Set appointment availability in the Student Appointment Scheduler

• Overview
• Set up your calendar
• View and manage your appointments
• Scheduling notice to redirect students
• Email messages to students

Overview

The Student Appointment Scheduler (SAS) lets staff, faculty, tutors, and other users create and manage blocks of available time in an online calendar. Students may access this calendar to view, schedule, and cancel appointment slots.

Set up your calendar

When setting up your calendar, you can view an individual day or week by using the Day and Week buttons. Note that appointment blocks cannot be set from the month view.

To navigate between months, use the arrows in the upper corners of the inset calendar or the arrows to the left of the Day, Week, and Month buttons.

Appointment restrictions

Appointment restrictions let you select parameters for which students can view and schedule appointment slots restricted to student populations you specify. To create a restriction:

1. From your main calendar view, click Manage Restrictions, and then Create New Slot Restriction.
2. Enter a name for your restriction, and then select one of the options below:
   • Include assigned advisees, along with any additional criteria from the drop-down menus. If you are interested in having only your assigned advisees able to see your appointment slots, check this box only and save with the name of the group; any other criteria could create a much smaller number of students who could see your availability.
   • Any/all of the parameters you would like associated with that restriction from the drop-down menus
   • One of your Caseload Groups from AdRx
   • If you are creating a campaign for a group of your students, select the name of the campaign as the only criteria and save it along with a restriction name.
     Note:

     Within a restriction, all criteria are set up with "AND" logic; that is, students have to meet all selected criteria in order to schedule an appointment at the time you specify. The best practice is to make each restriction as clear and simple as possible.
3. As you save restrictions, they will display on the left. Click a restriction to view its details, as well as to access the Delete button to remove it. You cannot edit a saved restriction. If there is a restriction that does not work for what you need, you can delete the existing restriction and create a new one with adjusted details.

Create appointment slots

To set an appointment slot:

1. Choose a date and time: Click any 30-minute interval on the calendar. The details for the appointment will appear in the right sidebar:
• Appointment Date: Confirm the correct date of the appointment slot.
• Time: Adjust an appointment's start and/or end times. Remember to:
  • Put a zero (0) before all single digits
  • Leave no spaces before am/pm (for example, use 09:00am, not 9:00 am)
2. Select a meeting type: From the Meeting Type menu, select Appointment, Group, or Drop-in. For each meeting type, select one to three meeting modes: in-person, online, or phone. When you select a meeting mode, the appointment details will expand to include specific information for the students about each mode. This information will be included in the confirmation and reminder emails to the student.
   • Drop-In shows students that they may drop in to see you, but they cannot reserve that time.
   • Group appointments require that you enter both the number of students who may meet with you during that appointment slot and a name for the group slot. The group slot name is displayed in SAS for students searching your calendar. Students will see the group meeting only if spots are still available.
   • If the appointment is recurring, selecting Yes will display the frequency of the appointment slots and the start and end dates for the reoccurrence.
   Important:

   To account for server load issues and improve performance, the maximum length for which you can set a recurring series is 31 calendar days, regardless of how frequently the series repeats (weekly, every weekday, every day). You can set up recurring series multiple months in advance, but you must make a new recurring series for each month. OCSS recommends setting up appointments only three to four months into the future.
3. Choose a profile: If you have more than one profile, select the appropriate profile for the appointment slot. If you have only one profile, your default will be this profile.
4. Set restrictions: Apply any restrictions by checking the boxes next to them. If you add more than one restriction within an appointment slot, the limitation is an "OR". For example, students who meet either restriction A or restriction B could view and schedule this appointment slot.
5. Set location details:
   • For in-person, select the building and enter the room number. The default selection is from your profile, in your user settings managed by your AdRx administrator. If your building is not listed, there is a Building Not Listed option at the bottom of the "Building" list; you would then enter both your building and room location in the specified field.
   • For online, you can enter your Zoom link, but you are required to provide details on how to connect with you online.
   • For phone, you can enter your office phone, but you are required to describe who initiates the call and how. Remember that if the student has a US-based telephone number, they will enter it when scheduling an appointment and that is the number you would call.
6. Finalize the appointment: To finish creating the appointment slot, select Create Slot or Schedule for a specific student.

View and manage your appointments

You can view appointments by day, week, or month. With day and week views, you see times allotted for each appointment, an icon showing the type of appointment, and restrictions on the appointment block.

