The Schedule Appointment Page in Reach

As the name suggests, the Schedule Appointment page enables users to book appointment slots, and a lot more. This page is displayed when users click in the My Appointments page in Anthology Reach.

Note: Currently, the Schedule Appointment page in Anthology Reach works only with the old staff calendar framework, and the new staff calendar framework supports booking appointment slots only from the portal. For more information, see The Book Appointment Page on the Portal.

The following table describes the page.

Panes and their Descriptions
The Left Pane

It includes a search pane in which a user can select various options to view the required appointment slot.

The search capabilities include the following key points:

  • Based on the Delivery Mode (In-person or Virtual), values can be selected in the following fields:
    • Advisor
    • Department
    • Location - This field is not be displayed when the Delivery Mode is Virtual.

      Click the Clear Filter button to clear values in the above list.

  • Search for records by first selecting an Advisor or a Location and then selecting from shortlisted values that will be available in other fields.
  • After selecting an Appointment Type, advisors that match the selection can be selected in the Advisor list. Users can also select other Appointment Types to narrow down to the advisor that needs to be set.
  • When an advisor is selected, only associated values will be available for selection in the Appointment Type list.

After selecting values in the above fields, click Show Availability to view user appointments slots in the Schedule Appointments pane.

Click to go back to the My Appointments page.

The Right Pane

  • The user can book new appointments and view previously booked appointments.
  • The user's picture, name, timezone and address details are displayed. To add a picture for a user, click the user's initials in the user record and add an image in the Choose Image dialog.
  • On the left - Click the calendar control to choose a different date, month or year. On the right - View appointments for the day or month. By default, the Day toggle is clicked.
  • The count of appointment slots available on a selected date is displayed.
  • Users can book an appointment slot and view records of booked appointments.

Note: When updates are made to office hour records, external calendars, or when users perform actions in their calendars, these changes will reflect in staff calendar appointment records after a slight delay.

For a selected advisor, the following conditions are evaluated by default to determine the display of Book Appointment slots:

  • The configured Available and Unavailable office hours, i.e., the Book Appointment button will be displayed in the Available office hours and will be cleared in the Unavailable office hours. For more information, see Office Hours.
  • Blocked appointments – For blocked appointment slots on the My Appointments page, the Book Appointment button will not be displayed in the Schedule Appointment page. For information about blocking an appointment slot, see Canceling an Appointment.

    AND

    Appointments created from the Activities option in which the advisor is a required / optional attendee or is an organizer. Such appointments will also clear Book Appointment slots that occur at the same time, i.e., they will not be displayed even if the appointment are in the Available time range.

Apart from the above default behavior, institutions can also configure the display of appointment slots to be dependent on appointments in the selected advisor’s associated OFFICIAL calendar (Google or Microsoft Outlook). This means that the Book Appointment button will not be displayed on this page if an appointment occurs at the same time in the calendar synced with Anthology Reach.

Note that appointments from Google or Microsoft Outlook will be considered for hiding the advisor’s Book Appointment slots. Appointments in both environments cannot be considered simultaneously. This behavior is triggered after:

Syncing Anthology Reach with the advisor’s official calendar hosted on a different platform enables the correct Book Appointment slots to be displayed on this page, thus preventing a scenario where multiple appointments are booked at the same time.

The advisor's official calendar includes tentative or accepted appointments from 2 – 4 PM.

Normally, the buttons of 2 – 4 PM will be displayed as indicated above.

However, on enabling the check with other calendars, the same slots will be cleared as indicated in the following image.

The above behavior will also occur in the Month view. For the 20th of the month, the count in the month view will be identical to the count displayed in the above day view:

Additionally, the Book Appointment button will not be displayed:

  • If appointments at the same time in the advisor’s official calendar does not include any attendees.
  • If the appointment in the official calendar overlaps across consecutive slots in Anthology Reach.
    For example, appointments are configured in 30 minute slots beginning at 9 AM, and an appointment in the synced official calendar is from 9:15 AM – 9:45 AM. In this scenario, Book Appointment slots from 9 AM – 9:30 AM and 9:30 – 10 AM will not be displayed in Anthology Reach.