Slate Spotlight: Active Scheduler Revisited

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Great one, Justin Harville

Hi Stephanie!

Has anyone experienced outlook crashing when bringing in events to outlook?

I tried to watch the recording of the previous active scheduler presentation but the audio and presentation screen were off by about 10 minutes. It made it really hard to follow. Is there a chance that can be fixed?

I second, Megan Krapf!

Jane Clark, Abilene Christian University! New to the campus...Day 3!

Registration deadlines any chance of that deadline allowing a cutoff multiple days in advance?

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Thank you!

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What if you don't have the "availability" button?

@ Jane Clark! I'm with ACU too. Are you on the Dallas Campus or the Abilene Campus?

Bump to this request:

What if you don't have the "availability" button?

@jeanette - you might need to turn on the early availability with your configuration keys

Is there a way to get the Active Scheduler folders to show up on the Scheduler page where the calendar is?

Bump to this request: Andrew Carter 01:07:19 PM Registration deadlines any chance of that deadline allowing a cutoff multiple days in advance?

If you don't have the Availbilty button, you will need to turn this feature on in your Slate instance

If you have created a repeating series of meetings and now want to delete the entire series, is that possible? or do you need to delete each appointment one by one?

@kristen - you can cancel and delete scheduler items with a query!

@Mara -- Thank you!

What website should we be in?

Hello from Yale School of Medicine!

Are there any plans to have the deadline to register for a session longer than 24 hours in the future? We have some events that we like to have a few days notice when someone signs up

are these updates in production?

@adam - I've had them set up for 1440 minutes (24 hours) and it seems like it's worked ok - have you run into a character limit or an error message?

Seconding Adam's request. We have some that can be same-day but most have cutoffs a couple days in advance to allow for processing/pulling materials/etc.

Can you please post the link to October's Active Scheduler training?

@Rachelle, they are available, but they need to be activated in the early access features in the database

Thank you!

I think I have limited access and can not see these screens in my SLate log in.

That's cool... it avoids overlapping

I want to second @Jonathon Grimmer. We have a front desk that needs to be able tos ee our appointments without doing a deep dive. Being able to just go to a folder like oldd scheduler would be amazing

To clarify, 'Scheduler' requires a regular schedule (every monday from 9:30-11:30) and allows for infrequent dates with variation, but generally speaking it's blocks of standard availability. There's not a feature to sync with outlook to present whatever isn't yet booked, right?

I'm guessing there is a KB article for linking your Calendar, right?

Does Clean SLATE include an example of active scheduler templates and appts, etc ? Looking for a study example.

what happens if someone schedules an appt and you can appointment block?

I would like to second Lindsay's question - is there a way for Scheduler to pull available slots from someone's Google calendar?

Thank you Paula!

@Lindsey, the way I understand is that you have to add a regular schedule (so the hours you work). Then Slate will read the calendar with the integration and make adjustments.

Our recruiters don't have set blocks since they're running all over for travel. Their ask is to be able to have folks book to their calendars for whatever their free time is on the day that works for the prospect. (Similar to You Can Book Me or Microsoft Bookings if anyone has used those.)

what happens when you have overlapping schedules?

@Lacey and @Lindsey - that's how we do it at OSU

@Lacey and @Betsy - so you could do M-F 8 to 5 (ro whatever your day spans) and then it'd block off whatever you already have blocked off?

Realms?

Is it possible to get that alternative schedule when making events in batch also? That would be super helpful!

@Lindsey - Yes!

@lindsay - yes. It reads your google/outlook and doesn't let it show. Sarah is showing it now

Interesting - thanks, y'all!

Is this function used more for recruiters?

After adding the cal feed - is there an automatic add to the user's google cal? Or does a mailing notification need to be created?

@jonna - our academic advsors use it

@Lindsay Waldron - that is our problem too, but what I'm not seeing here yet is how the appointments get written back to the Outlook/Google calendar to avoid colleagues scheduling meetings on said Outlook/Google calendar

We have been using it for our Centralized Advising office at ACU. Each advisor has had all of this up and running all semester with google pulling as their free busy calendar.

