Advisors or administrative staff can create advising hours (Appointment Slots), which are slots of time that they are available to meet with students. Appointments slots can be made available to all students, or to a custom group of students created within the system. Students then schedule from these available slots.
1. Navigate to the Calendar in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Before adding appointment slots, you may want to sync your Inspire calendar with your Outlook calendar to be sure you do not accidentally offer appointment slots that conflict with another calendar commitment. To do this, you will simply need to be sure that:
(1) your DU email address is selected under the "My Calendars" options
and
(2) the option for "Synced Events" is checked under the Event Type options
Once these options are selected, you will see our Outlook calendar appointments populate in dark blue as "Busy."
3. Select a portion of the day by (1) clicking the +Create button, or (2) clicking and dragging the mouse over a specific time frame to begin creating scheduled advising hours. This will open the Create Appointment Slots tab.
4. Make selections for the following options and click add to update appointment slots:
- Scheduling available to
- Display on student’s calendar as
- Scheduling deadline
- Appointment modality & location
- Blocked appointment slots
- Start Date/Start Time/End Time
- Repeat Options
Selections Overview
Select calendar: only available for users who can schedule on behalf of other users (Director, Admin, Scheduling Manager). By default “my calendar” will be selected.
(1) Scheduling available to: Indicate who should be able to schedule an appointment in these slots. Users can target advising hours to system or user-generated group (static or dynamic), by removing “All students” and typing to autosuggest for their desired group name.
(2) Display on student’s calendar as: Indicate how appointment slots should appear on the student's calendar.
(3) Scheduling deadline for students: Select a scheduling deadline from the dropdown menu.
(4) Appointment Modality: Select the modalities you would like to offer (in-person, phone call, virtual meeting) and update details in the (5) pre-populated location field(s).
(6) Start Date/Start Time/End Time: Review the appointment start date, start & end time, and update if necessary.
(7) Repeat Option: Choose to make appointment slots repeat over weeks, days or months and select the duration for each appointment slot.
(8) Slot Duration: Choose how long you would like each appointment to last.
(9) Choose open slots to block off: Block off select periods of time within your advising hours, like lunch or standing meetings to prevent students from being able to schedule appointments during these times.
Review your selections and once you’re finished, click (10) Add.
Note: if you are adding appointment slots that conflict with something on your synced DU calendar, the system will alert you via a pop-up message. Simply click Add to continue adding the appointment slots.
After clicking Add, the indicated student group will see the available advising hours on their calendar.
Additionally, you will receive Outlook calendar requests (via email) for the block of appointment slots you've created (including the slot details). Simply accept the calendar request for the slots to be added to your Outlook calendar.
Lastly, upon creating appointment slots, there are two additional views for seeing the created appointment slots.
The List View tab simply shows you a listing of the created appointment slots.
The Available Appointments tab shows you a list of the individual appointment slots that are available. To schedule an individual student in one of the available appointments slots, simply click the appropriate day/time and follow the instructions for scheduling an individual student.
