The SB diary screen is too crowded to be of any use on a day to day basis, we have 2 gyms, a bowling alley and classes. The gyms are bookable for 1 hour slots all day long so when staff open the app on our POS computer they have to scroll though all the unbooked spaces to find the bookings.
Can I hide the unbooked slots or migrate the bookings to my google calendar?
Hi @simon_a,
I’m working right now on the Google calendar side of things but keep in mind that Google calendar was intended as an easy way for instructors to see their classes / bookings for the day (and sync with their other commitments): it’s not an admin tool. By that I mean the integration is one way: your admin staff will be able to see bookings but not change / delete them through Google calendar. For that they will need to use the manage bookings interface. I looked into a two way integration but it was heavily prone to lost / mismanaged appointments and general mayhem.
You can filter your timeslots on the manage bookings page by service, resource and date if that makes things easier? Some of the larger organisations using Smoothbook operate multiple accounts: soon to be released will be the ability to easily switch between Smoothbook accounts without logging out / logging in. So you could operate separate accounts for different functions: e.g. one for the bowling alley, etc… Could make things less complicated that way?
There’s really a lot going on on the manage appointments page - I struggle to think of ways to simplify it when there are many timeslots. But I completely understand your frustration and working with organisations like yours is a big priority for Smoothbook. I will put some serious thought into how this page can work more effectively with larger organisations.
Thanks.
Thanks James, I appreciate your response.
I may just have a problem with my integration as all I want is for my reception staff to be able to see the bookings for a given day in one place without having to scroll through unbooked slots.
When I set up the google calendar all I got was the test bookings that I had made and none of the bookings made by clients. If I can get all the booked appointments synced with google calendar then happy days. Even if I can get a view on the app that only shows bookings made and not the unbooked slots that would be fine too.
Staff need to have an easy interface to see what is booked and when, we get a lot of phone bookings and to that end it would work better if it all happened on the app.
Many thanks,
Simon Amos
Hi Simon,
I put a bit of time into this and the answer is mixed. I looked into optimising the Google calendar integration - and this will be done. Unfortunately Google requires approval for these changes which will take 4 - 6 weeks according to them, so just not a solution for you in the short term.
I was thinking that if it’s just a case of viewing upcoming appointments or classes then there are several ways to do this in Smoothbook. The easiest is the dashboard which lists upcoming classes or appointments for the day and shows payment / registration form information, etc… The second is if you select ‘appointments’ -> ‘view / export appointments’ you can filter all of your appointments by date / service / resource, etc. and print / export them if that’s what you’d like to do. Could be a way of doing things?
Thanks, James
Thanks James,
Sorry for the delay but I finally got a medical appointment Ive been waiting all year for!
I appreciate the attention you re paying to this and can see that its not a terribly easy route to an ideal solution.
When I was searching for a booking system I did as I always do, by starting with what would be the perfect situation for our business: a simple calendar that could be put onto the POS Ipad with each days bookings clearly displayed. Many of my staff are not and young IT-savvy so learning to navigate a new system is a huge drama for some of them! Obviously its main objective is to facilitate ease of use for our customers but that is only going to happen if the staff support and promote it, and it doesnt arouse distrust because it doesnt work very well (ie when the staff take a phone booking because they missed a Smoothbooking and someone has to be disappointed).
I like your system and I can see that you want it to have a wider range of use, I will keep trying to make it work until it either does or it doesnt!
Kind regards,
Simon Amos