@Jonna - we are using them for recruiters, Financial Aid and Academic Advisors

+1 for @Erin's question about writing back

Thanks, @Georgia. This is the main reason we refuse to use Scheduler. :(

@Erin Jensen, You have to use the iCal subscribe and copy the link and use to create a new calendar in google. It pulls as a subscribed calendar.

Did you record this?

@Kent, but that doesn't block the time on my main outlook calendar

(I can just see it in a separate calendar)

If this is set up & a prospective student schedules an appointment, but they haven't previously submitted an RFI, will their information from the appointment be added to the Slate instance?

Paula... Can we get the recording?

My trick: Add a BCC email that gets the confirmation email when someone registers. Then we have someone monitor this email and add the emails as appointments to the advisors calendar.

Can you copy yourself on the confirmation email with an iCal file attached. I wonder if you can set your Outlook to auto-add those to your calendar.

Would these scheduler appointments show on the same calendar subscription as the current Slate Events iCal subscription?

Can feeds be set up for all users with the same permission or individually?

Are there notifications that get sent of an out-of-office?

What about Google Calendar?

I'm almost certain that Christopher showed us how appointments made in AS could sync to Outlook at last week's All Things Events session.

Yes @Lacey - we added a Communication email called "notify admission officer" that sends an email to the AO with the name of the person who signed up for one of their slots and the date/time of the scheduler slot

I have a confirmation email going to my counselors once submitted that attaches an ical. It adds to their calendar but pulls in some additional information so they know how to prepare. We are a google school but it would work for outlook too

We'd love if the active scheduler widget allowed you to select multiple users - so that you could allow students to select from a team of advisors vs. a calendar only reflecting a single human's availability. That's not currently possible right? I'm not missing something obvious?

Right. That is the issue. We have to manage both Slate and google calendars to keep from being double booked. As long as we manage our google calendar, Slate block students from making appointments at unavailable times.

The other workaround we've used is to cc the user in the meeting confirmation email to registrant with iCal attachment

When will the recording of this be sent? Today is our busiest visit day and I need to be available. I also need the recording from October. I can not find it. Do you have a link???

@Georgia, we are looking for the exact same thing

And the user will then add the iCal attachment to their personal Outlook account

We also use confirmation emails, reminder emails, and reminder text messages within the template to both remind students and ping advisors to keep everyone aware of a booking.

Work around. Can't remember if this is in scheduler. Set up an event comm that sends to the reg student and the user of the session with ical attached so the email notifies them of the reg but then allows them to add it to their calendar as a new meeting with reminders.

@Kent, yes, that's our problem; we don't have the staffing time to do that. We want automation. :) @Jason...yeah, not a bad idea. We tried the ical attachment but it still requires manual action to be taken to add it. If it's automated, that would work.

I'm not sure if I am missing something, but it sounds like it is NOT possible to link these in such a way that I can put availability in Scheduler in a way that will then actually block that time on my Google calendar so that people don't schedule meetings at that time; and it also will not actually create an event in my main Google calendar if someone schedules? It is an overlay of a separate calendar I subscribe to?

@stephanie can type faster...

For those of us trying to integrate active scheduler into personalized portals, any plan for query-based user - e.g. staff assigned?

@Stephanie R, do they have to click something in the email to add the appointment to their Google calendar?

Agreed with @Georgia & @Kevin re: Active Scheduler for multiple users availability.

And can you post a link of the OG AS training in October? I can not find it in SLate Scholar

@Erin. Yes

Oooh, I'm excited by that @Emily!

Thank you Paula.

@Stephanie, dang, ok. That's what we're trying to avoid!

Where will it be posted?

