What's covered in this video
Are you new to Acuity Scheduling? Or perhaps you're just not sure what some settings do. Well in this video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know about all of the settings right here within Acuity Scheduling.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And I'm gonna show you how to set up your availability, how to create your different appointment types and even how to customize your scheduling page. So let's dive in.
Setting up your availability in Acuity Scheduling
Let's get started with setting up your availability. Now, when you first sign into Acuity Scheduling, you'll probably see your Appointment Calendar, whether it's in the daily view that you see here or with any of the views that you can toggle in the top left.
But where we wanna go is on the left-hand side of the menu, under business settings and click availability. This is really the core of your system and where you're going to want to make the most important changes. Now, at the very top, we have our Default Clients Scheduling Limits.
These defaults are going to apply to any of the number of calendars or any of the engagements that you create. Now, of course, we can always go and change individual engagements and individual days, but it's important to start with your default limits, so you don't waste time later. After opening up this tab, we're presented with this general view.
Our first option here has to do with the minimum number of hours before someone can actually book an appointment with you. This is an extremely important setting because if you reduce this down to an hour, this means that someone can click your link or view your calendar and book you as little as 60 minutes from now.
You need to ask yourself, is that enough time for you to prepare or be notified of such an appointment, or if you want to stretch this out? So for example, with my own calendar, I like to give myself 18 hours notification, meaning that someone can only book me at the soonest or at the earliest, 18 hours in advance.
But of course, you can change this to any duration that you like. Now, the next setting is also very important, this is the maximum number of days in advance that an appointment can be scheduled. Now by default, Acuity actually sets this to 365 days, meaning that right now, someone could book you a full year in advance.
But for most of us, we want to keep this in a shorter timeframe, of course, depending on your needs and your business. So in this case, maybe I want to set my maximum to just 30 days. So someone can't access my booking calendar and booked me for some time next year.
Down below, we have a few other options that we should review. Do we want to allow people to reschedule their appointments? This will be checked by default and in most cases you'll want to leave this on. If you have to uncheck this, then that would actually force the client to contact you directly, in some other ways, to let you know that they can't make that appointment or reschedule in some other way.
The second one down below, Cancel Appointments is also important as well. Do you want to set a minimum number of hours before someone can cancel an appointment? So for example, you don't want someone canceling just an hour or two ahead of time because you've already planned out your day.
In this example, we've set it to 12 hours. So we're going to give them the opportunity to cancel or reschedule within that timeframe, but if it's within 12 hours, maybe we are going to charge them for that time nonetheless. The last option here is not gonna be applicable to many of you, at least when you're starting.
It has to do with creating intake forms, which we're not covering here in this particular video. When you make any changes here within Acuity, we wanna make sure that we hit that save button, otherwise none of these changes will be applied.
Now under Default Limits, we have Block Off Time, which is going to allow us to block off either a few hours or multiple days on our calendar. This setting is great, if you have an upcoming vacation, maybe multiple days that you'd like to quickly and easily block off on your calendar.
Remember this is not a default and this is not going to apply to your recurring calendar either. These are just for specific days or for specific hours that you don't want to make available to those who have access to your calendar. Down below, we also have two other important options here.
This first one is our location name. As you can see here, what I have added is my Zoom video conferencing link, meaning, when someone books an appointment with me, they're going to have this displayed within their meaning invitation on their calendar so that they know it is a Zoom video conference, and they can just click the link to access.
To edit this, you just need to click this, which will open up a text box. Here you could include a phone number, here you could include the address of your office, whatever you like. Don't forget to hit save once you've made those changes and you'll be returned to this screen.
To the right, is your direct scheduling link. Now, when you're first creating things, this may not be as important, but this is the link that you're going to want to share with clients, either via email, via text messaging, or however you want to share your calendar.
All you need to do is copy the text, copy the link in this field, you can hit the copy link down below as well, which will copy it to your clipboard, and now we can paste that anywhere that we like. Now down below, this is really the meat and potatoes of our settings here within Acuity Scheduling.
This is where we're going to set both our default hours, but we'll take a look at what our calendar looks like dynamically right now. Here, you can see I have regular hours each and every week. I want to be made available between nine and five, Monday through Thursday.
If I uncheck this option, then I can change to specific days, but in most cases you're going to have a set number of hours or at least regular hours that you're going to be made available for your booking calendar. Now, let's say I'm not available in the afternoon on Wednesdays.
