Quick Start Guide
March 10th, 2010Accessing Administrative Options
Point your browser to the web page where you have installed hitAppoint. Please click the Login link at the top of the page. You will be transferred to the login form, please enter the admin username and the password you chose in the setup procedure to access the administration panel.
Configure Some Basic Settings
hitAppoint provides a number of configuration options to help you tune the software exactly to your specific needs.
Go To: Settings >> Email Settings
hitAppoint sends out automatic notification emails on various actions. In this part you can set the return email address and the sender name of these automatic emails. Setting the Email Test Mode will allow you to view emails printed on screen rather than sent, this option is for testing purposes. Also you can specify the common header and footer parts of your emails, it is convenient to add your signature in the footer for example.
Go To: Settings >> Email Templates
This part allows you to update the text of notification emails that are sent to you and your customers.
Go To: Settings >> Date & Time Settings
In this part you can set your local specific date and time settings, like your company timezone, date and time format, and the day week starts on in your part of the globe.
Go To: Payment Settings >> Currency
Choose your local currency and define how it is displayed.
Go To: Payment Settings >> Payment Gateways
hitAppoint allows your customers to pay for their appointments online. Online payments are handled by 3rd party payment gateways like Paypal. The default “offline” payment gateway gives your customers an option to pay at your office, for example by cash.
Set Your Services
hitAppoint comes with one default service already configured for you during the setup process. You can start by updating the default values of this service, then add as many new services as you need.
Go To: Services >> Browse >> Edit (click the name of the service)
For your service you can update these settings:
- Title
- Description
- Total Seats – if you can accept more than one customer at a time for this service
- Min Advance Booking – if set to 1 day for example, your customers will be able to book appointments starting from tomorrow, not earlier.
- Max Advance Booking – if set to 2 weeks for example, your customers will be able to book appointments up to 2 weeks in advance, not later.
- Cancellation/Reschedule Deadline – if set to 1 day for example, your customers can’t cancel or request rescheduling appointments if less than 1 day remains before the scheduled time.
- Provider Presence Required – for services like massage or tutoring, a provider (staff member) is required for appointment. For services like tennis court booking, a provider presence is not required. Having an appointment of this type, the provider will still remain available for other appointments in other locations, while this location becomes booked.
Then you need to configure sessions of this service. Sessions allow you to define various duration and pricing options for your service. For example, a massage service can have the Standard Session of 30 minutes for $50, and the Extended Session of 1 hour for $90.
Go To: Services >> Browse >> Edit >> Sessions
Per every session, you can set:
- Title
- Duration
- Lead In – time required for you to get ready for an appointment. For example, if it is set to 10 minutes, and you are having an appointment at 10:00, time from 09:50 will be marked as booked.
- Lead Out – time required for you to complete things after an appointment. For example, if it is set to 10 minutes, and you your appointment ends at 11:00, time till 11:10 will be marked as booked.
- Price – the price for the service in your currency (see Payment Settings part). If set to 0, the word “Free” will be displayed, if set to empty value, no price indication will be given.
Set Your Locations
hitAppoint comes with one default location already configured for you during the setup process. For many people it is enough, anyway you can add as many locations as you need and name them accordingly to you business structure, like “Room A”, “Room B” etc.
Go To: Locations >> Browse >> Edit (click the name of the location)
or to create new locations
Go To: Locations >> New Location
The location form is quite simple, you can supply the title and the description of your location.
Set Your Providers
In default configuration, the administrator is the only provider who can accept appointments. If you have more than one person at your company who provides services (provider, or staff member), you can add as many as you need.
To view current providers:
Go To: Users >> Browse >> Filter: Provider
or to create new providers
Go To: Users >> New Provider
Set Your Schedules
Here comes the most important part of your initial configuration. A schedule is tied to a provider and defines what, when, and where this provider does, which services at which locations at what time.
A default schedule is already created for you during the setup process. You can start by updating this schedule, then add as many new schedules either for yourself or for other providers as you need. A defines the workweek and has a period of validity.
Go To: Users >> Browse >> Edit (provider) >> Schedules >> Edit
For every workday you can define a time frame, for example from 09:00 to 11:00 and set the locations and services which this provider can do in these locations. Selectable Times option allows you to set the interval between available times, for example if set to 15 minutes, your customers can select 09:00, 09:15, 09:30 etc within this time frame.
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