Question because I am sure "duration time" is about to be covered. Active Scheduler was working beautifully for us until the upgrade that Duration was a fill in time rather than pre-defined times. Once that happened an advising office that does 45 minute appointments went off sequence. They need appointments to start every 45 minutes but was pushing start times forward as if the time before was not "available" but it is available. The only thing I can figure out is the 15 minutes is going into the next block of time but it was working fine before. So an advisor has consecutive appointments starting at 1:30 but on her availability the first available was 1:45 which was then pushing all of the other appointments ahead

If this is set up & a prospective student schedules an appointment, but they haven't previously submitted an RFI, will their information from the appointment be added to the Slate instance?

Great, thank you Paula

For using an external service, does there need to be a standing Zoom meeting created? My concern would be students using the same Zoom link in back to back meetings and accidentally joining another student's meeting.

How long does it take for a calendar update on an Outlook/Google calendar to be recognized by Active Scheduler?

@Mallory, I think you'd need to configure your zoom room to have a waiting room

I think I saw that the feed is updated hourly in some documentation... @danielle

Mallory, for Zoom, you can set up a waiting room in Zoom where you would have to admit students from the Zoom app on your computer. We use that to keep students from hopping in on each other.

Is there a way for the student to select the type of appointment? i.e. we have appointments via Zoom, phone, and in-person at the same time depending on what works best for the student. Or would each of these "locations" be separate schedulers?

Just putting in another plug, ability to use "Staff Assigned" to conditionally select the calendar of the right staff. For larger institutions, it's a lot of redundancy to merge a calendar for every staff member and use filters

Our Active Scheduler seems to pull Google Calendar Events as quickly as a couple of minutes most of the time, but can take up to an hour. You can manually refresh the calendar feed in slate and it makes a manual data push to pull it through immediately.

What URL is used for integrating the Outlook Calendar?

Are there limits to the number of people that can schedule an appointment? ie group session/interview

Can we set Regsitration folders?

What does the registration look like?

Outlook has the ability indicate working elsewhere. Do you know if this would be viewed as not available for outward facing view?

Is there a way to utilize active scheduler as related events for master events?

My Slate Admin has enabled the Active Scheduler feature and given me permissions to be the Active Scheduler Admin, but it is still not showing the Availability button in Scheduler?

Thanks @Joshua! One more question: for all-day events (say you're out of the office for a day), how do you indicate that on an Outlook/Google calendar to make it recognize you're unavailable for that day? I have some all-day events in my calendar that I use as reminders, not necessarily as events.

Our calendar has difficulty advancing to the next month. Anyone know why?

what is the advantage of using this versus just the regular schedule feature?

Woah!

Command key for us apple users!

2nd @brendan's question - can we use it for related events?

We are portal rookies, so I am sure its possible, but is there a way to prepopulate the registration form field, assuming the individual has a record created already

+1 to JuLee Well's question

Events are only built if they have a registrant @JuLee (at that's what we really like)

vs. a bunch of pre built events that never get a registrant

Same question as Wilson above, is there a way to denote which folder the created sessions will be placed in?

since this is tied to a portal? Would inquiries be able to sign up?

@Georgia I could see where that is helpful for some, but we have an advising office that oversees our slots sessions and would manually add students on the back end. Now they cannot do that without the ability to impersonate a student

Any ETA for syncing with Outlook for Mac users?

is it possible to have multiple users tied to a calendar? ie: we don't care which recruiter the prospect talks to, so let a prospect pick a time, and whoevers calendar is available at that time, book the appointment on their calendar

+1 to Michael's question - we don't want to hide our slots behind a login because we want parents or (in the future, maybe) prospects to sign up, but we'd like to be able to track this attendance connected to an already existing record. does that capability exist?

if we had 4 recruiters set up for this, would there be 4 calendars displayed on the website? Or all the active scheduler calendars would be on the same one? (same or different from the events calendar?)

I think I have added that request

@danielle our users mark their days off with an all-day event with a status of busy, and it removes all times from that day....

We ate ACU have a process for administratively adding students through active scheduler. It's a backdoor process, but works for us.

