Set Up Appointment Slots for Students in Your Apps at UMass Amherst Calendar

Your Calendar in Apps at UMass Amherst lets you create “appointment slots” that you can use in a number of ways in your teaching. For example, you can allow students to sign up for office hours, classroom presentations, or leading weekly discussions, etc.  You can create a single appointment, or repeating time slots.

(Note: The Appointment Slots feature is available on Google Apps for Education, but not on Google.com.)

Set Up Appointment Slots

These instructions explain how to create a new calendar in your Apps at UMass account, create appointment slots in that calendar, and share a link for your students to sign up.

Students will need to log into their Apps account (if they are not signed-in already) and choose a time slot. Any one who has the URL to the appointment event will be able to sign-up for any slot.

1. Log in to apps.umass.edu and go to your Calendar tab.
2. At left, from the My calendars drop-down, select Create New Calendar. The Calendar Details page will open.
3. Name the calendar (i.e., “Crypto101- Oral Presentations”, or “Office Hours,” and (optional) add a description.
4. Check Share this calendar with others, and choose between public and UMass only).
5. Click Create Calendar (at bottom or top of page). You will be returned to your main Calendar page and the new calendar will be listed at left under My calendars.
6. In your calendar, click the time at which you would like to create the first Appointment slot. The Event pop-up window will open.
7. Before doing anything else, click Appointment slots (at top):
   
   The pop-up will change to show additional options:
   
8. In the Appointment slots pop-up,
   – For What, enter a name for the event (this event name will show in your guests Calendar, so make the name informative for them)
   – For Calendar, ensure the correct calendar is selected.
   – Under Type select a single slot, or repeating slots and duration.
9. Click Edit details. The Appointment slot settings page will open. To set up repeating time slots, check Repeat. The Repeat options pop-up will open.
   
   Set up your repeating schedule and end date, then click Done. You will be returned to the Appointment slot settings page.
10. If needed, you can further adjust the date, time, or duration of the appointment(s). You can also add a Location and Description.
    Note: To allow on-campus individuals to sign-up for a time slot, as long  shared the calendar in step 4, you DO NOT have to add them as Guests. Anyone with a link to the appointment slots, who can log in to Apps at UMass Amherst, will be able to sign up for slots.
11. Copy the URL shown for This calendar’s appointment page (shown in bold)
12. Paste the URL into an email, or use it make a link from your course LMS to the appointment page.
13. When done, click Save (at top of page).

To return to the Settings page for a appointment slot to copy the Appointment page URL or adjust times and dates, click the Event name in it’s block in your Calendar.

Note: You may want to instruct your students to log in to apps.umass.edu before before clicking on the link. If they are not already signed into Apps@UMass, they will be taken to a generic Google sign-in page where they will have to enter their full address “netID@umass.edu” (not just their NetID), then sign in again with their NetID and password.  (If linking from Moodle, for instance, they will already be authenticated and will not need to log in to open Apps at UMass Amherst. )

Sign Up for an Appointment Slot

Your teacher or colleague may share a link to allow you to book an appointment in his or her Apps at UMass Calendar.  Once you signup, the event will show in both your calendars on apps.umass.edu.

1. Before you click the link to sign up for an appointment, open a browser and log in to apps.umass.edu.
2. Return to the email or web page where the sign-up link was shared with you, and click the link.  The Appointment calendar will open showing available Appointment slots as gray buttons.
3. Click an Appointment button to book an appointment. The Book an appointment pop-up will open with (your name) appended to the event name.
4. Click Save. The appointment will be added to your Apps at UMass Calendar, and also added to the Calendar of the person you booked the appointment with.

Cancel an Appointment

To cancel an appointment you booked with someone else on Apps at UMass Amherst:

1. Log in to apps.umass.edu and go to Calendar.
2. Locate the appointment event, and click it’s name. The Event details pop-up will open.
3. Click Cancel appointment. The Delete appointment? Dialog pop-up will open.
4. Choose whether or not to send an email notification about the cancellation (recommended). Once cancelled, the appointment slot will become free again.

If you created an appointment slot, and you want to cancel an appointment with an individual:

1. Log in to apps.umass.edu and go to your Calendar.
2. Locate the appointment event, and click it’s name. The Event details pop-up will open.
3. Click Delete. The Delete appointment? dialog opens.
4. Choose whether or not to notify “guests” —in this case the person who signed-up for the slot. (recommended)
   Note: Deleting the appointment only cancels it with the person who had signed up; the slot will immediately become available again.

If you created a repeating appointment event, you cannot delete individual slots. To prevent anyone from signing-up, you can book a slot yourself.

1. Open the shared appointment URL and click the appointment slot button.
2. Book the appointment yourself.  Others will not be able to sign up for the slot.