Configuring and Managing Appointment Booking Settings

The settings listed below can be found by navigating to the Admin Panel > "Settings" > "Sessions" > find the header, "Appointments - Booking Flow". In this article, we describe the following settings:

• Appointment Types: Configure and manage different appointment types (one-on-one or group) and their settings.

• Appointment Formats & Agenda Screen Customization: Adjust appointment formats, control visibility, and customize the agenda screen.

• Student Session Booking Lead Time: Set the minimum advance time required for students to book a session.

• Booking Schedule Range: Define how many weeks in advance students can book appointments.

• Fix Session Start Times: Specify allowed session start times (e.g., on the hour or half-hour).

• Provider Filter in Booking Flow: Enable students to select a specific provider when booking.

• Auto-Confirm Appointments for Providers: Automatically confirm appointments or allow providers to accept/decline bookings.

• Student Session Usage Limits: Set daily or weekly booking limits for students.

• Max Group Session Size: Define the maximum number of students allowed in a group session.

Appointment Types

This setting allows you to completely edit the appointment flow. Changes made within here will directly impact the student learn screen and the appointment options available to students. Once saved, these changes will be live and available. Within this setting, you can:

• Edit the appointment button copy
• Rearrange the appointment buttons 
• Duplicate appointment buttons and their settings
• Delete appointment buttons
• Add brand new appointments 
  • Determine the kind (one-on-one or group)
  • Set the recurrence (single or weekly)
  • Set the length of time for the appointment
  • Edit the Agenda Screen questions that are shown to students (this setting is described below under the feature "Agenda Screen")
  • Determine if you would like to Enable the Shared Google Drive Folder

Q&A

Q1: If the weekly appointment format is removed, so students can no longer book weekly appointments, will this also stop creating weekly appointments for students who have already used this option before it was removed, and have weekly appointments scheduled?

A1: Removing the option for students to book a weekly appointment will not affect already scheduled weekly appointments. The next weekly appointment will continue to be scheduled after the provider completes the current week's session log, regardless of if that appointment flow is available to students. The weekly appointments will continue to be created until they are canceled.

Q2: How do group appointments work in Penji?

A2: For group appointments, more than one student can book the same course/time/location with a provider, and if they do they will be lumped together into a group. Once a course/time/location is reserved by the first student, that time is held for the same course. Only students looking for support in the same course as the first student will see that time as available to book. 

Additionally, after the first student books the group time, future group members will not have a location option. The location for the group appointment will be based on the first student's selection. 

Agenda Screen

Each appointment type can have its own Agenda Screen that students fill out before booking a session. You can add, edit, make required, or rearrange these questions. The options include Short Answer, Long Answer, Drop-Down, Checkboxes, and File Upload. Note that you can add as many of these questions as you would like. 

• Providers will see the responses within the session placeholder card on their teach screen.
• Admins can see the Agenda Screen responses on the sessions tab by clicking into a session or by downloading the session.csv export.
• These questions can be answered when an admin goes through the "Create a Session" flow.

If you edit any of the agenda questions, a new column in the CSV export will be created and the original wording of the question will still have a column in the export as well. 

Hide Appointment Types

Within each appointment type, you can choose to make them "Hidden" or "Visible" to students (on the student learn screen). The default is "Visible". If "Hidden" only admin will be able to book appointments based on the appointment type by navigating to sessions > create-a-session. 

Student Session Booking Lead Time Rules

How many minutes in advance must a student book? This setting is often used when combining drop-in and appointment availability that overlaps. For example, if there is a 720-minute (12-hour) lead time, no student can book an appointment within 12 hours.

Booking Schedule Range

This allows you to adjust how many weeks in advance students can book an appointment. For example, this could be 2 weeks - from a given date, students can only book an appointment two weeks out. Previously, this feature was known as "Appointment Scheduled Weeks Ahead".

Fix Session Start Times

On what parts of the hour would you like students to be allowed to book an appointment? For example, if this is :00 and :30, students would only be able to schedule an appointment that starts on the hour or half-hour. Previously, this feature was known as "Calendar Allowed Minutes".

Note that this will also affect the available start and end times for a provider. If the calendar allowed minutes setting is set to :00 and :30, providers can only have scheduled available times that start/end on the :00 and :30. In this scenario, you would not be able to schedule a provider to start on the :45, for example. 

Provider filter in the booking flow

Enable this if you would like your students to be able to select a specific provider to work with in the booking flow. 

Auto-confirm sessions for Providers

More information about the different statuses for sessions can be found here: Admins: Appointments Introduction. If you would like providers to be able to decline a session, this should be off. When students book an appointment, and this feature is off, the appointment will be shown as Pending until the provider accepts the appointment. Otherwise, if this is on, once a student requests a session it is immediately confirmed.

Please note that if your community is set to "Auto Confirm - Disabled", until the provider accepts the requested appointment, the requested time is available for another student to book (appointments could overlap). Once an appointment is confirmed (scheduled), that time is removed from the available hours. 

Student session usage limit

Use the student session usage limits if you would like to add restrictions on the number of minutes per week or per day students are allowed to book. See the below example: Students are not allowed to book more than 120 minutes per week and are not allowed to book more than 90 minutes per day for sessions. Session usage limit violations are shown from the student perspective within the Student FAQ.

This session usage limit includes the time spent in a session that is part of a section. Both appointments and sections are counted in this limit. 

Max group session size

Set the maximum amount of students that can join a group appointment (session).