We've been thrilled to see so many of you begin the reopening process and are glad that Schedule has been able to help you reconnect with patrons. As of July 1, over 200,000 appointments had been booked. That is a lot of happy patrons!
In a previous blog post we discussed creating the primary elements of the patron-facing registration pages. Now we'll take a deeper dive on the component items on these pages. For a video walkthrough of the full Schedule setup process, including user permissions, scroll to the bottom of this post.
General Considerations
Schedule is very customizable, with the ability to modify various global settings as well as those at the individual location level. Before getting started, we encourage you to discuss the logistics of your curbside pickup process to determine what you’d like to establish as your defaults.
- How many locations will initially be offering curbside pickups? You may add or remove additional locations in the future to match demand.
- What booking types will you offer at your branches?
- What will be the duration of appointments? 15-minute increments, 30-minute increments; this may vary depending on booking type.
- What time/days would you like these appointments to be available? All day, only on Tuesday and Thursday, afternoons only?
- Will there be any blackout periods for times where there may be less staff on hand, like lunchtime or first thing in the morning?
For more tips on how to create a curbside pickup process access the replay of our roundtable conversation with two Utah libraries that used Schedule to manage over 65,000 appointments in two weeks.
Booking Settings
Category: This is the nature of the appointment your patron is making. This can include appointments for curbside pickups, pedestrian pickups, computer reservations, reserve a librarian or passport appointments; the possibilities are endless!
Group Name: When using this feature for services like Curbside Pickup, you will need to decide what vocabulary you would like to use in naming your areas. For example, labeling all of your parking spaces as ‘Parking Spot’ or ‘Space.’ For a pedestrian pick up point, perhaps you would like to call it ‘Pickup Area.’
Asset: Once you’ve decided on the label, you will need to create a unique naming identifier for each appointment slot. This may be colors, numbers, letters, or the full name for these areas.
Availability and Duration: Determine how long the reservation window is for each booking type.
Reservation Form:
The default reservation form will ask for pertinent patron details such as first and last name, phone number and email address. You have the ability to add custom questions to this form at the global level that appear on forms for ALL locations as well as the ability to add custom questions to a specific location only. Custom question formats include; check box, drop down selection, or text area. Common custom questions may include asking for the vehicle color, make, model and/or license plate details.
Confirmation Screen & Email:
The confirmation screen and email will include the booking type, date, time and assigned pickup zone with options to customize the following:
Global Setting: Thank you or other message to appear at the top of the booking confirmation page and email notification.
Local Setting: Additional message that appears below the booking details and in the email notification. This is an ideal location to include location specific pickup instructions or other safety information such as “Enter through the North Street entrance”.
If you have questions about getting started with this new feature you can read our Schedule FAQs or contact your Customer Success Manager or customersuccess@communico.us.