@justin completely related to the portals access setting so yes if security is set to guest anyone could register

*at

Is there a way to pass a GUID through the portal widget into the registration template? So when you click to register you don't have to re-enter the student's information.

please tell me! Kent tiffany.hampton@eku.edu

@lindsay that was my primary feature request... I have 4 widgets right now, and expect to make more...

do reschedules/cancellations update in real time?

thank you!

If you choose to add multiple templates to a schedule, how do the communications work if there are comms attached to both templates?

@Tiffany - that stinks. Do you have a link to your request so I can upvote it?

Is there a way to correct the Join link in the iCal invite when using an external source. The one that comes is incorrect

@Joshua - yikes. Holy widgets, Batman!

I have two different availability sets - one with in person templates and 1 with virtual appts

Is there a way for students to cancel an appointment and for that appointment to then become available again in Slate for another students to sign-up for?

+1 for more than a day!

My programs would love 72 hours prior to a event for the cut off!

Scheduling over the weekend

I do that too @Mara - do you have two calendars then on your portal?

Yes, have deadline limit multiple days before

How do you tie an Active Scheduler registration to the correct application instead of automatically going to the rank 1 app? Appending the App GUID to the portal url before the updates.

Yes to the cutoff days before.

Are the scheduler events on the same calendar as a user's normal Slate Events iCal subscription? Will a user's Slate Events also interact with Active Scheduler availability?

*Appending the App GUID to the portal url before the updates didn't work

Is there a way to allow the student to drill down to WHO they should schedule with based on college/program/etc? Maybe using the portal functions?

It's nice for staff to know their appts for Monday before they leave on Friday.

Agree, Anderson!

Does anyone use Acuity with Slate scheduler?

@claire an early example I saw from another school used Portal Tabs to display widget A vs widget B, etc....

How do yo cancel an appointment and stop the automatic email from sending to the student saying they have an appointment?

@Joshua, thanks!

Do we have to set-up availability for multiple weeks and then add our outlook/google calendar for it to read our availability?

If we can't use active scheduler as related events, is there another way to assign student ambassadors to events and have it show up on the ambassador's calendar?

https://feedback.technolutions.com/forums/923530-slate/suggestions/44978731-folders-for-active-scheduler-sessions

@ Joe Elliot. You can set the availability for any amount of time. Once you bring in the Google feed, it will read the availability based on that google feed for however long you have open availability. We update our active scheduler availability every two weeks and then just keep our google feed live.

This is a pain point for us....double step to cancel and reshow for someone else to book.

We agree @Lacey

agreed @Lacey

We are using Active Scheduler but we did not create Methods on any of our portals, yet they work just fine. Is the Method requirement new?

If we inactivate a User's account, and they have activated Active Scheduler, do the timeslots automatically become Cancelled? Or does someone have to cancel those availabilities? Thinking about how we can still see queries that were built by inactivate users...

Can the Active Scheduler and Scheduler folders be combined in any way?

Is there a way to pass a GUID through the portal widget into the registration template? So when you click to register you don't have to re-enter the student's information.

Recurring auto scheduling an option?

Are we able to send Registration to a specific folder in the Template?

Having more than 24 hours deadline is important for weekends and Monday morninv appointments.

If we wanted to set up a scheduler at a department level (for interviews) can we consolidate interviewers in a single scheduler? I think the answer is no...

+1 Kevin, there's a workaround script in the forum I copied...

What are the clear benefits of using Active Scheduler over regular Scheduler?

Thank you.

If multiple users are using the same template for their calendars, how will their schedules interact? When we first implemented active scheduler, it appeared that multiple schedules would combine negatively (in other words, any time marked as unavailable for one user would show as unavailable for all users on that template).

Thank you!

If anyone could help me with an issue I have had since the upgrade. It kind of completely shut down the ability for one of our offices to use it

Thank you!

Possible to do recurring auto scheduling?

Thank you so much!

@Robin - great question

Thank you

Thanks Sarah!

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Thank you so much!!

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Thanks. This was great.

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Thank You :)

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thanks!

Thanks all!

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LIZ!!

Thank you!