are you new to a cutie scheduling or
perhaps you're just not sure what some
settings do well in this video i'm going
to show you everything you need to know
about
all of the settings right here within a
cutie scheduling
hello everyone scott friesen here at
simplitivity helping you
to get more done and enjoy less stress
and i'm going to show you how to set up
your availability
how to create your different appointment
types and even how to customize
your scheduling page so let's dive in
let's get started with setting up your
availability now when you first sign
into a cutie scheduling you'll probably
see your
appointment calendar whether it's in the
daily view that you see here
or with any of the views that you can
toggle in the top
left but where we want to go is on the
left hand side of the menu
under business settings and click
availability
this is really the core of your system
and where you're going to want to make
the most important changes
now at the very top we have our default
client scheduling
limits these defaults are going to apply
to any
of the number of calendars or any of the
engagements that you create
now of course we can always go and
change individual engagements and
individual days
but it's important to start with your
default limits so you don't waste time
later after opening up this tab we're
presented with this
general view our first option here has
to do with the
minimum number of hours before someone
can actually
book an appointment with you this is an
extremely
important setting because if you reduce
this down to an
hour this means that someone can click
your link or view your calendar
and book you as little as 60 minutes
from
now you need to ask yourself is that
enough time for you to
prepare or be notified of such an
appointment
or if you want to stretch this out so
for example with my own calendar i like
to give myself
18 hours notification meaning that
someone can
only book me at the soonest or at the
earliest 18
hours in advance but of course you can
change this to any duration that you
like
now the next setting is also very
important this is the
maximum number of days in advance that
an appointment can be scheduled
now by default a cutie actually sets
this to 365 days
meaning that right now someone could
book you a full
year in advance but for most of us we
want to keep this
in a shorter time frame of course
depending on
your needs and your business so in this
case maybe i want to set
my maximum to just 30 days so someone
can't access my booking calendar
and book me for some time next year down
below we have a few other
options that we should review do we want
to allow people to
reschedule their appointments this will
be checked by default and in most cases
you'll want to leave this on
if you have to uncheck this then that
would actually
force the client to contact you directly
in some other ways to let you know that
they can't make that appointment
or reschedule in some other way the
second one down below
cancel appointments is also important as
well do you want to set a
minimum number of hours before someone
can cancel
an appointment so for example you don't
want someone canceling just an
hour or two ahead of time because you've
already planned out your day in this
example we've set it to 12 hours so
we're going to give them the opportunity
to cancel or reschedule within that time
frame
but if it's within 12 hours maybe we are
going to
charge them for that time nonetheless
the last option here is not going to be
applicable to many of you at least when
you're starting it has to do with
creating
intake forms which we're not covering
here in this particular video
when you make any changes here within a
cutie we want to make sure that we hit
that save
button otherwise none of these changes
will be applied
now under default limits we have block
off time which is going to allow us to
block
off either a few hours or multiple days
on our calendar this setting is great if
you have an
upcoming vacation maybe multiple days
that you'd like to quickly and easily
block
off on your calendar remember this is
not
a default and this is not going to apply
to your recurring calendar either these
are just for
specific days or for specific hours that
you don't want to make
available to those who have access to
your calendar
down below we also have two other
important options here this first one
is our location name as you can see here
what i have added
is my zoom video conferencing link
meaning
when someone books an appointment with
me they're going to have this displayed
within their meaning invitation on their
calendar so that they know it is a zoom
video conference and they can just click
the link to access
to edit this you just need to click this
which will open up a text box
here you could include a phone number
here you could include the address of
your office
whatever you like don't forget to hit
save once you've made those changes
and you'll be returned to this screen to
the right
is your direct scheduling link now when
you're first creating things this may
not be
as important but this is the link that
you're going to want to share
with clients either via email via text
messaging
or however you want to share your
calendar
all you need to do is copy the text copy
the link in this field
you can hit the copy link down below as
well which will copy it to your
clipboard
and now we can paste that anywhere that
we like
now down below this is really the meat
and potatoes of our settings here within
a cutie
scheduling this is where we're going to
set both our default hours
but we'll also take a look at what our
calendar looks like
dynamically right now here you can see i
have
regular hours each and every week i want
to be made available between nine
and five monday through thursday
if i uncheck this option then i can
change to specific days
but in most cases you're going to have a
set number of hours or at least
regular hours that you're going to be
made available
