Appointment Scheduling

If you set up appointment scheduling, your customers can select the day and time they want the agent to reach out to them. You can set hours of availability for your agents. This determines the time slots your customers can choose from when scheduling their appointment.

Customers of The Jungle at Classics often need agents' help to answer questions and troubleshoot issues with products. Mowgli Kipling, the contact center administrator, wants to make it easy for customers and agents to interact when they are both available. Mowgli creates an appointment scheduling service and sets the time slots based on his agents' availability. Then Mowgli enables quick responses so agents can send customers appointment scheduling requests. Customers can respond to quick responses and let agents know when they want to be contacted.

Create an Appointment Scheduling Service

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Points of Contact Digital.
  3. Under General channel features, click Appointment Scheduling.
  4. Click Create Service.
  5. Enter the Service ident and Service name. You can enter a Chat URL if you want the schedule to display in a chat. Select an option from the Reservation confirmation email sender drop-down.
    Screenshot of the fields to create an appointment scheduling service.
    FieldDetails
    Service identThe database name for the service. You cannot use spaces in this name.

    Service name

    The customer-facing name for the service.

    Chat URL

    If you want the schedule to be displayed in a chat, enter the URL of the chat. This must start with http://.

    Reservation confirmation email senderDetermines the email address that DFO sends an appointment confirmation from.
  6. Click Create.
  7. Make a note of the URL shown on the main Appointment Scheduling page. This is the Dynamic content URL you will use when you create a quick response.

Set Available Time

Once you create a service, you need to set the available time slots so customers know when they can schedule appointments.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Points of Contact Digital.
  3. Under General channel features, click Appointment Scheduling.
  4. Click Edit for the service you want to set hours on.
  5. Click Add Capacity.
  6. Select the Slot size, enter From and To times, and set the maximum number of allowed Concurrent meetings at the same time.
    Screenshot of the page to add capacity (available time slots) when setting up appointment scheduling.
    FieldDetails
    Slot sizeHow long each time slot of availability is. Options range from 10 min to 60 min.

    From, To

    The time when availability starts and ends, written in HH:MM time format. For example, a 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM availability would be entered as 09:00 and 17:00, respectively.

    Concurrent meetings at the same timeThe maximum number of meetings that can be scheduled in the same time slot.
  7. Select the checkboxes for each day these times apply to.
  8. Click Create.

Set Unavailable Time

You can also schedule time that is unavailable for appointments, such as a holiday or other time off.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Points of Contact Digital.
  3. Under General channel features, click Appointment Scheduling.
  4. Click Edit for the service you want to configure.
  5. Click Add Unavailability.
  6. Enter From and To dates and times for the unavailability. The date must be in the YYYY-MM-DD format and the time must be in the HH:MM format. For example, a 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM unavailability on the 28th of September, 2022 would be entered as 2022-09-28 09:00 and 2022-09-28 17:00, respectively.
    Screenshot of the page to add unavailability (unavailable time slots) when setting up appointment scheduling.
  7. Click Create.

Create a Quick Response

Agents send appointment scheduling requests to customers from quick responses. If you don't complete this section, agents won't be able to use appointment scheduling with your customers.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to DFO > Quick Responses.

  3. Click Add in the top right corner.

    Create Quick Response page for dynamic content

  4. Enter a Name for the quick response.
  5. Click the quick response Type drop-down and select Dynamic content.
  6. Enter the Dynamic content url from the Appointment Scheduling channel. This connects the quick response with the appointment service. Be sure the %s is on the end. For example, https://niceincontact.com/appointment-scheduling/custom-components/calendar-links%s.
  7. Click Save. You will be directed back to the Quick Responses page.

  8. Click Channels to select the channels you want the quick response to be available for.

  9. On the next page, click Add next to the desired channels.

  10. Click Back at the top when you are finished. Changes are automatically saved.

  11. Click Tags to select the tags you want the quick response to be available for.

  12. On the next page, click Add next to the desired tags.

  13. Click Back at the top when you are finished. Changes are automatically saved.

On the Quick Responses page, in the Limitations column, a number in parentheses indicates how many channels and tags you selected.