When you create an account with Sign In Scheduling, a calendar will be made available to you and to the other bookable staff within the account. If your account uses rooms, each of these will have its own calendar, too.
This guide will give you a detailed overview of your Sign In Scheduling calendar and help you to make the most of its features and capabilities.
SECTIONS:
How to open and view the calendar
How to set up recurring bookings
How to use the activity window
How to open and view the calendar
To open your Sign In Scheduling calendar, head to the 'Calendar' tab in the left-hand menu.
Your calendar will then open, and you'll be prompted to select a staff member. Clicking the 'Show me' button will send you directly to your own calendar.
Staff members will need the relevant permissions enabled in order to view or amend other users' calendars. You can review staff permissions under 'Setup' > 'Staff' > [staff name] > 'Permissions'.
Here you can enable/disable the staff member's ability to see and modify bookings and attendees in the calendar.
The calendar shows your available time in plain white. The striped areas represent unavailable time. The column for the current day will be highlighted in yellow.
Clicking the three dots next to the date at the top of a column will bring up options to cancel all bookings and to edit your working hours for that particular day.
To scroll up and down through the calendar, you can use the scroll wheel of your mouse, use two-finger scrolling with your trackpad, or click and drag the scroll bar at the far right of the screen.
Staff & room selection
To view the calendar of a particular staff member, click the 'Select staff' bar to open the drop-down menu. Click on a staff member to view their calendar.
Note: the calendar will show you the calendar sync status of the selected staff member in the top-right corner. If there are no issues, the indicator will be green. If there's something wrong, it will be red and you'll be notified of an error.
It can be difficult to schedule appointments when your colleagues' schedules aren't clear, which is why Sign In Scheduling gives you the option to view more than one staff member's calendar at the same time.
To do this, simply click the checkbox next to as many staff members as you like. This will display the appointments and events of every selected staff member on the same screen.
To quickly select everyone, click 'Select all'. To select only yourself, click 'Select me'.
The initials of each selected staff member will be shown in the staff selection bar. Click on the 'x' next to their initials to deselect them.
If you've organized your staff into teams, you can also use this drop-down to select whole teams at once. To do this, simply click on the name of the team. This will bring all bookings for all members of that team into view.
If you use rooms, you can choose to filter the calendar by room instead of staff. To do this, select 'rooms' from the drop-down selector at the top of the screen, next to the staff selection bar.
Just like with staff, the initials of each room will be displayed in the selection bar. To remove a room and its bookings from the calendar view, click the 'x'.
The room view will display all bookings for each selected room, regardless of the staff member they're booked with.
For more information on managing rooms, click here.
Note: to use Rooms, you'll need a subscription to our Pro plan or above.
Date selection
It's easy to select and travel between dates within your Sign In Scheduling calendar.
At the top of the calendar, you'll find 'Today' and 'This week' buttons.
Clicking the 'Today' button will bring the current day to the start of your weekly calendar and display it to the far-left of the screen, as the first visible column.
Clicking the 'This week' button will bring the whole of the current week into view, starting on either Sunday or Monday, depending on your location.
The current day's column will be highlighted in pale yellow, and a horizontal red line will indicate how far through the day you are.
You can scroll through days and weeks within the calendar by clicking the left and right arrows at the top-left of the screen, either side of the current week's date.
The singular arrows (<) (>) will take you forward/backward by one day at a time.
The double arrows (<<) (>>) will take you forward/backward by one week at a time.
Clicking on the current week's date will bring up a date picker. You can use this to select which week you'd like to look at. In this view, the date picker will always select a 7-day period.
To move between months, use the grey arrows in the top-right corner of the date picker box.
You can also use the date picker to choose which day to set as the start of the week. By default, the calendar will always show you the current day first, at the far left.
If you'd prefer the calendar to start on a different day (for instance, you'd like to see Tues-Fri), simply select that day from the date picker and the calendar will reflect the change.
The calendar will remember your selection until you close the browser tab.
Viewing settings
The Sign In Scheduling calendar offers a multitude of viewing settings which can be found by clicking the settings icon in the top-right corner.
Once clicked, this will open up the settings menu to the right. You can use the options in this menu to choose how to view and organize your calendar.
Working Hours view
By default, the calendar will display in 'Bookings' view, meaning you'll see the bookings scheduled within the period you're looking at.
Clicking the 'Working hours' button will switch the calendar to working hours view, meaning you'll see blocks of availability rather than scheduled bookings.
Each staff member's availability in this view will take on their assigned color. Clicking on a period of availability will open a sidebar to the right with which you can amend the working hours.
Day view
The Sign In Scheduling calendar opens by default in weekly view. If you'd like to switch to a day-by-day view, click the 'Day' button.
The day view will show you one day at a time, in a single column that uses the entire width of the calendar. To move between days in this view, use the left/right arrows at the top-left.
If you're viewing multiple staff members' calendars at once in day view, each staff member's appointments will be shown within their own column for that day.
Agenda view
By default, the Sign In Scheduling calendar is displayed in 'Timeline' view. The 'Agenda' view separates each booked and available slot into separate blocks, which can make them easier to see. Agenda view is therefore very useful for busy, crowded calendars.
Sorting options
Underneath the other settings, you'll find two drop-down menus you can use to change the sorting of the appointments you're viewing.
The 'Color by' drop-down sorts the appointments by color. These are the colors you assign to services, staff and locations when you create them.
