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Business Edition Guide

This guide applies to:

  • Basic Edition
  • Plus Edition
  • Pro Edition
  • Business Edition

Introduction

You’ve just upgraded to the Business Edition of Simply Schedule Appointments; we’re glad to have you with us! We wanted to give you this guide to help you start using your new Business Edition features.

In case you need help installing and activating your new Business Edition, here’s a guide to help you do that: Installing a New Premium Edition.

Team Scheduling

Tie team members to appointment types and allow new bookings to be automatically assigned to your staff in the business edition.

Use this to:

  • Assign bookings to team members
    • User Preference (assign the booking to a team member chosen by the user)
    • Any (assign the booking to a team member randomly or in round-robin order)
    • All (assign the booking to all the selected team members)
  • Alert team members when a new booking is assigned to them through Team Notifications.
  • Let team members have unique blackout dates and a custom schedule

Guides to help you get started:

Resources

Schedule resources for your appointments! Manage resources or equipment to go along with bookings, such as meeting rooms, sports fields, equipment, etc.

Use this to:

  • Assign rooms to appointments, such as meeting rooms and studios.
  • Book equipment for appointments, such as bikes, laptops, and golf carts.
  • Setting a max occupancy, such as a general capacity that affects several appointment types.

Guides to help get you started:

Booking Flows

The Booking Flows feature allows each Appointment Type to set the sequence of Views or screens for its booking form.

The benefit of each Flow:

  • The Expanded Flow allows users to easily choose from a large number of time slots.
  • The Express Flow makes booking easier by combining Date and Time selection on one screen, allowing users to compare and choose time slots effortlessly.
  • The First Available Flow guides users to book the closest available time slot, making scheduling quick and efficient for immediate openings.

Guides to help you set this up:

Accept Payments with PayPal or Stripe

Take payments for each appointment booked, and let customers pay through PayPal or Stripe.

Use this to:

  • Set a price for each type of appointment – you choose whether to make payment optional too.
  • Only book appointments that successfully process payments.
  • Receive money directly to your personal accounts in Stripe or PayPal.

Guides to help you set this up:

SSA doesn’t allow variable prices for a single Appointment Type, you will have to create multiple appointment types to accommodate different prices or use one of our integrations with Gravity Forms or Formidable Forms that allows you to create varying prices and quantities.

Send Appointment Info to Other Apps with Webhooks

Send appointment info to other apps, including services like Zapier or Make.

Use this to:

Guides to help you set this up:

SMS and Email Reminders and Follow-Ups

Send text messages or emails for reminders or follow-ups on appointments.

Use this to:

  • Send a text to remind your client of tomorrow’s booked meeting.
  • Automate a thank you note after each appointment.
  • Get a text message anytime someone books, especially useful for same day bookings.

Guides to help you set this up:

Tracking Booking Calendar Activity

Find out how your visitors use your booking calendar and see how that fits into the bigger picture of your website

Use this to:

  • See if your website is meeting its goals and track funnels.
  • Understand places where your site needs to improve using tests based on data.

Guides to help you set this up:

Google Calendar Sync

Get two-way sync between your Booking Calendar and your personal calendar.

Use this to:

  • Easily block off time chunks that you need for personal stuff – Dentists, the first day of school, holiday hours, etc.
  • Automatically add a Google Invite to your customer’s calendars
  • See an overhead calendar view of all your booked appointments
  • Access all your appointment information from your smartphone, don’t have to log in to WordPress Dashboard!

Google Calendar Quick Connect

Set up Google Calendar sync in a quick and hassle-free way with the Quick Connect feature. Skip the process of setting up Google API and credentials in the Google Cloud and quickly connect your Google Calendar with the SSA plugin in fewer steps.

Guide to help you set this up:

Customize Calendar Events

Tailor the Calendar Events generated by SSA and finetune the linked details. These customizations will apply to Google Calendar Sync integration and the event .ics files.

Use this to:

  • Customize all the details for any Calendar Event, including the title, location, etc.
  • Make use of the twig templates to include custom fields and additional information for the calendar events.

Guides to help you set this up:

Web Meetings – Zoom, Webex, and Google Meet

Automatically assign a unique or specific link to each booking using our Web Meetings feature.

Use this to:

  • Make coordinating video calls simple by adding the video links to notifications and Google Calendar events
  • Create Unique Google Meet, Webex, or Zoom meeting links for each booking

Guide to help you set this up:

MailChimp Newsletter Sign Ups

Add a Mailchimp opt-in checkbox directly to your booking form.

Use this to:

  • Make it easy for your clients to sign up for your newsletter – they’ve already filled in their info, and now they just have to check off the box!
  • Collect interested client emails to keep them updated on new products, promotions, or services
  • Send automated emails to encourage clients to book another appointment with you

Guides to help you set this up:

Group Events or Reservations

Create special time slots to allow group booking or reservations.

Use this to:

  • Host group classes and keep an attendance list
  • Rent out limited equipment or spaces
  • Limit the number of visitors in your shop or office

Guides to help you set this up:

Custom Booking Fields

Tailor the booking form to collect the customer information you need for a successful appointment.

