Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Anchor
topofpage
topofpage
Virtual locations are intended to allow your clients to schedule appointments with you and your staff to that take place over the phone, in a video conference, or any other type of virtual meeting service. In this page we’ll discuss guide, you’ll learn how to setup set up your location and or staff profiles so you can share your virtual meeting information prior to the time of the appointment.

We’ll cover how to setup your account when:

This guide

Table of Contents
minLevel1
maxLevel4

Understanding how TimeTap interacts with your virtual meeting room

TimeTap does not offer direct integrations with any virtual meeting platforms, outside of our Microsoft Teams integration (currently still in beta testing).

Instead, you “connect" your virtual meeting room to TimeTap by populating your specific meeting link in the Virtual Meeting Room URL field of either a Location profile or a Staff profile, depending on your account's needs.

Once your meeting link is filled in on one of those profiles, you then will need to update your Appointment Templates with the email tag that matches with the Virtual Meeting Room URL field that you used. With the proper email tag included in your messaging, TimeTap will take that Virtual Meeting Room URL from the profile based on the appointment that is booked and insert the correct staff or location’s link into that email for your clients to join at the time of their appointment.


Scenario 1: Each staff has their own virtual meeting information

In this example we’ll assume that our business offers consultation appointments over the video conferencing platform Zoom. Each
Info

These examples show a business that offers appointments using Zoom, but these instructions are applicable for any virtual meeting platform that allows you to have a static meeting link that will not change meeting to meeting.

1. Add the virtual link to the staff profile

If each staff member has their own unique meeting room URL and /meeting room ID. We want to setup our account so that if a client schedules an appointment to take place in Zoom, the information of the staff they’ll be meeting with is sent to them in the confirmation email. We’ll begin , then you will need to insert each staff member’s Zoom information on their respective staff profiles so that each appointment receive the correct meeting information.

Begin by going to the staff’s profile , and while (Settings > Staff > View) and selecting the Edit button in the Overview tab click Edit:

Image Removed

section.

Image Added

While in edit mode, paste the meeting room URL and in the Virtual Meeting Room URL field and the meeting room ID in the Virtual Meeting Room ID in their respective fields and click select Save to confirm that update:

Image RemovedImage Added

Move your cursor over the Virtual Meeting Room URL and Virtual Meeting Room ID field labels to see helpful tooltips about the email tags we you need to use to populate the information we you just entered in our your appointment templates. To populate the virtual meeting room URL use

Virtual Meeting Room URL: %STAFF_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL% and to populate the meeting room ID use

Virtual Meeting Room ID: %STAFF_VIRTUAL_ROOM_ID% :

Image Removed

Image Added

2. Add the virtual link tags to your messaging templates

Next, we’ll add the email tags corresponding to the Virtual Meeting Room URL and Virtual Meeting Room ID fields in the confirmation your desired email template.

In most scenarios, these tags can also be added in the other appointment related templates such as the reminder. We’ll you will want to add these tags to the initial New Appointment confirmation email that the client will receive, as well as the Appointment Reminder that they will get shortly before their appointment time.

Info

Consider adding virtual link tags to these email templates:

  • New Appointment by Client

  • New Appointment by Staff

  • Appointment Reminder

To update your templates, go to Messaging > Appointment Templates:

Image RemovedWe’ll then Image Added

Scroll down to locate the New Appointment by Client template option and click View, after view is clicked we’ll be directed select View to open that category. This will bring you to the Templates in Category section, click page where you can select View next to the Default Template or any reason or /language specific custom template you want to update (optional), in our case we’ll click view next to the default template:

Image Removed

Once in the template profile, we’ll need to update with the virtual meeting information.

Image Added
Info

If only some of your services or classes should receive messaging with this virtual meeting link, you can clone the Default Template and create a new “Virtual” template that only these virtual services or classes should receive. That will ensure these virtual appointments receive the messaging with the virtual meeting link, while appointments for the rest of your services and classes not assigned to a specific template still receive the Default Template messaging.

Once inside the template profile, scroll down to the Template section and click Edit:

Image Removed

After entering the virtual meeting instructions, we’ll click Save to update the template:

Image Removed

select Edit:

Image Added

Copy the following tags and then paste them into the desired location in the body of that template:

Virtual Meeting Room URL: %STAFF_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL%

Virtual Meeting Room ID: %STAFF_VIRTUAL_ROOM_ID%

Info

Check out the Pro Tips section at the bottom of this page to learn how to link the %STAFF_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL% tag behind text in your message (like a “Join Meeting” hyperlink)


After adding the virtual meeting tags, select Save to confirm the changes to template:

Image Added

Now, when a client schedules an appointment with this staff member, the staff’s virtual meeting information will be added to the confirmation template that the client receives:


Each

Scenario 2: Every staff uses the same virtual meeting information

In this scenario we’ll

1. Add the virtual link to the location profile

This scenario cover how to share the virtual meeting information with your clients if you and your staff share one virtual room for appointments. We’ll begin by ensuring that our location type Since the virtual meeting information is not specific to each staff, this information will be placed in a field on your virtual location profile instead.