All I need to do is click on this box, and instead I'm gonna type in 12:00 p.m.. I can click outside of this box and it will set that, however, it hasn't saved it until I hit this button down below. The nice thing about Acuity Scheduling, if I need to adjust something else here, it does take natural language.
So if I just put nine dash two and hit enter on my keyboard, or click outside, it's going to convert that to 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.. It's just always a good rule of thumb to double check to make sure that Acuity has the right time set for you.
I'm gonna save those regular hours and now if I scroll down below, you can see my actual calendar has been updated to reflect my regular hours. So this is what people will actually see when they hit my booking calendar.
Now, the nice thing or the difference between this calendar down below, is that we can override specific hours on specific days. So for example, let's say that coming Friday, I want to have availability. I don't usually, and I've set that here as closed on this particular day, but maybe on the 23rd I'm going to make an exception.
All I need to do is click on this box and I'm going to say nine to five, in this case, I'm gonna say set hours. And now you can see I will have availability on that Friday. The same thing goes if I want to remove a particular day, maybe next Wednesday.
I'm gonna come in here and I do not want any availability on that day. All I need to do is delete the amount of time, I can either hit closed or enter the word enclosed, or I can leave it blank and select set hours. Now you can see it's going to view that as closed, no one will be able to book me on that particular date.
Now, before we leave this page, there are two other areas that we want to cover. The first is Clients Scheduling Limits. Now, if we click on this, you will see things that look very similar to our default limits which we edited before.
Keep in mind your default limits, that we set by using this button, will apply to all of your calendars. So for example, if I was to start or create a new booking calendar, these defaults would apply. So it's always good to start with your default, but for each booking calendar, you get to set other choices.
And there's actually some options here that are only going to be specific to that calendar. Once again, we see things such as hours in advance and more than days in the future, allowing clients to set certain limits or parameters. Even though these are the default limits we set, we can come in here and change them for this calendar.
The other one is the number of hours in advance before we cancel. Again, it's taking this number from our default, but we can change it here. It's the next two that are going to be unique to your calendar.
The first one is the number of appointments per time slot. Now, in most cases, especially if you're talking about coaching or consulting, you're going to leave this as one. It's going to be a one to one appointment, but maybe you will want to allow some, either group coaching or allow people to book multiple times, or you're sharing this with other members of your team.
That's where you can increase your number here. Lastly and perhaps most important is the maximum number of appointments. By default, the first option is going to be selected, accept appointments until fully booked.
Meaning if I'm available from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., it's going to allow all of those time slots to be available until I am fully booked. However, there is another option, where we can say accept a maximum number of appointments.
So for example, when it comes to my own consulting business, I choose a maximum number per day and I typically set this to the number two. Meaning I don't want to have more than two consulting engagements per day.
You can also choose this limit based on the number of hours per day, or the number of appointments per week. So depending on what you are offering or what you're booking calendar represents, you can change these maximums as well. Be sure to hit save limits once you've done making any of the changes listed here.
Lastly, we wanna come up here to Calendar Settings. And we click on Calendar Settings, which is actually gotta give us some further information about what this calendar is going to look like. So here is where we can change the name of the calendar.
Here we can include either a brief or a fairly lengthy description. We have up to 500 characters to add in that description, maybe you want to give people who are accessing your page a little bit of direction or what they can expect.
Once again, we have an option for location where we can edit a phone number or include a meeting link as we see here, but we can also add an image as well. So if you want to add the logo of your business, you can do so here.
Lastly, we have areas for email notifications and sending replies too. The first one has to do, if you want to notify someone else or a particular email address when someone books on this calendar, you can add one or more email addresses here.
And send replies to, meaning replies from the clients will be sent to this particular address. Once again, when you're done making changes, hit save and you'll be returned to the availability calendar.
Creating appointment types in Acuity Scheduling
Now that we've set up our availability, let's move on to creating our appointment types. Once again, we want to go to the Business Setting section, and under availability, is the appointment types heading.
Here you can see I've already created two different appointment types, including the consulting engagement and the second one here is a group coaching session, which we saw on the previous screen. But let's start from scratch and create a new type of service.
By clicking this button, we're presented with a new service page with a number of blank options. First off we want to give it a name, so I'm gonna call this a Coaching Session in this case.
