Bookable Appointment Slots

Posted on4/8/2022by admin

How To Use Google Appointment Slots
Bookable Appointment Slots Google Calendar

Want to allow you clients to book appointments on your website using Bookable Appointment Slots in Google Calendar? I wouldn’t be writing this tutorial if I could find a comprehensive tutorial online, or if Google help documents weren’t as confusing. It turned out not as simple and intuitive as I originally anticipated. I hope this short tutorial will help my clients and others find their way around google account in order to create google calendar and embed it on their website.

Appointment slots are useful when you don't know who needs to meet with you, but you want to make yourself available. You can offer people a block of time on your calendar that they can book time. Each appointment booked as an online meeting creates a unique meeting link that is sent to attendees so they can join via a web browser, phone dial-in, or the Skype or Teams app. Bookings is also available as an app within Teams, which allows you to create Bookings calendars, assign staff, and both schedule new and manage existing appointments without ever leaving Teams.

I know that your time is precious, so let’s keep this a point form shall we? Before we start we need a mind-map of what we are doing and why.

Prerequisites – You need G-Suite:
So what’s the catch? The catch is that google wants you to be on their G-Suite plan. Their basic plan is $6 / month. If you don’t have G-Suite you might want to create one.

I’d appreciate if you use my affiliate link: https://goo.gl/9HTDpa
As a bonus google hands out 20% discount for those who sign-up through a referral program.
G Suite Basic Coupon Code – UC9JMYD6HAUJLTP
G Suite Business Coupon Code – V3CAN4MDF6R6D7X
Coupons expire on: 05/2020 (if they expired, please let me know so I could update them)

Why we are creating bookable calendar on the website?

Because you might want your clients to book appointments with you on your website.
Because google calendar is likely already integrated with your every-day-life.
You avoid expensive client management systems by using free Google Calendar features.

What are we doing?

Creating a custom calendar that’s separate from your personal calendar.
Allowing public to use that new calendar.
Adding specific appointment slots.
Publishing it on a WordPress website (but any other website will do)

Before we dive in:

If you feel comfortable sharing your login information to your google account, we’ll be happy to setup calendar and embed it into your website on your behalf. So if you are an existing or a potential client of ours and feel comfortable sharing your login info to your google account, you can skip all of this and simply email us your login credentials and we’ll do everything on your behalf.

Deep Dive Starts Now:

Let’s create a calendar specific to your business.

Login into your google calendar.
Left menu click “+” to create new calendar, name it, Create it and click back to settings.

We now have created calendar specific to your business.

Setup Reoccurring Bookable Appointment Slots

Deselect all calendars and select only your new calendar. In our case it’s “Conference Appointment”
Click on any date or time and a popup will open. Select “Appointment Slots” tab and click “More Options” button.

On a new tab that’ll open up enter name of your slot
Enter time that are allowed for people to setup appointments with you. I’ve selected 8:30am to 6pm
I’ve selected “Slots with duration” set to 60min.
Make sure to set how often it should repeat. In my case I set Monday to Friday every weekday.
Add a description and Save.

Making this calendar available to the public & notifications

Select the 3 dot icon and click on “Settings and Sharing”
On access permissions elect “make available to the public”

If you don’t want to have schedule conflicts, make sure to select “…do not conflict”

I’d recommend adding email notification so that you know that someone has booked an appointment with you

Allow people to book appointment on your google calendar

Many people think that embedding a calendar allows your website visitors book appointments using google calendar. That is however not the case. Google calendar creates specific link that can be linked to a button that will allow visitor to be redirected to a booking page. Here is how to find that link and add it to your website:

On you calendar you should now see appointment slots. You first need to (Left Click) to bring out a menu.
On the menu you will see a blue text “Go to appointment page …” you need to Right click to bring out another menu.
Left click on “Copy Link Address” to save it. Now it can be sent to a developer to add to your site.

Add link to your site yourself

All that you’ll need is a code like this:

All that you’ll need to do is to replace “your_copied_link_goes_here” with the actual link and insert it into your theme template file that’s specific to your WordPress page, or to your static HTML page. It can also be inserted in a text editor of your WordPress content block.

If it sounds too confusing, please don’t do it, tampering with source code will likely ruin your site. Simply ask a professional and it can be done under a minute. If you are charged over $20 for this by a developer – you are being ripped off. Find someone else.

Last but not least

If you need help, feel free to reach out to us at 717-543-8020

All Best,

Peter K.

Your Admin Calendar allows you to get full control of your week and the coming ones, make changes to your bookable time and appointments.

Availability

The grey blocks show your available time for appointments or, as we like to say in Wappointment, when you are bookable!

You can modify your regular weekly availability from your settings at any time.

You can also create punctual availability from your Admin Calendar.

When you mouse hover, a tag comes visible indicating the type of availability the slot corresponds to.

Non-bookable time

The white areas of your calendar are your non-bookable time. The slots in diagonal shows when you are busy, and so when you are also unavailable for bookings.

Your busy time might come from your personal calendar’s events. Learn here how to synchronize with your personal calendar if you didn´t do it yet.

Form your admin calendar you can also block time directly.

You can check the source of your busy time by hovering the event.

Slots available for bookings

How To Use Google Appointment Slots

As you well imagine, the number of possible appointments will depend on your bookable time and the duration of your service (plus any buffer time between appointments that you might have set).

You can see the number of slots available in the top of your Admin Calendar, next to the week.

Timezone

Your timezone is indicated in the upper-right corner. You can modify it at any time from the settings.

But the beauty of your Admin Calendar is that it allows you to visualize your availability in different timezones without modifying your settings.

Bookable Appointment Slots Google Calendar

Let´s say you have to schedule an appointment with a client who is placed in Mexico. Which time will work for both of you?

Just look for Mexico in the drop-down menu on the right top corner and that´s it, now your availability is displayed in Mexico´s time. It seems early in the morning in Mexico would be suitable to both of you!

Appointments

And finally, the best of your calendar: bookings!

The appointments your clients book from your website are displayed here.

When placing the cursor over the appointment, an eye icon will appear, allowing to visualize extra information on your client such as email or phone number. Pretty handy if you need to contact them!

From your Admin Calendar, you can reserve an appointment on behalf of your client. A confirmation email will be sent to your client with the booking details.

If you need to reschedule an appointment, simply drag it into the new time slot. An email will be sent to your client with the details of the rescheduled booking.

So, start using your Admin Calendar at its full extent! If you don´t have it yet, just install it on your WordPress’ site. It is free!