G'day everyone, Alex, here from Paperform.
And today I'm gonna show you how you can use Paperform's appointment field to set
up and automate the process of receiving bookings and scheduling appointments.
So let's take a look.
for the sake of this video
I've gone ahead and used a form that will allow customers to reserve a
time slot at our pottery studio.
The process I am going to follow can be used for any and all use cases.
You can schedule appointments and receive bookings with Paperform
using the appointment question field.
Furthermore, you can connect your Google calendar, which will automatically sync,
creating new events within that calendar, as well as checking your availability.
Now to create an appointment field within Paperform is incredibly easy
and we can follow one of two methods.
The first is going to be the shortcut slash command.
So I'll navigate to a blank line type of forward slash followed
by appointment, then select appointment from your given options.
And there you have it.
Alternatively, we can, again, navigate to a blank.
Select the add question icon found on the left, then select the field type
dropdown menu and select appointment.
Now I'll delete one of these before we move on.
There we go. Next,
We'll look at connecting your Google calendar.
Connecting your Google calendar will sync your appointment field and automatically
create events within that calendar.
It will also check your availability to ensure that you are not double booked.
Connecting multiple calendars to the appointment field will allow you to check
the availability across your entire team.
So to connect your Calendar.
Select configure to the right of the appointment field, select the add
calendar icon to connect a new calendar, then select add account and follow the
prompts to connect your Google account.
Once you've done that, it's time to select your calendar and that's it.
Make sure you click finish set up and your Google calendar is synced.
If you want to connect multiple calendars, then make sure you toggle
this on and then follow the prompts.
Now I'm sure you'll want to change the default settings of your appointment
field. So remaining in the appointment
field's configuration and more specifically the settings tab.
As we can see selected at the top, there let's work through this.
Now the appointment time zone is the time zone in which appointments
will be made on your calendar.
This by default will be the time zone set to your Paperform account while
the submitter will automatically view their locations time zone.
But this will be automatically converted once they book.
The appointment mode refers to how you want your appointments to be made.
Minutes will allow your submitter to book or schedule in blocks specified
by a start time and a length of time, which is perfect for hair salon
or barber bookings, consultation appointments, or simple meetings or
services while the day's option, which is
pretty self-explanatory.
This option will block out entire days for such things as a booking of a guest house,
renting a car or a multi-day mountain tour.
All right. We've looked at the settings.
Now let's head to the event details and it's the event
details where we can change.
Well, the event's details, including the title, description and location,
and these details will be saved to your calendar as well as displayed
within the submission results.
We can use answer piping to populate the details with
responses our submitter provided.
So I'm gonna select the icon on the right hand side there, and I can change the
title of the appointment to read Meeting with.
Then pipe the submitter's response to the name question. Moving along,
the start time interval controls the time between appointment start times
if using a connected calendar and say you have a start time interval of 15
minutes, the appointment runs for
30 minutes.
If someone takes a time slot at 9:15, the appointment will
run from 9:15 until 9 45.
This means the next appointment cannot be booked until 10:00 AM.
Given that 15 minute start time interval.
Now the length of time.
Well, this sets the length of time of appointments.
You can customize the length of time in a variety of.
Depending on your selected appointment mode, minutes or days, once you select
the dropdown menu here, you'll be provided with an array of options.
You also have the ability to select custom and configure your own length of time.
Excitingly.
You can also allow the submitter or respondent to select
their own length of time.
Just hit yes, here, and then you'll see the option to set both
a minimum and a maximum length of time.
Moving along, email addresses added here will be sent
invitations to the appointment.
You can enter email addresses manually, or again, use that process of answer piping.
However, ensure that you separate multiple emails with a comma.
When connected to a Google calendar
we will send your default Google calendar event notification
to all included invitees.
Additionally, you can toggle on send invite from Paperform
to send the default message.
Now heading into availability.
It is here that you can set well, you're availability.
Now I know that Mondays are incredibly slow for me, so I don't want to allow
any appointments until 10:00 AM.
So we'll select.
Monday and configure that as so. While Wednesdays, I usually save for date
night, so I cannot be working late.
So we'll select Wednesday and configure that as well.
Block out dates allow you to set dates or ranges of dates
for when you are not available.
And this is awesome for when you're blocking out holidays, office
closures, or to make sure people simply can't book you on a specific
date or a specific range of dates.
Number of days in advance and minimum hours or days
notice, make sure you have
enough time or notice for new appointments. Maximum number of appointments per day.
Well, this sets a limit for the total number of appointments you want to be
allowed to be booked within a singular day and using minimum time between
appointments, days and minutes to require a gap between those appointments.
Now that we've set up our appointment field, let us quickly look at how we
can receive payments for our time.
Because time is money.
I'm quickly going to head to configure payments, and it is here that you
can connect your payment gateway to begin accepting payments on your form.
But let us scroll down to custom pricing rules as it's this
feature that it will allow us to attribute a price value to the form.
Depending on the submitter's response to particular questions.
Now I could simply set a custom pricing rule so that when my appointment
question field is answered
then the form receives a total price of 20.
This will then prompt the submitter to make a payment of
$20 to successfully reserve or schedule their desired time slot.
You'll also have the ability to set much more complex pricing
using the calculation field.
So be sure to check out this video's description for some helpful articles
on how you can use both custom pricing rules and the calculation field.
Now, something else that I'd like to note is the ability with Paperform
to connect to your favorite apps through direct integrations or using an
integration platform such as Zapier or Make. You can use one of these platforms to
share the appointment details with another app or a specific calendar, perhaps you
need to notify a specific slack channel
once a booking has been successfully received.
And that's all.
Now we've set-up the appointment field.
Let's take a look at the live view.
So selecting the eye icon in the top right corner of the form editor, we
can view the live view of the form.
We'll scroll down and submitters are ready to begin booking,
scheduling, or reserving.
Well, I hope this has been a helpful video.
You now have the ability to accept appointments for anything from a brief
meeting to renting out your guest home.
Be sure to subscribe to the channel for more helpful videos on Paperform.
Good luck and have fun creating.