customers to schedule appointments with you and your team. To learn more about setting up the Ontraport calendar in your account, visit our support center and check out our video on the Ontraport calendar.
Using our self scheduling feature, your clients can book their own appointments, saving you time and ensuring a seamless experience for your customers.
In this video, you'll learn how to use Ontraport's self scheduling feature to streamline your appointment bookings. We'll cover it in two steps, setting your availability calendar settings and creating a booking page, personalize it, and publish. Before creating your booking page, you'll configure your availability settings so Ontraport knows which windows of time you are available for appointments.
Navigate to your personal profile, then click the calendar tab. Scroll down until you see the availability section. Add all the calendars you want Ontraport to check for your availability.
Consider adding your work and personal calendars so you don't get appointments booked when you have a team meeting or a doctor's appointment.
No one will see your techno line dancing appointment. They'll just see that time is unavailable.
In the calendar for booking appointments field, select the calendar you want to book appointments on from the drop down. This is also where you designate the host's time zone. This time zone ensures your booking page offers only dates and times when you are available.
You can choose your integrated calendars in these sections if you're integrated with Google Calendar, And the two way sync means that all of your appointments will appear both in Ontraport and Google. In the when can events be booked section, choose when visitors can book appointments. You can add multiple rows here. So say you want the same schedule Monday through Thursday and different hours for Friday, just add a new row, choose Friday, and the times you want.
Now that you've completed your availability settings, you're ready to create a new booking page. Your booking pages are where your visitors schedule their appointments with you. Now on to step two where we'll create a new booking page.
Go to calendar, then click booking pages from the drop down menu. Click new booking page.
There are six pages of customizable settings in the booking page editor. One quick but important thing to note here is that as you progress through the booking editor, you'll want to click next rather than save to move from one page to the next. If you click save before you've gone through all six pages, your booking page will be published prematurely.
The details page allows you to customize your booking page settings, such as the page's hosted URL and length of your appointments. You'll create a separate booking page for each type of appointment you offer and title it with a short description of the appointment that your customers can see, such as annual pet exam or dental cleaning.
On this details page, you can set the title, such as tutoring session. This is what people see at the top of your booking page. The event template field is where you connect your booking page to an existing event template, but you don't have to. Just pick none if you don't need that. Connecting to an event template is really helpful if you have an automation set up around your events, such as emails leading up to the appointment and follow-up after.
The domain determines where your booking page will be hosted.
Availability is like your personal availability on the calendar. This is great for making sure your bookings are never outside of your standard business hours. Booking time zone lets you set the default time zone for your appointments.
Any guests outside of your time zone will see available times in their time zone, but your team will see them in the one you select here. Duration lets you set how long your meeting is and your visitors can see that at the top of your booking page.
I'll set the annual pet exam for thirty minutes.
Appointments can be booked every sets the intervals where your visitors can book. It prevents visitors from booking at odd times like four zero seven. Minimum booking notice, this lets you choose how far in advance visitors can book appointments. For example, if you choose twenty four hours, then visitors can't book same day appointments.
This prevents appointments from showing up on your calendar without time for you to prepare.
Future limit sets a cap on how far out your appointments can be booked. For example, if you choose two weeks, visitors can only book appointments in the next fourteen days.
Buffer time lets you choose how much time you have in between appointments.
Restrict cancellations, when toggled on, prevents cancellations within a specific time frame. When enabled, you'll see the minimum cancel notice setting that lets you choose how much time your guests have to cancel their appointments without penalties. Booking terms is what your guests will see when they fill out your booking form. This is where you can tell your guest all about the terms of the appointment they're about to book.
Now let's move over to the host tab. This is where you can determine whose calendar the events will be booked on. You can choose specific users or roles. Specific users is a great option when you want visitors to book with a specific person or people on your team. The everyone in a role is crucial for a clinic where multiple practitioners are available for appointments. For example, book your checkup appointments with users with the role veterinarian.
When you choose the everyone in a role option or add two or more users from the specific users option, you'll see round robin options.
If you select maximize fairness, it means each team member will receive an equal number of bookings. This is perfect for ensuring that workloads are evenly distributed among your practitioners.
If you choose maximize availability, customers will get appointments as soon as possible with the first available representative.
Moving on, custom fields are the form fields that your guests fill out to book an appointment. We have the basic contact information, but you can add your own custom fields. Maybe you need a bit more information about their pet's health history or tutoring needs for their class.
If you wanna get really slick, you can pre fill fields for identified visitors using the merge field selector. Click on the merge field icon to select the contact information you'd like to prefill your form with.
Now let's look at the confirmation settings. If you toggle on the automatically RSVP host when booked, your response status will be attending by default. If you turn it off, it will not be set. The send confirmation email sends an email as soon as users book. The easiest way to go is to use the default confirmation email. That default email will include a link where users can reschedule or cancel their appointment.
If you decide to customize your own, select it from the drop down or click new message to create one on the fly. When you create your own email, there's an attach ICS file check box.
An ICS file makes it easy for your guests to add your event information to different calendars, such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and so on.
Use our merge field link to take guests to your reschedule page. Click the merge field drop down, click the arrow next to calendar event, then select modify event.
Use the who should receive the email confirmation setting to send it to the host and the guest, just the guest, or just the host.
Form settings is where you'll customize your form settings such as your opt in settings and thank you page. If you wanna create a personalized thank you page with users merge fields to display your visitors information, check out the create a custom booking page section in the support center article. Here, customize your booking page style such as logo and background color.
When you're done customizing your settings, click the save button in the top right corner to publish your booking page.
And that's it. You've now set up a booking page and a booking calendar, making it easy for your customers to schedule appointments with you and your team. To learn more about setting up the Ontraport calendar in your account, visit our support center and check out our video on the Ontraport calendar.
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