The Aston Web Appointment Scheduling System allows people to schedule appointments over the Web. People with whom appointments are made (e.g., people who hold office hours) create a calendar in the system and list their available times on that calendar. People who want to make appointments can then locate that calendar and make an appointment.
Anyone with a Username can create a calendar. Once created, calendar owners can add blocks of time to that calendar to indicate when they are available for appointments. These blocks of time can be divided into individual appointment slots, or the whole block can be left unslotted and managed on a first-come, first-served basis. When a block of available time is added to a calendar, the calendar owner can restrict who is allowed to schedule appointments during that block of time.
A calendar owner can designate one or more people to serve as calendar "managers" for the calendar. Managers have the same rights as the owner, and they can add and remove blocks of available time or add and remove appointments.
A calendar owner can create more than one calendar. Each calendar has its own unique URL, and each can be separately advertised to potential appointment recipients. For example, a professor might have one calendar on which she lists office hour appointments for her undergraduate classes, and another on which she lists office hours for her graduate classes. Or someone might want to create a calendar for an organization that they manage, or for a piece of equipment that they run, or for any other entity that is available for limited periods of time. It is also possible to create a "Group Calendar" which is shared by a number of people.
People who want to make appointments with a calendar owner can look up the specific calendar in the system, find a block of time when the calendar owner, or calendar member in the case of a Group Calendar, is available for appointments, and schedule an appointment. People do not need to create a calendar in the system to make appointments. They only need to create a calendar if they want people to be able to make appointments with them (e.g., they hold office hours).
The system uses e-mail to notify and remind people of pending appointments. Appointments can be cancelled with or without e-mail notification. The calendar owner can check the calendar at any time to see if s/he has pending appointments, and users who have made appointments can see a list of their pending appointments. It is also possible to synchronize appointments in the system with a local calendaring application, such as Outlook or iCal.
To use the Aston Web Appointment Scheduling System you must first identify yourself, either by clicking the Log In button and entering a Username and Password, or, if you are a guest (not a member of the Aston University community), by entering your e-mail address and clicking the Guest Log In button.
Once you have logged in, you will be able to make appointments with people who have created calendars in the system, or you can create and manage your own calendars and enable people to make appointments with you. Note that to create and/or manage a calendar, you must login with a Username. Guests cannot create or manage calendars, but they are able to make appointments on calendars set to permit guests.
To make an appointment, first locate the calendar of the person with whom you wish to make the appointment. To do that, click the "Make an Appointment" menu button, then enter the person's name or Username or calendar title in the appropriate box, then click the "Search" button. If the search is successful, then a list of all matching calendars will be displayed, and you can click on the "Make Appointment With" link for the desired calendar. This will cause the calendar to be be displayed. You can also use the "browse" links to display a list of all calendars, sorted either by first name, Username, or calendar title, and then select a calendar from the displayed list.
Once you have located the calendar on which you want to make an appointment, you then select a date and time when the calendar owner is available for appointments. On the calendar display, a set of small calendars in the left-hand navigation bar shows an overview of a calendar in two-month increments. Days with available time(s) are shown in orange. Click on the date to display that day in the main calendar view. You can also set the main calendar view to "Week" or "Month" to quickly locate a day on which the calendar owner is available. The blocks of available time are then displayed directly on the main calendar view, again in orange, with any appointments that have already been scheduled.
Calendar owners can divide blocks of available time into individual appointment slots, or they can treat the entire block as a single, first-come, first-served appointment period. This will be obvious from the display. To make an appointment, simply click on the "+" sign corresponding to the appointment time you want. You will be shown a form where you can fill in additional information about yourself and the appointment. If the block of time is divided into individual appointment slots, and if the calendar owner allows it, you can select multiple consecutive periods of time if you want a longer appointment. Once made, both you and the calendar owner will be notified of the appointment via e-mail.
The Search Appointments page allows you to search for any appointments you have made (or that someone has made on your behalf), or any appointments that people have made with you. The page displays a set of fields which allow you to restrict the search by various criteria. When the page is initially displayed, the fields are filled in on the assumption that you want to search for all of your appointments from today on. If that is the case, simply click the "Search" button at the bottom of the page, and a list of your appointments will be returned. If you want to limit the search to specific date ranges, or to specific calendars (e.g., based on the person with whom you have made the appointment), simply fill in or select the appropriate field on the form, then click the "Search" button. If you own or manage a calendar, and want to see appointments that have been made with you by a specific person, enter their Username (or name) in the "Appointment by" field on the form, then click the "Search" button.