You can choose to color by:
- Service type
- Location
- Staff
- Room
- Arrived & no-shows
- Internal or external
The 'Primary field' drop-down can be used to choose which part of the booking is displayed at the top of that booking as the primary field or title. You can select:
- Customer name
- Service name
- Time
- Location
Sizing
Below these drop-downs, you'll find the option to adjust the size of the events in the calendar. Note that this only applies when viewing the calendar in timeline view.
Show cancelled appointments
You'll also find the option to show or hide cancelled appointments. If you'd like cancelled appointments to remain visible in your calendar, click the 'Show cancelled appointments' switch to toggle them on.
Scaling
At the very bottom of the screen to the left, you'll find the option to increase and decrease the scale of the entire calendar. Again, this facilitates your own viewing preferences along with your screen size.
How to print the calendar
If you'd like to print your calendar, you can find the option to do so at the very bottom of the settings menu. Just click 'Print', then select your printing preferences from the preview screen.
How to use the search tool
Within your Sign In Scheduling calendar, you'll find a handy search tool. You can use the search tool to look for anything you like. This tool is designed to help you easily locate specific bookings quickly.
To begin searching, navigate to the search bar at the top of the screen, which is marked by a little magnifying glass. Type in whatever it is you'd like to search for and the calendar will then automatically bring up all matching results.
At the bottom of the screen to the left, you'll find a search bar specifically designed to search for particular customers.
To search for a customer here, type in their name and hit enter. A search results sidebar will open on the right. If your search identifies a customer, they will appear within the search results. Clicking on their name within the search results will take you directly to their customer profile.
How to make a booking
There are a few ways to make bookings directly within the Sign In Scheduling calendar. Your customers do not have access to your calendar, and if booking their own appointments they will do so via your online booking page. Only staff users within your Sign In Scheduling account can book appointments using your calendar.
To make a booking, simply click on the calendar on the desired day, at the desired time. The booking tool will then open the 'Make a booking' sidebar to the right. Sign In Scheduling will auto-fill the date and time according to the slot you clicked on, but you are free to change this yourself using the time and date fields.
You'll then be able to input the rest of the booking details using the other fields in the sidebar. These include:
- The name of the service
- The name of the customer
- The location
- The room (if applicable)
- The staff taking the booking
- Private notes (these are not visible to customers)
You'll also find options here to set the booking to repeat, and to add buffer time.
Remember that buffer time increases the overall length of the appointment, so you'll need to ensure you have enough availability to cover the entire booking. For more information on buffer time, click here.
Once you're happy with all of the booking details, click the 'Book' button at the bottom of the sidebar.
Another way to add a booking is to click on the circular plus icon in the bottom-right corner of the calendar. Clicking on this icon will once again bring up the 'Make a booking' sidebar to the right, which you can use to input the appointment details and then book it.
You'll also see options above the plus icon to add 'Blocked time' and to amend your availability. Blocked time is a preset within Sign In Scheduling which essentially means busy time. By default the blocked time appointment is set to last 30 minutes, but you can amend this as needed.
Clicking on the availability button will send you over to 'Setup' > 'Availability'. For more information on how to customize your availability with Sign In Scheduling, head to our guide here.
If your schedule is busy and you don't have the time to scroll through and find an available slot for a booking, you can use the 'Search for available slots' tool. You'll find this tool within the 'Make a booking' sidebar, once you've selected the service you'd like to book.
Sign In Scheduling will automatically search for available slots for this service when you click 'Search for available slots'. Sign In Scheduling will search the availability of all staff members who are assigned and able to host this service, and display these results to you.
To select one of these available slots, click on it and the sidebar will update accordingly with the updated booking details. When you're happy with the slot, scroll down and click 'Book'.
To clear your search and return to the normal calendar, click 'Clear search'.
How to set up recurring bookings
With the Sign In Scheduling calendar, you can easily set up recurring bookings. This option is ideal for appointments that you know are due to repeat, that you don't want to keep having to re-book every time.
To set up a recurring booking, click to tick the 'Repeat' checkbox when making a booking.
You'll then be able to select how often you'd like this booking to repeat. You can choose for the booking to repeat:
- Daily
- Weekly
- Every weekday
- Every 2 weeks
- Monthly
If you wanted, for example, the booking to repeat once per day for 5 days, you would need to select the 'Daily' option and input the number '5'.
How to use the activity window
The details of all of your scheduled bookings can be viewed from the 'Activity' window within your Sign In Scheduling calendar.
To find the activity window, click on a scheduled booking within the calendar. This will open the booking details sidebar to the right, containing the key details of the booking and the activity window.
Within the activity window you'll see when the appointment was booked, where it was booked and by whom.
You'll also see private notes here, in orange, if any have been added. Sign In Scheduling will tell you who wrote the note and when. You can add additional private notes by clicking 'Add note'.
Additionally, the activity window shows you all communications relating to the booking. Messages that are due to be sent later will be translucent and show as 'Scheduled'.
Note: messages that have been sent will display one tick. This means that the message has been successfully sent, but has not been delivered yet to the recipient's inbox/device. Once messages have been delivered, they'll show two ticks.
Once the recipient has read the messages, the two ticks will turn blue, and Sign In Scheduling will tell you at what time they were read.
If ad-hoc customer messaging is enabled within your Sign In Scheduling account, you'll be able to directly send messages to your customers from here as well, by clicking the 'Send message' button at the bottom of the activity window.
If you'd like to record a payment for this booking, you can click the 'Payment' button at the bottom of the activity window to do this.
Need more help?
We hope you’ve found this guide helpful! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our friendly support experts who will be more than happy to assist further.