Appointment Schedulers

Overview

An Appointment Scheduler is a virtual availability and booking feature of AMS+. It lets others see your calendar and schedule appointments on dates and times that are convenient for you and them.

Note: Appointments made through an Appointment Scheduler will adopt the time zone of the scheduler's device at the moment the appointment was booked. Those created via Activity will use the time zone associated with the primary address on the scheduler’s record. If no address is provided, we’ll default to Eastern Time.

IN THIS ARTICLE

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How to add an Appointment Schedule

Appointment Schedules can be created at the account level or at the user level. To create a schedule at the account level, you must belong to a Security Group with the “Visible” Sales permission and the “Manage Users” Administrative permission.

Go to My Agency Settings.

Find and open the Appointment Scheduling setting, then select the ‘ADD NEW SCHEDULE’ button.

Make sure the ‘Appointment Schedule Enabled’ checkbox is checked and set Appointment Length (in minutes).

The length of the appointment to schedule, i.e. 30 minutes or 60 minutes. Appointment blocks will also be searched using this appointment length, i.e. if appointments begin at 8:00am and are 60 minutes in length, available appointments for the day will be 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, etc even if there is a 60 minute window available from 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM.

Set the Activity Type.

This will set the default type for new Activities created by the Appointment Schedule.

Note: To prevent double-booking, pick and choose an Activity Type that is assigned to the “Appointment” category. Learn how to assign an Activity Type to the “Appointment” category.

Set the Activity Status.

This will set the default status for new Activities created by the Appointment Schedule. For example, not started, in progress, or completed.

Specify your appointment start and end times.

This indicates your availability throughout the day.

Choose the days of the week to offer that availability.

This indicates your availability throughout the week, Sunday through Saturday.

Set the number of days to schedule for your calendar.

For example, if you set 14, your calendar will only show open dates and times for the next 14 days on a future rolling basis.

Set the number of days before the appointment.

For example, with CMS, you have to wait 48 hours before you can meet with anyone so you may want to put a 2-day buffer.

Create your Calendar Link.

You can name it however you want. For example, you could give it your name, johndoe, or name it according to a certain event period, like openenrollmentreview. Spaces and special characters are not allowed.

Optional. Include a brief description about the meeting in the Sales Blurb.

Tell your leads and clients what it's about and request documents you want them to bring to the meeting.

Optional. Include guidance on how to log in and attend the meeting in the Instructions.

Optional. Add a link to a confirmation or thank you landing page.

This allows you to affirm the person's appointment. If you don’t already have a confirmation or thank you landing page, you can create one in AMS+. Learn how to make a landing page.

Specify which AMS+ user you want to be part of the Appointment Scheduler.

To gather extra details from the appointment request form, include additional data fields to request during signup.

The additional fields will appear on the appointment request form. By default, they will be optional, but you can make these fields mandatory for the form to be submitted. The list of available fields is pulled from your Analytic Tables.

If the scheduler is for Medicare or ACA-related business, consider enabling automatic SOA or ACA creation.

This feature ensures that once a scheduler submits an appointment request form, an SOA or ACA consent request form is promptly sent to them. Please note that your SOA and ACA consent settings should be configured beforehand to fully utilize this functionality.

Users can also create their own schedulers in My Account > Appointment Scheduling. Setup is the exact same.

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What happens when someone schedules an appointment

When someone visits your link, they’ll see a calendar with a list of available dates and times. To modify the calendar settings, go to My Agency Settings > Appointment Scheduling.

Here’s an example of what someone might see if they were scheduling an appointment:

All the person has to do is pick a date and time and fill out the appointment form.

Upon submitting the form, a few things will happen.

If the Appointment Schedule’s Activity Type belongs to the “Appointment” category, the requested time slot will be removed from your calendar to prevent double booking. Learn how to assign an Activity Type to the “Appointment” category.

AMS+ will look for an existing Sales Record or Individual Record. If one is not found, the system will create a new Sales Record with the default Record Type set up for your account in My Agency Settings > Sales Records.

Matching criteria (AMS+ will search on Sales Records first):

• Sales Records:
  • Name
  • Email
  • Phone or Cell
• Individual Records:
  • Phone or Cell

AMS+ will also create an Activity with the appointment date, time, and additional details and associate it with the person’s Sales Record or Individual Record.

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How to sync your calendars to Appointment Schedulers

To help prevent double-booking, connect your email account to AMS+ and sync its calendar to Appointment Schedulers. This feature is available exclusively for Google and Microsoft Outlook accounts.

Events marked in your calendar as "out of office" or “busy” will automatically block off time in all schedulers assigned to you. Learn how to connect your email account to take advantage of this functionality.

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Tips and best practices

[TIP] If you have an Appointment Schedule, you can share the calendar link in a number of ways:

• Put it up on your website
• Add it to your email and text signatures
• Print it onto your postcards, letterhead, business cards, etc.

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Common questions

Is there a way to block off a lunch or break window so it doesn't show up in my available time slots?
If you have a Google or Microsoft Outlook email account, you can connect its calendar to AMS+. This syncs the calendar’s events to your Appointment Schedulers. Events marked as “busy” or “out of office” will be blocked off. If you want to block off the same time every day or week, create a recurring “busy” or “out of office” event in your calendar for that time period. That time slot will be removed from the list of selectable time slots in your Appointment Schedulers.

How can I display my appointments on my calendar?
You can add your AMS+ Activities to a calendar by using an iCal feed. Learn more.