Repeating Appointments for Classes
Setting up Repeating Appointments for classes is similar to the process of setting up repeating appointments for services. In this documentation, you will learn not only how to create repeating appointments for classes, but also the distinct differences in features.
To set up a repeating appointment from your Calendar, you will start by selecting the option to "Add Repeating Appointments" from the Add Appointment button dropdown on the main Appointments screen:
This will bring you to the Add Repeating Appointment screen where you can add in the base information (Location, Staff, Reason, Start Date, End Date, "Repeats" frequency, Repeating Day(s), and Start & End Times) for your repeating class schedule. Below, I have chosen the Group Fitness Session that I would like to create a repeating schedule for.
Next, select a client and the number of total seats. If someone is bringing a spouse, family member, or a friend to the class session, indicate that by select the number of seats from the dropdown menu and TimeTap will reduce it from the class's maximum capacity. If they're not, you can leave the number of total seats at 1:
Now, it's time to setup the date range within which the appointment repeats as well as the frequency and day it repeats on. In the demonstration for this piece of documentation, I'm going to be setting up weekly appointments for Patricia Hall on Wednesdays & Fridays from 8:00 am - 9:00 am for Group Fitness Sessions. To do this, I'll:
- Define my date range as starting on 6/14/2017 to 12/22/2017
- Set my "Repeats" frequency to weekly
- Choose "Wednesday" & "Friday" as the days of the week that the appointment will "Repeat on"
Note: Repeating appointments with a Never end date are scheduled out as far as your advanced appointments setting allows. We will run a check every few hours to see if more appointments should be added to this repeating appointment series. For example, if your class has the advanced appointment setting set to 6 months then TimeTap will immediately create sessions for the next 6 months, as hours go by TimeTap will continue adding more class sessions as needed.
Next, if you look to the right side of the screen you'll see the "Summary of Appointments" tab update to reflect the information you've entered. This table will ultimately display a full list of the appointment dates and times that will be included in the repeating appointment once you've determined the start and end dates:
Also, with classes you are able to select and deselect which class dates will register in your repeating schedule under the "Summary of appointments" field. I have deselected the appointment for July 5th, 2017 just as an example, and as you can see the appointment date, class time, and number of seats filled have been crossed out:
Note: When making changes to a class session's date and this sessions is taking place before the date you unselected, and if you select to apply changes to all following or all appointments than the appointment you unselected will be added back to the class session repeating series:
Just to note a couple of differences with scheduling repeating appointments for classes, you are able to choose the class times for which you would like to create the schedule. SAT Prep Group Session only has one time slot from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm on Wednesdays & Fridays. There are no other scheduled class times on those days.
As the last step for setting up your repeating appointment schedule, you have the option to fill out any of the custom Appointment Fields that are set up and can send out reminder emails at the time intervals you choose. Each individual appointment in the repeating appointment series will have a reminder email sent out before it at whatever time interval you have chosen.
TIMETAP PROFESSIONAL & TIMETAP BUSINESS FEATURE If you're a TimeTap Professional or TimeTap Business user, your clients can also receive text message alerts for their appointments when scheduling through BackOffice. You can choose which time interval you would like to have the text message sent.
*Please Note: For clients to receive text message reminders by scheduling appointments through your Web Scheduler, you would have to make sure that you've turned on the "Clients can request text message" option under Settings → Client Information → Edit Client Info Settings. Please view our documentation on how clients can request text message reminders to learn how this feature can be used through your Web Scheduler.
Now everything is set for your repeating appointment series and you're ready to save it! Click the green "Save Repeating Appointments" button at the bottom of the screen to commit the appointments:
You’ll be prompted with the option to send out an email about the appointment to your client and/or staff. If you’re new to TimeTap, then the email checkboxes will be unselected; however, if you have made selections before, then TimeTap remembers those selections and will pre-select the previously checked boxes. The email that gets sent out will have a summary of the appointments in this series. You can also enter in a note, which will be added into the email that's being sent out to the client. If you are a TimeTap Professional or TimeTap Business user, you also have the option to edit the email to your client before it gets sent; this checkbox will also be pre-selected if you have checked it before, as TimeTap remembers your last selected email options:
Once you've saved the appointment and sent out the email, you will be taken to the "Repeating Appointment Detail":
While in the Repeating Appointment Detail screen you can see all the individual appointments in the series under the related Appointments tab:
You can also edit and manage the repeating appointment series from this screen as well. Follow this link to learn more about editing repeating appointments.