If I want to, I can add a longer description by adding this link, if I want to give a little more details. Next up, we want to select how long this appointment will be. In this case, I want to make it 60 minutes in duration.
Now, below this option, we have a very important link, blocking off extra time before or after. I would encourage you to take a look at this and consider this depending on the type of service or the type of booking that you are creating.
By setting the duration for 60 minutes, what this means is this is going to allow to have someone book immediately following this session. So if I'm promising a one-hour coaching session, let's say someone books me from one to 2:00 p.m.
By not blocking off any extra time, another client can book me immediately at 2:00 p.m., right after that first appointment. Maybe I want to give myself some buffer time to either add some notes or reflect on the previous session, or just give myself a breather before jumping in, that's why this block off extra time is so important.
Here I have the option of choosing time both before and after the appointment. In my case, I set both of these to 15 minutes, meaning that I will always have at least 15 minutes before an appointment and 15 minutes after that appointment.
I will never have to worry about jumping immediately in to another type of meeting, whether it's on this calendar or this booking type, or if it's related to something else on my calendar. So make sure to take a look and consider blocking off additional time.
Our next option down below has to do with price. And note, this is just a display options. So perhaps I'm going to be charging $195 for a one-hour session with me. I can include this here and this is what someone will see when they access my booking calendar.
Note, this is just for display purposes and will not force your clients to pay before confirming their booking. If you want to deal with payment in another way or just not display payment, leave this at zero and there will be no mention of price to the clients on the booking calendar.
Down below, you can also add a category if you wish. Now you will have to create your categories yourself, and it's not always necessary to do so. So I'm gonna leave this blank at this point in time.
We also have the choice to add a picture or an image for this particular appointment type, and last but not least, access. Public is the default choice here, meaning that this appointment type, this coaching session, will be available on my main scheduling page.
However, if I make this private, it will not be made available on the public page and I will have to send a direct scheduling link for anyone who would like to book this appointment with me. Last but not least, we select create Appointment Type.
We are brought back to the Appointment Type screen, where we can see this coaching session has now been added. I can either select the Edit Button if I want to make some changes. I can duplicate any of my appointment types, especially if it's very similar to a new one which I want to create.
And last but not least, I have the Direct Scheduling link. So here is the link that I can copy and send to someone who is perhaps wanting a coaching session with me.
Customizing your booking page in Acuity Scheduling
With our availability and different appointment type setup, the last thing we want to look at is customizing the appearance of our booking screen. Now this is so important because this is what people are actually going to see.
Most of the settings that we've dealt with so far are technical, meaning what they can do or when they can book us. But this last one is important because this is what people will see and how it will feel as they actually go through the process.
Our first choice here is to choose if we want to view a monthly template or a daily template, meaning do you want them to see the calendar view of your availability or do you want them to see actual days in between? Now, the great thing about Acuity Scheduling is that it actually gives us a live view here on the right-hand side of the screen.
So here you can see I actually have my three different appointment types for them to choose from. If I click on this coaching session for example, here you can see I've got the days of the week. It's showing me my next five available days available, and then they can just pick a particular time.
However, if I don't like that view, I can choose the monthly view. Once again, I can select that coaching session, and here, the user will have to pick a particular day. Now this will often come down to what your appointments availability distance is.
So for example, if I'm allowing people to book me months in advance, maybe this monthly view makes more sense. However, if most of my clients are going to be accessing me or booking me, within the coming week or the next few business days, perhaps this daily view is better.
Next up is the Business Name. So my calendar name is Scott's Booking Calendar, but this is where I can put the name of my business, so it's displayed on the screen. Here, I can choose a different logo if I want to and show my business name next to the logo or not.
We then have a text field where we can choose a variety of editing options, including adding pictures and adding additional links where we can add descriptions. This is probably the best place for you to give a little bit of direction, encouraging them to select a time that works best for them, and perhaps how excited you are to be working with them or meeting with them in the future.
You can choose a few other defaults here, such as when does the week start on? Is it going to be a Sunday start or a Monday start? What is the appropriate time format for your clients or your area of the world? You can set your default language and very importantly, your default time zone.
Once you've made changes here, don't forget to hit save changes. Now, if you have further questions about how to use Acuity Scheduling by Squarespace, I would encourage you to ask them in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video, be sure to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.