The displayed list of appointments will provide details about the appointment(s), and also allow you to cancel the appointment(s), if you wish. You can also print the displayed list, or export it into a CSV (comma-separated) file. If no appointments are found, a message to that effect will be displayed.
If you have one or more calendars in the system, or if you manage one or more calendars, those calendars will be listed on the Manage Calendars page. To view a calendar, click on its title (in the "Calendar Title" column of the display). If you own or manage multiple calendars, you can view multiple calendars simultaneously by checking the boxes next to the calendar titles, then clicking the "View Calendar(s)" button.
If you wish to make global changes to a calendar, you should check the box next to the calendar's title and click the "Calendar Setup" button on the left-hand menu. Changes you can make include changing the title of the calendar, adding or removing calendar managers, changing block defaults, and changing settings for e-mail notifications and reminders. You can also delete a calendar or create a new calendar.
Changes you make to settings in Calendar Setup, such as a different location, apply to blocks that are added to the calendar subsequent to the change. However, when you make such a change, you will be prompted as to whether or not you wish to have these changes propagated to existing blocks as well.
If you do not have a calendar in the system, and you wish to create one, click on the "Create Calendar" button on the left-hand menu. This will take you to a form where you can fill in the particulars about your calendar. You should only create a calendar if you want people to be able to make appointments with you. You do not need to create a calendar if you simply wish to make appointments with calendar owners. Once you have created a calendar, you can use it to schedule your appointments; you do not need to delete and recreate your calendar each time you want to use it.
If you want to create additional calendars, click on the "Calendar Setup" button associated with any one of your existing calendars, then, in the Calendar Setup page, click on the "Go" button in the "Create Additional Calendar" panel (displayed on the right-hand side of the page).
The Calendar Setup form lets you create or edit a calendar, and set default values that will be used when you add blocks of available time to your calendar. If you are creating a calendar, many of the fields will have been filled in based on your Directory entry, but you can modify any of these fields. You must specify (or use the default) calendar title, your name, your telephone number and your e-mail address. You can optionally enter a description of your calendar (people making appointments will see this description, along with the calendar's title and your contact information).
You can create a calendar for a group by checking the "Group Calendar" box in Calendar Setup. Group calendars have specialized uses. See the Group Calendar entry in Help for details. (Before clicking the Group Calendar checkbox, be sure you understand what group calendars are and how they work).
If you wish, you can designate one or more "managers" for your calendar. Calendar managers can do everything you can do with your calendar (view/schedule/cancel appointments). To add or remove managers, click on the "Go" button associated with the "Calendar's Managers" panel on the right side of the page.
You can control whether you and/or your calendar managers receive e-mail notifications or reminders by setting the appropriate checkboxes in Calendar Setup. Notifications are sent out at the time an appointment is made or cancelled. Reminders are sent out one day prior to the scheduled appointment. You can also set notifications and reminders individually for each calendar manager by clicking the "Go" button in the "Calendar Managers" panel.
If you click the "Show" link next to "Access Restrictions", you will be shown two fields, "View Calendar" and "Make Appointments," which allow you to control who can view your calendar and/or make appointments. These settings are used as defaults when you add blocks to your calendar (you can override them on a block-by-block basis).
OpenYou can set either field to "Open," which allows access to anyone at all.
LimitedBy default, both fields are set to "Limited," which means that anyone with a Username can view your calendar blocks and/or schedule an appointment.
RestrictedSetting either field to "Restricted" brings up additional fields which allow you to list the users which are allowed access to the calendar blocks.
PrivateSetting either field to "Private" limits access to only you and your calendar managers, if any. This allows you to add blocks to your calendar that only you and your calendar managers can use. People wanting to make an appointment would have to contact you or one of your calendar managers and request the appointment be added.
Note that you can have different settings for "View Calendar" and "Make Appointments." For example, if you want anyone at all to be able to view your calendar blocks, but only you to be the one to schedule appointments, you would set "View Calendar" to "Open" and "Make Appointments" to "Private."