for your booking calendar now let's say
i'm not available in the afternoon on
wednesdays
all i need to do is click on this box
and instead i'm going to type in
12 pm i can click outside of this box
and it will set that however it hasn't
saved it until i hit this button down
below
the nice thing about acuity scheduling
if i need to adjust something else here
it does take natural language so if i
just put 9-2
and hit enter on my keyboard or click
outside it's going to convert that to
9am to 2pm it's just always a good
rule of thumb to double check to make
sure that a qt has the right time set
for you
i'm going to save those regular hours
and now if i scroll down below
you can see my actual calendar has been
updated to reflect
my regular hours so this is what people
will
actually see when they hit my booking
calendar
now the nice thing or the difference
between this calendar down below
is that we can override specific hours
on specific days so for example let's
say this coming friday
i want to have availability i don't
usually and i've set that here as
closed on this particular day but maybe
on the 23rd i'm going to make an
exception
all i need to do is click on this box
and i'm going to say
9 to 5 in this case i'm going to say set
hours
and now you can see i will have
availability on
that friday the same thing goes if i
want to remove
a particular day maybe next wednesday
i'm going to come in here and i do not
want
any availability on that day all i need
to do is delete
the amount of time i can either hit
closed or enter the word enclosed
or i can leave it blank and select set
hours
now you can see it's going to view that
as closed
no one will be able to book me on that
particular date
now before we leave this page there are
two other areas that we want
to cover the first is client scheduling
limits now if we click on this you will
see things that look
very similar to our default limits which
we edited before
keep in mind your default limits that we
set by using this button
will apply to all of your calendars so
for example
if i was to start or create a new
booking calendar
these defaults would apply so it's
always good to start with your default
but for each booking calendar you get to
set
other choices and there's actually some
options here that are only going to be
specific to that calendar
once again we see things such as hours
in advance
and more than days in the future
allowing clients to set certain limits
or parameters
even though these are the default limits
we set we can come in here and change
them for
this calendar the other one is the
number of hours in advance before we
cancel
again it's taking this number from our
default but we can change it here
it's the next two that are going to be
unique to your calendar
the first one is the number of
appointments per
time slot now in most cases especially
if you're talking about coaching
or consulting you're going to leave this
as one it's going to be a one-to-one
appointment but maybe you want to allow
some either group coaching or allow
people to book multiple times
or you're sharing this with other
members of your team
that's where you can increase your
number here lastly and perhaps most
important is the maximum number of
appointments
by default the first option is going to
be selected
accept appointments until fully booked
meaning if i'm available from 9am to 5pm
it's going to allow all of those
timeslots to be available
until i am fully booked however there is
another option where we can say accept a
maximum
number of appointments so for example
when it comes to my own consulting
business
i choose a maximum number per day
and i typically set this to the number
two meaning
i don't want to have more than two
consulting engagements per
day you can also choose this limit based
on the number of
hours per day or the number of
appointments per
week so depending on what you are
offering
or what your booking calendar represents
you can change these maximums as well
be sure to hit save limits once you've
done making any of the changes listed
here
lastly we want to come up here to
calendar settings and we click on
calendar settings
which is actually going to give us some
further information about what this
calendar
is going to look like so here is where
we can change the
name of the calendar here we can include
either
a brief or a fairly lengthy description
we have up to 500 characters to add in
that description
maybe you want to give people who are
accessing your page a little bit
of direction or what they can expect
once again
we have an option for location where we
can edit a
phone number or include a meeting link
as we see here but we can also add
an image as well so if you want to add
the logo
of your business you can do so here
lastly we have areas for email
notifications
and sending replies to the first one has
to do if you want to notify
someone else or a particular email
address
when someone books on this calendar you
can add one or more
email addresses here and send replies to
meaning replies from the clients will be
sent
to this particular address once again
when you're done making changes hit save
and you'll be returned to the
availability calendar
now that we've set up our availability
let's move on to creating
our appointment types once again we want
to go to the
business settings section and under
availability is the appointment types
heading
here you can see i've already created
two different appointment types
including the consulting engagement and
the second one here is a group
coaching session which we saw on the
previous screen
but let's start from scratch and create
a new
type of service by clicking this button
we're presented with a
new service page with a number of blank
options
first off we want to give it a name so
i'm going to call this
a coaching session in this case if i
want to i can add a longer description
by adding
this link if i want to give a little
more details
next up we want to select how long this
