For those who provide 'office hours' or who regularly set up appointments with individuals, Google Calendars provides a fantastic tool for you to aid in time management and coordination. This feature is called "Appointment Slots". If you struggle to find matching times with someone to meet, instead of exchanging a dozen emails back and forth, you can set up appointments on your calendar and share the link with them to choose from.
A) Create Appointment Slots
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Log on to Google with your MyMTSD account and open your calendar. http://calendar.google.com
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You will add appointment slots to your calendar in a block-by-block fashion. Click on a day/time that you would like to add your first block of appointment slots. The familiar window pops up that allows you to set event information. At the top of this window, you will see the link "Appointment Slots". Click this link.
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If this is the first time that you have used Appointment Slots, then you will be immediately taken to the Appointment Slots Details screen (shown below).
a. If you have used Appointment Slots before, then you will see the Add Event pop-up window change to Add Appointments with different options. You can click "Edit details" to get to this window. -
On the Appointment Slots Details screen, fine-tune the settings of your appointment slots. You can:
a. Calendar: Select which of your own calendar layers these appointments appear on to you (others will not be able to see the rest of your calendar items unless you've shared this with them.
b. Title: Give a title to the appointment slots. These can be anything useful to you and your audience, such as "Student appointments," "Wednesday appointments," "Homework appointments," etc.
c. Time block: Edit the start/end time for the appointment block
d. Type: Is this one big block, or is this block cut up into intervals?
f. Where: your location for these appointments
g. Description: provide more information to your audience about the purpose and use of these appointment slots
e. If you would like these appointments to be available every week (you can fine-tune on a week-by-week basis), check the "Repeat" box next to the time block and fill out the repeat settings. -
Click the red SAVE button at the top to create your appointment block.
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Repeat steps 1-5 for each group of appointment slots you wish to add.
B. Share Your Appointment List
Your calendar has its own unique web address for all of your appointment slots. Any time you add an appointment block, it will be part of this special calendar view. Share this link with others to allow them to view your appointment openings.
- Click on any block of appointment slots in your calendar to open the Appointment Slots Details screen
- Highlight the long blue web address in the middle of the screen and copy it. It begins with https://calendar.google.com
a. To copy the text, you can press Ctrl+C on your keyboard, or right-click on the highlighted text and select "Copy". - Paste this address into an email, or utilize any other favorite method of sharing website addresses.
C. How To Book Appointments
For your audience, let's explore their experience with booking and canceling appointments.
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When they click on the web address that you sent them, they will be taken to a screen that looks like this:
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Click one of the gray buttons to book that time. Notice that they have the name of the appointment block.
- A window will pop up titled "Book an appointment". Fill in the description box with information that is helpful to the person that you are booking the appointment with, including the reason for your visit. Click the "Save" button.
- A small window will appear confirming your appointment, and an email will be sent to the other person.
- The booking will appear on both of your calendars, and can be interacted with just like any other calendar event.
- If you would like to later cancel your appointment, open it on your calendar and click "Cancel appointment".