You create a calendar for a group of people by checking the "Group Calendar" box on the Calendar Setup form. A group calendar is a calendar that is shared by a group of people, all of whom offer a similar service, and who are referred to as "calendar members." For example, a group of people offering tutoring services might create a group calendar on which each tutor creates blocks for his or her available hours. When someone accesses a group calendar, they see all of these blocks of available time, along with the identity of the person who added the block to the calendar.
Like an ordinary calendar, a group calendar has an owner—the person who creates the calendar and who has complete authority over the calendar. Unlike an ordinary calendar, a group calendar has zero or more group members, the people who, along with the calendar's owner, can add blocks of time to the calendar. The calendar owner can, at any time, add or remove group members from this calendar. Once a person has been added as a member to the calendar, s/he can add or remove blocks of available time from that calendar. Any block added to a group calendar belongs to the member who has added that block (or the calendar owner, if s/he is adding the block). The person making an appointment for that block will be making the appointment with just that group member. The "members" of a group calendar are analogous to the "managers" of a regular calendar, and have many of the same rights.
When creating a group calendar, it is very important to give that calendar a meaningful title, as people will be looking up the calendar by its title, rather than by the names or IDs of the individual group members (whom they may not even know).
Please note: You should not create a group calendar unless you have a very specific need for sharing a calendar among a group of people. Your personal calendar should not be a group calendar. Only create a group calendar if you have a group of people who offer a common service and with whom people need to make appointments to access that service.
If you click the "Remove" button on the right side of the form, the calendar will be removed, any scheduled appointments will be cancelled, and e-mail notifications will be sent. You will, however, be prompted to confirm the removal and be given the opportunity to edit the e-mail notification message to these cancelled-appointment holders beforehand.
You should only remove your calendar if you no longer wish to use the system altogether. You do not need to remove your calendar between semesters or years. Instead, you can just continue to add blocks to your calendar that correspond to your availability at future times.
If you click the "Apply" button, a form will be displayed that lets you apply to manage someone else's calendar (or, if the calendar is a group calendar, to become a member of that group). When you submit the form, an e-mail is sent to the calendar owner informing them of your request. They will have the option to accept or decline the request. A calendar manager/member can do all of the same things as a calendar owner. If the person to whom you are applying does not have a calendar in the system, a default calendar will be built.
If you click the "Go" button inside this panel, a form will be displayed that lists all of the people who are managing the calendar.
Pending manager Anyone who has applied to manage your calendar will be listed with both "Allow" and "Deny" options next to their name. Click "Allow" to make them your calendar's manager, or click "Deny" to refuse the request and generate an optional e-mail to them regarding your selected action.
To add a new manager for your calendarEnter their Username in the text field and click "Allow." They can receive an e-mail notification that they have been added as a manager for your calendar. When they log in, your calendar will appear in their "Manage Calendars" list.
To remove a manager Remove a manager by clicking "Deny" next to their Username and name. They can receive an e-mail notification that they are no longer one of your calendar's managers. [You are given an opportunity, each time, to send or suppress the e-mail notifications related to these aforementioned actions.]
Group calendars have zero or more members instead of managers. If you click the "Go" button inside this panel, a form will be displayed that lists all of the people who are members of your calendar, if any.
Pending member A person who has applied to be a member of your calendar will be listed with both "Allow" and "Deny" options next to their name. Click "Allow" to make them a member, or click "Deny" to refuse their request and generate an optional e-mail to them regarding your selected action.
To add a member to your calendarEnter their Username in the text field and click "Allow." They can receive an e-mail notification that they have been added as a member of your calendar. When a member logs in, your calendar will appear in their "Group Calendars" list.
To remove a member Remove a member by clicking "Deny" next to their Username and name. They can receive an e-mail notifiaction that they are no longer one of your calendar's members. [You are given an opportunity, each time, to send or suppress the e-mail notifications related to these aforementioned actions.]