appointment will be
in this case i want to make it 60
minutes in duration
now below this option we have a very
important link
blocking off extra time before or
after i would encourage you to take a
look at this
and consider this depending on the type
of service
or the type of booking that you are
creating by setting the duration for 60
minutes what this means is this is going
to allow to have someone book
immediately following this session
so if i'm promising a one hour coaching
session
let's say someone books me from 1 to 2
p.m
by not blocking off any extra time
another client can book me
immediately at 2pm right after that
first
appointment maybe i want to give myself
some buffer time to either add some
notes or reflect on the previous session
or just give myself a breather before
jumping in
that's where this block off extra time
is so important
here i have the option of choosing time
both before
and after the appointment in my case
i set both of these to 15 minutes
meaning that i will always have at least
15 minutes before an appointment
and 15 minutes after that appointment i
will never have to worry
about jumping immediately in to another
type of meeting whether it's on this
calendar
or this booking type or if it's related
to something
else on my calendar so make sure to take
a look and consider
blocking off additional time our next
option down below has to do
with price and note this is just a
display
option so perhaps i'm going to be
charging a hundred and ninety five
dollars
for a one hour session with me i can
include this here
and this is what someone will see when
they access my booking calendar
note this is just for display purposes
and will not force your clients to pay
before confirming their booking
if you want to deal with payment in
another way or just not display payment
leave this at zero and there will be no
mention of price to the clients on the
booking calendar
down below you can also add a category
if you wish
now you will have to create your
categories yourself and it's not always
necessary to do so so i'm going to leave
this blank at this point in time
we also have the choice to add a picture
or an image for this particular
appointment type and last but not least
access
public is the default choice here
meaning that this
appointment type this coaching session
will be available on my main
scheduling page however if i make this
private it will not be made available on
the public page
and i will have to send a direct
scheduling link
for anyone who would like to book this
appointment with me
last but not least we select create
appointment type we are brought back to
the
appointment type screen where we can see
this coaching session has now been added
i can either select the edit button if i
want to make some changes
i can duplicate any of my appointment
types especially
if it's very similar to a new one which
i want to create
and last but not least i have the direct
scheduling link
so here is the link that i can copy and
send to someone who is perhaps
wanting a coaching session with me with
our availability and different
appointment types set up the last thing
we want to look at is
customizing the appearance of our
booking screen
now this is so important because this is
what people are actually
going to see most of the settings that
we've dealt with so far
are technical meaning what they can do
or
when they can book us but this last one
is important because this is what people
will see
and how it will feel as they actually go
through the process
our first choice here is to choose if we
want to view
a monthly template or a daily
template meaning do you want them to see
the calendar view
of your availability or do you want them
to see actual days
in between now the great thing about a
cutie scheduling
is that it actually gives us a live view
here on the right hand side of the
screen
so here you can see i actually have my
three
different appointment types for them to
choose from
if i click on this coaching session for
example here you can see i've got the
days
of the week it's showing me my next five
available days
available and then they can just pick a
particular time
however if i don't like that view i can
choose the monthly view
once again i can select that coaching
session and here
the user will have to pick a particular
date now this will often come down to
what your appointment's availability
distance is so for example if i'm
allowing people to book me
months in advance maybe this monthly
view
makes more sense however if most of my
clients are going to be
accessing me or booking me within the
coming week or the next few business
days
perhaps this daily view is better next
up is the
business name so my calendar name is
scott's booking calendar
but this is where i can put the name of
my business so it's displayed on the
screen
here i can choose a different logo if i
want to
and show my business name next to the
logo or not
we then have a text field where we can
choose a variety of editing options
including adding pictures and adding
additional links where we can
add descriptions this is probably the
best place for you to give
a little bit of direction encouraging
them to select a time that works best
for them
and perhaps how excited you are to be
working with them or meeting with them
in the future you can choose a few other
defaults here such as when does the week
start on is it going to be a sunday
start or a monday start
what is the appropriate time format for
your clients or your area of the world
you can set your default language and
very importantly your default
time zone once you've made changes here
don't forget to hit
save changes now if you have further
questions about how to use a qt
scheduling by
squarespace i would encourage you to ask
them in the comments down below
thank you so much for watching today's
video be sure to subscribe
right here to the simplitivity channel
and remember
being productive does not need to be
difficult in fact
it's very simple