Schedule-a-Meeting

• 1. Intro
• 2. Connect your calendar
• 3. Create a meeting type
• 4. Set your calendar and availability preferences
• 5. Add a Schedule-a-Meeting node into your bot
• 6. FAQ

1. Intro

The Schedule-a-Meeting node is used for giving your visitors a way to book a meeting based on your actual availability from your Google/Office365 calendar, without ever leaving the bot! Once the visitor picks a time, the meeting is automatically added to both of your calendars!

To allow visitors to book meetings without connecting to Google/Office365, check out our Datetime Picker Node!

To get started, there are 4 easy simple steps - should take you no more than 10 minutes to complete!

• 1. Connect your calendar account
• 2. Create a meeting type
• 3. Set your calendar and availability preferences
• 4. Add a Schedule-a-Meeting node into your bot

2. Connect your calendar account

In order for the bot to only show timeslots that are actually available on your calendar, you'll need to connect your Google or Office365 calendar account to Instabot.

• a. On the Integrations page, open the Google calendar, or Office365 calendar tile
• b. Click "Connect"

• c. Follow and complete the instructions to connect you account

3. Create a meeting type

A meeting type is a generic placeholder for what your visitors are actually booking a date and time for.

For example, if you're a doctor's office you might create a meeting called "quick checkup", or if you're an HR recruiter you might create a meeting called "intro phone screen call".

Let's configure your first meeting type. Go to Integrations --> Google or Office365 and click "+New Meeting Type". On this page, you will see a variety of settings that serve to describe the characteristics of your meeting.

• a. Meeting Duration
  • This is how long your meeting will be

• b. Meeting Date Range
  • This is how far into the future your visitors will be able to book this meeting (anecdotally, we see lower no-show rates for meetings that are booked closer to the current date than further into the future)

• c. Meeting Availability Increments
  • These are the increments that a visitor should see available timeslots for. For example, let's say you have a 15min meeting:
    • increments of 15min will show visitors available times at 9:00, 9:15, 9:30, 9:45, 10:00, 10:15, ....
    • increments of 60min will show your visitors available times at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, ...

• d. Meeting Time Zone
  • This setting allows you to set the time zone of your meeting

• e. Meeting Title
  • This is the name of your meeting
  • When a visitor books a meeting, this is the name of the meeting that they'll see in the calendar invitation

• f. Meeting Location
  • This is the physical location or teleconference link of your meeting
  • When a visitor books a meeting, this is the location of the meeting that they'll see in the calendar invitation

• g. Meeting Description
  • This is the description of your meeting
  • When a visitor books a meeting, this is the description of the meeting that they'll see in the invitation

4. Set your calendar preferences and general availability

Now, let's set some rules on your general availability.

• a. Your Time Zone
  • This setting allows you to set the time zone of your availability
  • If the visitor's timezone is different than the meeting's timezone, the available timeslots will be shifted to reflect the timezone of the visitor
  • For example, if a visitor is talking to your bot in PST (UTC-7), and you configure your timeslots to 10 - 11AM EST (UTC-4), your visitor will see timeslots for 7 - 8AM PST (UTC-7)

• b. Day of Week and Time Availability
  • This setting allows you to set specific days or portions of the week, and/or specific times or portions of the day when this meeting can be booked for
  • For example, if you set to "Weekdays, 9AM - 5PM", your visitor will only see timeslots on weekdays from 9AM to 5PM (local to the visitor's timezone)

• c. Minimum Notice Time
  • This setting allows you to set the earliest day where your visitors will be able to book a meeting
  • This is useful for avoiding sudden and last minute meeting requests
  • For example, if today is Wednesday, Sept 25, and you set to "2 days", the earliest the visitor will be able to select a date/time is 2 days from today --> Friday, Sept 27

• d. Buffer Time
  • This setting allows you to set how much time must be available between meetings to make sure you have enough time between meetings
  • For example, if you set a buffer of 15min, and your last meeting ends at 3:30PM, the first available timeslot that will be visible to your visitors will be 3:45PM

• e. Meeting Location Override
  • This setting allows you to set a location or teleconference link that is specific to meetings booked onlywith you
  • If this field is set, visitors will receive calendar invitations that contain a location from this field
  • If this field is not set, visitors will receive calendar invitations that contain a location from the meeting location field (3f)

• g. Email address field
  • This setting allows to specify email address(es) that should receive a notification when a meeting is booked
  • Below is a screenshot of what this emailed meeting-booked invitation would look like

5. Add a Schedule-a-Meeting node into your bot

You're so close!! Last step, let's add a schedule-a-meeting node into our bot!

In the bot-builder, "Add a node" --> "Advanced" --> "Schedule-a-Meeting" 

• a. Node Message
  • This field is what the visitor will see when they see this Schedule-a-Meeting node - try something like:
    
    • Please pick a day and time for a 30min demo call that's convenient for you!

• b. Meeting Type
  • This is where you select the specific meeting that you created earlier in step 3 that the visitor will book

• c. Specific Calendars to Retrieve Availability From
  • This is where you will select which calendar(s) availability to show to your visitors in the bot. Here you will see every calendar that you connected earlier in step 2. For example,
    • if you select a single calendar, visitors will only see availability from that calendar
    • if you select multiple calendars, visitors will see the combined availability from all of the connected calendars - see here for more details on the logic

• d. Calendar Density:
  • Select how you want your calendar to appear to your visitors - compact (default), or expanded mode. The benefit of this compact mode is so that the entire node is visible for website visitors using a shorter physical screen when they are interacting with the bot. We've heard feedback that sometimes the expanded view is not entirely visible to customers on shorter screens, so they get confused when they can't see certain options.

6. FAQ

a) How do I add another calendar account?

b) What logic does the bot use to determine if a timeslot is available or not?

c) If I've connected multiple calendars, how does the bot decide who to schedule a meeting with?