Use this to:

  • Get a better idea of what your clients need help with – Radio buttons for specific services (haircut, shave, color)
  • Find out the best way to contact them – Checkboxes for Zoom, Phone call, Email, and Text
  • Let your clients write out their questions – Multi-Line Box to let them write it all out!

Guides to help you set this up:

Integrate with Gravity Forms or Formidable Forms

Create complex booking forms that include conditional logic, custom confirmation screens, and Advanced fields with Formidable Forms or Gravity Forms.

Use this to:

  • Re-direct your clients to your web store after booking
  • Direct them towards the right Appointment Type for them based on their multiple-choice answers

Guides to help you set this up:

Display the Calendar on Your Site

Place the booking calendar into any of your WordPress pages or posts. 

Use this to:

  • Let your visitors book a time slot on your Contact page.
  • Display the booking calendar in each of your blog posts.
  • Make your booking calendar for members-only pages.

Guides to help you set this up:

Style and Customize the Calendar

Customize and style the booking calendar to match your site’s theme. Use our style settings tool or use our CSS snippets to create a look unique to your site.

Use this to:

  • Change colors of text, background, and accents.
  • Modify the time slot formatting.
  • Hide or change headers or text in the booking process.

Guides to help you set this up:

Block Out Holidays and Vacations

Choose days that you need to block out from your calendar. Make sure no one can book on the days that your business is closed.

Use this to:

  • Remove all the time slots during your vacation days – both for individual team members and business-wide holidays.
  • Make sure no one books on a holiday

Guides to help you set this up:

Style and Write Your Notifications

Write and style the notifications to represent your business. Use our Twig templates or recommended plugins to customize the notifications your customers receive.

Use this to:

  • Style the email notifications to match your branding.
  • Write customized messages depending on the appointment type booked.

Guides to help you set this up:

Add Advanced Rules to Your Booking Calendar

Get more control over the rules for your booking calendar.

Use this to:

  • Choose a date range for when time slots are bookable
  • Limit when visitors can access your calendar
  • Set how far into the future visitors can book time slots

Guides to help you set this up:

Translate the Booking Calendar

Get the booking calendar to display in different languages. 

Use this to:

  • Cater to your non-English visitors
  • Use with a multilingual site for international bookings

Guides to help you set this up:

Appointment Type Labels

Assign Labels to Appointment Types to categorize and group them.

Use this to:

  • Organize and color-coordinate the Appointment Types into categories
  • Use the Labels button to filter and bulk edit Appointment Types
  • Display Appointment Types Based on their Labels

Guides to help you set this up:

Custom Page to Edit Appointments

Place the Edit Appointments Module on a custom page of your website.

Use this to:

  • Give the Edit Appointments page a fresh look by styling it to your preference and show to your users when they edit bookings.

Guides to help you set this up:

Add a Custom Confirmation Page

Set up a custom booking confirmation page anywhere on your website and redirect users to it when they submit an appointment.

Use this to:

  • Effectively monitor booking conversions if you have deployed conversion tracking on your website.
  • Style the confirmation page to match your branding or website.

Guides to help you set this up:

Unlimited Appointment Types

Create as many Appointment Types as you need, each with its own unique settings and booking rules. An Appointment Type represents a booking form or a booking calendar, this is what your clients will use to pick their dates, times, and fill in their information to schedule an appointment.

Use this to: 

  • Set up separate booking calendars for different services.
  • Customize each Appointment Type with different durations, availability, and other settings.

Guides to help you set this up:

Exporting Appointments to CSV

Easily export your appointments into a CSV spreadsheet directly from the Appointments tab using the Export feature.

Use this to: 

  • Export specific booking data by applying filters like Appointment Type, date range, etc.
  • Import the exported appointments file into Excel or a CRM.

Guides to help you set this up:

ICS Subscription Feed

Sync your appointments with personal calendars by subscribing to an ICS subscription feed. Note this is a write-only connection, this will only add new booking events to your calendars. If you want calendar conflict-checking functionality, please see our Google Calendar integration.

Use this to: 

  • Automatically add your bookings to Outlook, iCal, or Google Calendar.

Guides to help you set this up:

Accessibility

Simply Schedule Appointments offers a fully accessible appointment booking interface so that all your clients, regardless of abilities, can have a seamless booking experience. Ensure your booking calendars are fully accessible to all users, meeting key accessibility standards.

Use this to: 

  • Make your booking form accessible and navigation easier for a wider audience with features like keyboard navigation and screen reader support.
  • Meet WCAG 2.1 AA compliance with your booking system

Guides to help you set this up:

Integrate with The Events Calendar

With The Events Calendar + SSA integration, you’ll have the power to display beautiful event pages AND manage the availability for meetings simultaneously.

Use this to:

  • Have monthly recurring events that you’d like to list separately (instead of all in a single booking calendar)
  • Want to show all of your appointment type events in a single calendar view
  • Offer sporadic availability on specific dates

Guides to help you get this set up:

Still stuck?

File a support ticket with our five-star support team to get more help.

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