New and need lots of help

#1

Hello, I’ve been asked by my head to see if this program can do what we need. I’ve got until Friday :slight_smile:

I need to set up parents evenings for school. So I only want to use 2 days a Monday and a Tuesday. each teacher will have slots from 3 till 6 of 10mins each.

I’m really struggling as to where to start.

So do I use the Scheduling option so I can choose the 1 day that’s not repeated?

Then do I use resources to add individual times slots for each teacher?

I really appreciate anyone pointing me in the right direction of how and where to start.

Thanks so much
Jacqui :slight_smile:

#2

Hi @Jacqui_E,

Smoothbook’s used quite a bit in schools and specifically for parent / teacher meetings. I don’t know your specific requirements but the system should work well for you.

So your service would be ‘Parent teacher meeting’ and - you’re correct - your teachers would be your resources. Then you need to specify the days of the week and the times that the meetings occur.

Select ‘scheduling’ -> ‘weekly scheduling’ from the main menu. You will need to create a schedule for each resource / teacher so you may have a little bit of work here. But follow the instructions. You want to create a shift (the time that the teacher is having the meetings) and then specify the appointment is 10 minutes long. So if you create a shift that starts at 4pm and ends at 6pm (is two hours long) and specify ten minute appointments, the system will create 12 appointment times for you.

By default the system will show the meetings every week indefinitely. To select only the dates you want it’s probably easiest to schedule the service off on the days you don’t want. You can do that by selecting ‘settings’ -> ‘resources and services’ from the main menu and clicking on ‘days off’ for your service.

Hope that makes sense!

#3

Thank you so much for your really quick reply. If I went ahead and followed you (brilliant) instructions. Would I do this now from my email, from this one account even though it’s for all the teaching staff?

Thanks again,
Jacqui :slight_smile:

#4

Hi @Jacqui_E,

No problem! Really you should do this with one account so that you have one calendar for the parents to use when they book.

But it would almost definitely be helpful for the teachers to have a user account so that they can see and manage their own bookings. You can create a user account for them (and assign them to a resource) by selecting ‘settings’ -> ‘users’ from the main menu.

Hope that helps, James

#5

Hi,
Firstly thank you so much for the help you have given, it’s been quick and user friendly :slight_smile:
So, my next question, am I able to change what is written behind this * %i - Instructions for the service(s) I can’t find where to edit this variable?
Thanks again,
Jacqui :slight_smile:

#6

So, I made teachers as users so that they could manage their own resources, ie send out their own links.

The user was a resource, Joe.Blogs@school and they managed their own resource which was Year2@school

My problem here was that the parent saw the email address, Joe.Blogs@school and we don’t want them to. So I thought ok, swap around the info.

The user was Year2@school and the resource was Joe.Blogs@school which was working well until I realised that both Year 2 teachers Joe.Blogs and Joe.Blogs2 share the same Year2@school and I cant use the same email for Users :-/

I’ll be grateful for any more advice,
Jacqui :slight_smile:

#7

It can be confusing between a ‘resource’ - something that a service is scheduled with - and a resource user - a user account that is associated with a resource. To make it simpler let’s separate them - don’t worry about the user accounts for now.

I don’t know your exact situation but, off the top of my head, the service would be ‘Parent teacher meeting’ (you may need only one service) and the resources would be the teachers. The resource name would be just the teacher’s name - Joe Blogs. If you have the teacher’s email you can assign it when you create the resource so that they are notified of new bookings.

Now that you have your service and your resources you can create your schedule - the times of the parent teacher meetings. You can do that by selecting ‘scheduling’ -> ‘weekly scheduling’ from the main menu.

By now, if you click on the link top right in Smoothbook: ‘view my booking calendar’, you should see a calendar with the meeting times laid out that is easy to understand.

Once you’ve done that you can move on to assigning user accounts to resources.

Hopefully that makes sense?

James

#8

Hi,

Yes, perfect sense. Thank you once again. I’m just about finished one last (I hope) little problem.

I can see Weekly shifts for services which have Tue, Wed and Thursday. When I go to my calendar I only see the Tues and Wed.
When I go to settings/days closed, I can see that Mon, Tue and Wed and open. So there is some little setting somewhere that’s not letting me see, Thursday on my calendar.

Can you help?
Jacqui :slight_smile:

#9

It’s fine!! I’ve found it. It was Days Off under Your Services. :slight_smile:

1 Like