a years worth of appointments?

Support forum › Category: Questions › a years worth of appointments?

Tracy Valleau asked 3 years ago

I need to setup 6 appointments, for one person each, most Wednesdays month after month. The time slots are: 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 11:00, 11:30 and 12:00 (Notice there is no 10:30 appt.) Sometimes the host may not be available on a given Wed, or may need to cancel a particular slot. We are using you competition, which makes this very easy: set up a day's worth of appts; limit them to Wed, and toggle individual cases (either days or appts) on and off. (The reason we are switch is that there are coding problems with the other plugin, and it's no longer working correctly.) Looking at your method, however, it appear that to achieve this functionality, I need to create 6 (slots) x 52 (weeks) individual entries. That's 312 hand-made entries. Surely there is a better way to achieve repeating appointment slots? I can't see one from my read of the docs. Could some help put me on the right path?

4 Answers

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Nikola Loncar Staff answered 3 years ago

Hi Tracy, you want to create slots or to book those for some person? If you want to create free slots for booking on Wednesdays (9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 11:00, 11:30 and 12:00) it's simple setup with EasyAppointments Best regards, Nikola

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ann_jastrab answered 3 years ago

Thank you for your prompt reply, Nikola. I have purchased your plugin a few days ago, so I'm a paying customer. I understand that it is easy to set up a single appointment. I understand that I'd have to set up six single appointments for each Wednesday. But those appointments need to be available for a person to book on ANY Wednesday. There are 52 Wednesdays in a year. Does that mean I have to set up 312 individual appointments by hand each year?

Nikola Loncar Staff replied 3 years ago

So if I understand correctly you want as customer to book all appointments in a year at once? So I would go to form and select all Wednesdays in a year and book it? Is that correct?

ann_jastrab replied 3 years ago

No… here is what I want.
A calendar, say June, 2021. On that calendar, all the Wednesdays have 6 open slots so a person can choose one to reserver an appointment:
6/2 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/9 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/13 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/20 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/30 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)

Each one of those (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00) is an individual appointment a person can book. As you can see, there are 30 total appointments in June, 2021.

So client would open the full month calendar for June, 2021.
They would click on one of the 5 Wednesdays
They would get a list of remaining available times.
They would click on the time slot, and book that appointment.

So if person wanted to book an appointment on June 13, 2021, they would click on that day in the calendar. If there were no bookings already, they would see a full list of times: [ (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)]. If, on the other hand, the (9:00) and (11:30) slots were already booked by someone else, then they would see [( (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (12:00)] as open appointment slots to choose from.

The appointment times are the same, it’s just a different Wednesday.

Now, perhaps they want to do the same thing, except in July, or August, or December of 2021. Fopr them to have that choice, we have to have appointments every Wednesday in June, July, August, September, October, November and December.

6/2 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/9 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/13 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/20 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
6/30 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)

7/7 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
7/14 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
7/21 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
7/28 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)

8/4 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
8/11 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
8/18 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
8/25 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)

9/1 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
9/8 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
9/15 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
9/22 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)
9/29 (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)

,,, and so on for each following month.

in just the 4 months above, we have 108 individual appointment possibilities.

I would rather not have to make 30 entries each month by hand, 108 separate entries every 4 months. It would be much easier if, for example you could create a group of entires:
“daily group” = [ (9:00) (9:30) (10:00) (11:00) (11:30) (12:00)]
and the go to each Wednesday, and enter “daily group”.

Or select a day’s worth of slots, and choose to repeat it every 7 days.

In short, I’m trying to find a way to avoid having to make over 300 individual entries, just so my clients can choose a Wednesday 3 or 6 or N months from now.

I’m a 74 year old retired programmer. Did computer programming for 43 years. Having to make identical entries over and over and over again just is not make the best use of a computer.

So I’m assumning you have, and I am asking for, a way to create a year’s worth of identical entries without having to create them one at a time, so that clients can select any one of them up to a year in advance.

Does that make sense?

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Nikola Loncar Staff answered 3 years ago

Thanks for that explanation, such setup is super easy with EasyAppointments :) Here is what you need to do. First you need service that last 30 minutes (also slot step is 30 minutes), one location (can be dummy one) and one worker. After that you will need to create two connections :) One connection will have working hours from 09-12:30 and will be set to working (yes) and work days Wednesday only also slot count 6. Duration till end of this year. Another connection will have same settings except it will have working hours from 10:30 - 11 and also set to not working. That would be it :)

Best regards,
Nikola

ann_jastrab replied 3 years ago

Bingo! 🙂 Thank you! (the “not working” was the bit is a clever idea.)
Now, one last bit of advice, please.
Using the setup you have described, which seems to completely solve my issue, how would I deal with the boss who says, “every Wednesday in July, except the last one, because I’m on vacation.”
Would I make a “not working” entry for that day?
And if he wants to cancel one or two -specific- appointment times, would I do the same thing?
I appreciate your patience with me. 🙂

Nikola Loncar Staff replied 3 years ago

I would suggest that you use Vacation screen for that one day. There you can define tooltip that is going to be visible if you haver over that last Wednesday (day would be disabled for selection) 🙂

Best regards,
Nikola

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Nikola Loncar Staff answered 3 years ago

I’m a 74 year old retired programmer. Did computer programming for 43 years. Having to make identical entries over and over and over again just is not make the best use of a computer.

You have my respect. I am 37y and not sure how long I can continue like this. :) Best regards, Nikola

ann_jastrab replied 3 years ago

Yeah: it can be a rough road. It’s better than digging ditches… 🙂

Thank you for all your help and courtesy, Nikola. I wish you the very best!

Stay well.