This article will take you through
1. What is Trainer Availability?
2. What are the benefits of the first Trainer Availability release?
3. How do I create Trainer Availability for member facing Appointment bookings?
4. Steps to set up appointments for client side bookings
What is Trainer Availability?
The new Appointment Availability feature allows you to set trainer hours on the Dashboard Calendar. The set availability, enables clients to self-book 1:1 appointments in the Member App.
The Trainer Availability for client side bookings, is only available on the new version of Appointments. The first release will include the ability to set daily availability. The recurring capability will be released soon after.
What are the benefits of the first Trainer Availability release?
- Free up admin time and increase revenue potential by creating a trainer schedule for client side bookings
- Add availability on an ad-hoc basis - if you have gaps to fill throughout the week, simply set the trainer availability and increase the likelihood of filling those free spaces
- The ability to set daily availability will mainly benefit Trainers with changing weekly schedules
Please note;
- The trainer availability set on the Dashboard applies to client side appointment bookings only. You can still use the availability as a reference to help with staff side bookings, but it is possible to override the availability set on the Dashboard.
- Staff members (Trainers/Receptionists/Admins) manually scheduling appointments on the Dashboard or Pro App, on behalf of their clients are not restricted by the set availability. Although they can use the availability set as a reference, they can schedule appointments at any given time
- In the initial release the hours will only show in the member app, not the Web Portal
- In the initial release you can add single occurrences of availability, in a later release we will add recurring hours of availability.
How do I create and publish Trainer Availability?
Any staff member can set up availability from the Dashboard Calendar.
Note: Trainers can only set and view their own availability, Receptionists and Admins can set and view all Trainer availability.
Steps to create Trainer Availability:
1. Navigate to the Dashboard Calendar
2. Hit 'Appointment Availability'
3. Select any Trainer
4. Select 'Add a day'
5. Add the available trainer hours by setting the date, start time and end time. If you would like to add two time blocks, simply select 'Add a day', select the same date and desired times.
- Note: It is currently only possible to add a daily schedule, the recurring schedule capabilities are in development and will be released soon.
6. Once all days and times are set, hit 'Save'. Ensure you save the hours before navigating to another Trainer.
7. When the hours are set on the Dashboard, clients can self-book variable appointments in the Member App.
- Note: If a conflict is detected (i.e. another class or appointment booking), the availability will not display to clients in the Member App
- The availability dynamically updates in the Member App based Trainer bookings, so you can rest assured that your schedule will be continually optimised
How do I create Trainer Availability for member facing Appointment bookings?
1. Please ensure the appointments are created under MANAGE > Appointments on the Dashboard. Check that your Trainers are associated with the correct appointments.
2. Ensure your appointments are associated with the correct Memberships/Credit packs in the Services section of the Dashboard
3. Finally, under the new 'Appointment Availability', add any trainer times that you want to make available in the Member App. Note: once the Trainer is connected to an Appointment on the Appointment definition page and the Trainer's Availability is set, it will then present the available appointment times in the Member App.
If you would like more information on the new version of Appointments, see here.