View student details

If a student has scheduled to meet with you during an appointment block, the student's name will appear in the box and will change to a black font color. Click the student's name to see more details, including the student ID and purpose for the appointment.

You can also view student details from the "Appointments" area in AdRx.

Change an appointment

From the calendar, you can delete an appointment, change the appointment type (for example, change from an in-person to a phone appointment), update the reasons for the appointment, or change the profile assigned to the appointment.

To change the appointment time, you must delete the appointment or appointment series and re-create it where desired.

View all appointment blocks

In the month view, you will see the calendar for the month with a listing of how many open appointment slots you have and how many scheduled appointments you have for each day. Clicking on a specific day will take you to the daily view.

During peak advising times and course registration times, it's possible that all appointment slots are filled and new students will have no times to select unless you add more appointment slots, or make more slots available based on your maximum future time setting in "AdRx - My Profile - SAS Student Appointment Scheduler - Calendar Settings".

Scheduling notice to redirect students

Advisors may sometimes have no available appointments for weeks or months due to employment status, extended leave, or job requirements such as orientation programming. A scheduling notice gives students this information in SAS and directs them to another advising source while their assigned advisor is unavailable.

You might use scheduling notices for the following cases:

• Summer New Student Orientation means you are largely meeting with new students; a scheduling notice informs continuing students and provides directions on how to get help and whom to contact.
• A faculty advisor is on a 10-month contract, so for two months the advisor will not be meeting with students; a scheduling notice lets students know whom they can contact for advising until the faculty advisor's return.
• An advising office only takes drop-in appointments the week prior to a new semester and the first week of classes; a scheduling notice would inform students of that and direct them to the hours the office is taking drop-ins.
• An advisor will be unavailable for an extended period (such as FMLA) and needs to remind students whom they can see for advising in the interim.
  Note:

  Scheduling notices are not "out of office" messages or constant reminders ("this is a busy time of year") that replace calendar and caseload management. In most cases, such as PTO, training, or busy advising seasons, students can still make future appointments on your SAS, so you should not use a scheduling notice.

Example scheduling notices

Scenario 1: Faculty who are not available over the summer need to refer students to an advising office for assistance

Subject: No appointments until fall semester

Message: During the summer, from (date) to (date), I won't have advising appointments available; please contact the Undergrad Advising Center for advising questions and help at 123-4567.

Scenario 2: An advisor is largely working in orientation for the summer and needs to refer students to others for assistance

Subject: Summer Orientation Advising

Message: I will be working with New Student Orientation this summer and most or all of my appointments will be taken up with new student advising meetings. If you need advising help or an advising appointment, please contact the advising office at 123-4567 to meet with an academic advisor.

Scenario 3: An advisor is on FMLA for an extended leave and needs to refer students to colleagues for assistance

Subject: On extended leave, contact Sally or Anne

Message: I will be away on extended leave from (date) to (date). Please contact Sally Supervisor at 456-7891 or Anne Advisor at 123-4567 for academic advising during this time. They have access to all of the notes, plans, and advising emails from our appointments and are happy to help you with registration.

Email messages to students

Example confirmation email

Below is an example of an email message sent to students after they schedule an appointment. The appointment details are filled in automatically. The personalized message was created by the advisor in the "SAS Student Appointment Scheduler – Advisor Messaging – Appointment Confirmation Message to Students" setting in My Profile.

Appointment Confirmation with Ima Advisor-Coach on Wed Feb 08 2020, 09:00 AM

Hello [Student Name]

Your appointment is confirmed with Ima Advisor-Coach.

Appointment Details

Date : Wed Feb 08 2020
Time : 09:00 AM- 09:30 AM
Reason : I need to discuss graduation
Location : Dunes Med/Prof Bldg 3104

Details: Please check in at the front reception desk so they can let me know you have arrived.

Hello! I am looking forward to meeting with you. Please prepare for our meeting by bringing your questions, possible course selections and your academic plan. Thank you for using the calendar.

Ima Advisor-Coach

Cancellation email

If either the advisor or the schedule manager cancels an existing appointment, the student is automatically notified from the advisor's email. The message includes the reason entered by whoever canceled the appointment.

How to direct students to SAS

Direct students to visit One.IU and search for Student Appointment Scheduler.

You can also send basic directions, such as:

You can access my calendar online to find the time that best fits with your schedule:

SAS One.IU direct URL: https://one.iu.edu/task/iu/student-appointment-scheduler