The calendar display shows a specific calendar, including blocks of available time, and any appointments that have been made for those blocks. The calendar owner or managers see details about the appointment; others only see that the appointment has been made. If the "Show Appointment Details" flag is set at the time the block is added to the calendar, then everyone sees complete information about the appointment. The display can be toggled between three views: month, week, and day. You select a view using the Day/Week/Month buttons in the upper right of the display. In Month and Week view, blocks of available time are shown by their time ranges. Clicking one of these time ranges takes you to the Day view for that day, which displays the blocks of available time, as well as appointments in those blocks. A set of small calendars to the left of the display provides a quick overview of the calendar in two-month increments. Clicking on a date in these calendars takes you to the Day view for that date.
All of the calendar displays use colors to indicate the status of a day, as follows:
To make an appointment, select a day which has available appointment slots (an orange day, or, if you are trying to make an additional appointment for a given day, a yellow day). The display will show blocks of available time. These blocks can be either "slotted" or "unslotted." A slotted block is divided into fixed-duration appointment slots. Click on the "+" sign of an available slot to make an appointment for that specific time. An unslotted block is just a block of undivided time. Click on the "+" sign to make an appointment for that time period. You will be shown a form where you can fill in details about the appointment.
To edit an appointment, in the Day view, click the "pencil" icon associated with the appointment. This will bring up a panel that lets you edit an appointment. You can change the name/email/phone number associated with the appointment, as well as the start and end times (as long as you do not violate any block restrictions).
To cancel an appointment, in the Day view click the "x" icon associated with the appointment. You will be given a chance to specify the text of the e-mail that will be sent notifying the parties of the cancellation. Clicking the lowercase "i" icon will provide additional information about an appointment. To add an appointment to your local calendaring application (e.g., Outlook or iCal), click the "double arrow" icon.
Each displayed appointment has a set of associated icons which you can use to take action on the appointment, as follows:
A block corresponds to a period of time during which the calendar owner is available for appointments. Its Day view displays the title of the block, an optional description, and information about the maximum number of appointments for the block.
Blocks are of two types: slotted and unslotted. A slotted block is divided into individual appointment time slots. Any available slot of time will be displayed in orange and will have an associated "+" sign. Simply click the "+" sign to schedule an appointment. Unslotted blocks are not divided into individual appointment slots; they serve as sign-up sheets. So, as long as the block's appointment limit has not been reached, you can make an appointment or sign-up for that time period by clicking the "+" sign associated with that block.
These blocks correspond to periods of time during which you (e.g., the calendar owner) are available for appointments. The display shows the title of the block, whether or not the block is part of a recurring series of blocks, an optional description, and information about the maximum number of appointments. (Also see Select Block.)
Any scheduled appointments are shown in yellow, and, in the Day view have an associated set of icons that let you cancel the appointment, get more information about the appointment, or synchronize the appointment with your local calendar.
In addition to the appointment information, each block has a set of associated icons which you can use to take action on the block, as follows:
To delete a block, locate the block you want to delete on your calender, make sure you are in "Day" view (click the "Day" box at the top of the calendar display) then click the "x" icon at the top of the block description. If the block is a recurring block (part of a "series"), you will be asked if you want to delete just the current instance of the block or the entire series.
When a block is deleted, any appointments scheduled for that block (or any of the blocks in a series, if you are deleting a series) are cancelled. You can specify the text that should included in the e-mail that will be sent to notify people of the cancellation, or specify that such e-mail notifications should not be sent.
There may be circumstances where you want people to be able to access a specific day, week or month of your calendar, without their having to scroll through the calendar display. You can advertise a URL (link) that will take people to a specific day, week or month (after they login) as follows:
Anyone using this URL will first be taken to the login page, and then directly to the day/week/month that you selected.
Before people can schedule appointments with you, blocks of available time need to be added to your calendar. These might be your office hours, or they might be discrete blocks of time on specific days when you are available to meet with people. You can add either one-time or recurring blocks of time to your schedule in by clicking the "Add Block" button on the left-hand menu. This will cause the "Create a New Block" form to be displayed.
The first choice you have is whether you want this to be a recurring or a one-time block. For one-time blocks, you specify a title and fill in your contact information. You then specify the "slot" size for the block ... this refers to the length of the appointment slots within the block. If you select "none" from the dropdown list, people will not select a specific time within the block (e.g., this is appropriate for the traditional first-come, first-served office hours block, or for a meeting). You can, however, set a limit on the number of people who can sign up for that block. If, instead, you specify a slot size, then the block will be divided into an integral number of these slots, and people will select specific times. With slotted blocks, you can specify whether people are allowed to sign-up for multiple consecutive slots, and how many.