First, check that your location Type is set to Virtual , go Location by going to Settings > Locations > and clicking View (next to the location we you want to update):

Image RemovedImage Added

Once in the location’s profile, click select Edit in the Overview section and ensure that the type Type is set to Virtual Location, notice . Notice that when you make this selection, the fields “Virtual Virtual Location Type”Type, “Virtual Virtual Meeting Room URL”URL, and “Virtual Virtual Meeting Rom ID” ID fields will appear:

Image Removed

For this example we’ll select Zoom as the virtual location type, enter the meeting room URL and meeting room ID, then click Save:

Image RemovedImage Added

Select your Virtual Location Type, fill in the Virtual Meeting Room URL and Virtual Meeting Room ID fields, and then select Save:

Image Added

Move your cursor over the Virtual Meeting Room URL and Virtual Meeting Room ID field labels to see helpful tooltips about the email tags we you need to use to populate the information we just entered in our your appointment templates. To populate the virtual meeting room URL use

Virtual Meeting Room URL: %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL% and to populate the meeting room ID use

Virtual Meeting Room ID: %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_ID% :

Image Removed

Next, we’re going

Image Added

2. Add a resource for that virtual room

Next, since all staff members are sharing the same virtual meeting link for their appointments, you’ll need to create a resource Resource so that appointments are not double booked at the that are supposed to each be using that virtual meeting room, we wouldn’t want clients to join meetings that are not pertinent to them. We’ll .

To create this Resource, go to Settings > Services & Classes > and select the Resources tab and click . Then select the Add New Resource button:

Image RemovedImage Added

In the Add New Resource screen, we’ll name our resource choose a Resource Name (1), select the location Virtual Location where the resource is being utilized (2) and , assign it to the service(s) that will utilize this resource (3), then click select Save:

Image RemovedFinally, we’re going to add the tags %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL% and %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_ID% in the confirmation email template, these tags can also be added in other appointment related templates, such as the reminder template. We’ll Image Added


After saving that resource, any appointment booked with the selected services at the virtual location will have that resource automatically added to it. Since the appointment is using that resource, no other appointments that also require that resource will be able to get scheduled during that time. This setup allows you to ensure that only one appointment is ever using that virtual meeting room at one time.

3. Add the virtual link tags to your messaging templates

Finally, add the email tags corresponding to the Virtual Meeting Room URL and Virtual Meeting Room ID fields of the Location profile in your desired email template.

In most scenarios, you will want to add these tags to the initial New Appointment confirmation email that the client will receive, as well as the Appointment Reminder that they will get shortly before their appointment time.

Info

Consider adding virtual link tags to these email templates:

  • New Appointment by Client

  • New Appointment by Staff

  • Appointment Reminder

To update your templates, go to Messaging > Appointment Templates:

Image RemovedWe’ll then Image Added

Scroll down to locate the New Appointment by Client template option and click View, after view is clicked we’ll be directed select View to open that category. This will bring you to the Templates in Category section, click page where you can select View next to the Default Template or any reason or /language specific custom template you want to update (optional), in our case we’ll click view next to the default template:

Image Removed

Once in the template profile, we’ll need to update with the virtual meeting information.

Image Added
Info

If only some of your services or classes should receive messaging with this virtual meeting link, you can clone the Default Template and create a new “Virtual” template that only these virtual services or classes should receive. That will ensure these virtual appointments receive the messaging with the virtual meeting link, while appointments for the rest of your services and classes not assigned to a specific template still receive the Default Template messaging.

Once inside the template profile, scroll down to the Template section and click select Edit:

Image Removed

After entering the virtual meeting instructions, we’ll click Save to update the template:

Image Removed

Image Added

Copy the following tags and then paste them into the desired location in the body of that template:

Virtual Meeting Room URL: %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL%

Virtual Meeting Room ID: %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_ID%

Info

Check out the Pro Tips section at the bottom of this page to learn how to link the %LOCATION_VIRTUAL_ROOM_URL% tag behind text in your message (like a “Join Meeting” hyperlink)


After adding the virtual meeting tags, select Save to confirm the changes to template:

Image Added

Now, when a client schedules an appointment at the that virtual location, the location’s virtual meeting information will be added to the confirmation template the the client receives:

Image Removed
Return to Top

Image Added


Anchor
protips
protips
Pro Tips

Make a tag “clickable” in your emails

If you’d like to allow your clients to click on the meeting link that populates in the virtual link tag that you include in the messaging template, you can hyperlink the virtual link tag to that text. We will explain this using the virtual link tags from the staff profile, but the same process will work when using the location virtual link tags in your messaging as well.

When editing the body of that messaging template, highlight the text of the tag you’d like to hyperlink and click the “Insert/edit link” button.

Image Added

First, copy the tag from the Text to display field and paste it into the Url field on the Insert Link panel.

Image Added


If you don’t want the actual meeting link to be displayed and want to hide it behind some other text like “Join Meeting”, you can update the Text to display field with the new text that the client should see.

After confirming that change, the tag or display text in your message will change to blue and will be underlined to confirm that the tag is now properly hyperlinked.

Image Added

Once this message is sent out for an appointment, TimeTap will still pull the virtual link from that corresponding tag and direct the user to that link once the display text is selected.


Add the virtual link to the Location field of client’s calendar events

A calendar invite file (.ics file) is attached to each New Appointment and Appointment Reminder email that is sent to the client before their appointment. If you’d like your virtual meeting link to populate in the Location field of those external calendar events on your client’s calendar, then you can add that same virtual meeting tag used in your message body to the Location field in .ics file field that is located at the bottom of each messaging template.

Image Added

Once this field is updated with that tag, the virtual meeting link from your profile will be available as well in the Location field of the event once your client adds it their calendar.