Do you need a way for your students to see when you’re available for one to one support and to book appointments with you? You can do this using the Google Calendar appointment slots.
Here’s how it works
You set up the Appointment Slots in your calendar with times, locations, descriptions etc. You share a link to your Appointment Calendar with your students. Students will have to be logged in with their Sheffield Hallam credentials to access the calendar. They can see what appointments are available and book one. Once that appointment is booked, that slot automatically becomes unavailable to other students. Both the student and staff member get email confirmations of the booking and the appointment is entered into your respective Google calendars. The booking will also be entered into the staff member’s Outlook calendar. Students can cancel their own bookings by returning to your appointment calendar or using the link in the email confirmation. You will get notification of the cancellation and the appointment will again become available to other students to book.
How to set it up
Three things you should know
Firstly, your calendar and your appointment calendar are linked but not the same. When you share the link to your appointment calendar with students they can only see the appointment slots you’ve set up. They can’t see any other type of entry in your calendar.
Secondly, the link that you share for bookings will be the same for all and any appointments that you set up in that calendar. If you need to set up appointments for students from different modules you should create a new calendar for each of your modules. This will prevent students from one module booking onto appointment slots intended for students from a different module.
Finally, when a student makes a cancellation, you will get a cancellation email to notify you, however the declined appointment will remain in your Outlook calendar unless you delete it manually.