For example, if you create a block that goes from 11:30 am until 3:00 pm, and you use a slot size of 30 minutes, the system will create seven consecutive half-hour slots (11:30-12, 12-12:30, etc.). People can then select whatever time slot is available. If you want people to be able to make half-hour or 1 hour appointments, you would set a "Max appointments" value of 2 (so that people can make appointments that span up to 2 half-hour time slots).
You can associate a number of time restrictions for a block, as follows:
If you click the "Show" button next to the "Access Restrictions" link on the Add Block page, you will be shown a set of fields that allow you to restrict who can view this block and/or make appointments for this block.
Note that you can set access restrictions separately on the viewing of the block and on the making of appointments (although you would usually want these to be the same).
Recurring blocks have options in addition to those of One-Time blocks. A recurring block is a repeated blocked with a start date and end date and can recur daily, weekly, monthly, and so on. You can also specify on what types of days the blocks should be scheduled, wherein the type of day corresponds to the way days are classified on the academic calendar at Aston University.
To create a recurring blockClick the "Add Block(s)" button on the left-hand menu. Select "Recurring" as the type of block, fill in the required information, and click "Save." A recurring block appears with this icon on the calendar.
To edit a recurring blockClick the pencil icon. You can either edit one instance of the block or the entire series. When editing a recurring block, certain features are not editable because those changes could unexpectedly affect appointments.
When you add or edit a one-time or recurring block in you calendar, you can associate a number of time restrictions (deadlines) for appointments made in that block. You do so by filling in values for the following fields:
You should now see Internet Calendars added to the list in Folder View and the name you entered, from step #6 above, listed.
If you are using Google Calendar
If you are using iCal on a Mac
This particular Web Appointment Scheduling System calendar should now appear in the list of available calendars.
NOTE: Google calendar currently can take as long as a day to update a subscribed calendar, so you should NOT use this mechanism to keep up with recently scheduled appointments. Instead, use the link that is included in the appointment announcement e-mail to add appointments one by one to your Google calendar.
If you are using Mozilla Lightning or Sunbird
You should now see the name of the calendar you entered, from step #7 above, added to your list of calendars.
If this calendar is used to schedule things such as events, seminars, presentations, or other group-oriented events (typically represented by unslotted blocks), then the listed URL will allow people to subscribe to the calendar as an RSS feed (the system will send them the calendar in RSS format). This subscription only returns block information; it does not return information about individual appointments. It is intended for event calendars, and allows someone to see all of the scheduled events (calendar blocks) in an RSS reader.
If you own this calendar, and you are using the calendar to schedule group events, you can advertise this calendar to potential attendees, thus allowing them to download the calendar events intoi their RSS reader.
If you click the "Show" link next to "Access Restrictions," you will be shown two fields, "View Blocks" and "Make Appointments," which allow you to control who can view this block and/or make appointments. You can set the following access restrictions on a block:
LimitedBy default, both fields are set to "Limited," which means that anyone with a Username can view your block and/or schedule an appointment.
Note that you can have different settings for "View Blocks" and "Make Appointments." For example, if you want anyone at all to be able to view your block, but only you to the one to schedule appointments, you would set "View Blocks" to "Open" and "Make Appointments" to "Private."
Below the Access Restriction settings is a checkbox labelled "Show Appointment Details." DO NOT check this box until you understand the consequences, which are detailed in the "Show Appointment Details" help topic.
When the Aston Web Appointment Scheduling System displays a calendar to anyone who is not a calendar owner or manager (or group calenar member), it masks details about appointments that other people have made. It only shows that an appointment slot is taken, with no information about who has taken the slot. This is done to protect people's privacy. There are cases, however, where you may want everyone to see who else has made appointments. For example, if you are using the Aston Web Appointment Scheduling System to schedule meetings, you may want people to be able to see who else is attending the meeting. If you check the "Show appointment details" checkbox, then complete appointment details will be shown to everyone. WARNING: this means that there will be no privacy associated with appointments.