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"Max Appointment Rules" allow you to set flexible rules for student booking while preventing abuse of your scheduling system. This can be found in Trac Navigation > Search Glass > Center Profiles > [Your Center] > Prefs > Scheduling > Max Appointment Rules.
In this section we are looking at the Days setting in Max Appointment Rules
By entering in a number of Days you are limiting your students booking ability to a set number of appointments that can not be exceeded.
In the example below, we are setting our rule as "Maximum of 2 Appointments in 5 Days". If the student attempts to book the a third appointment in a 5 day window, the Trac System will prevent it, displaying an error message informing them as such.
When an appointment is booked, the Trac System checks each 5 day window that includes the day being booked. If the number of appointments found exceeds your rule, it will prevent them from booking.
Booking Example 1
The Student has appointments on May 1st and May 7th . The Student would like to book on May 5th.
The Student would be able to book as there are only 2 appointments total in any single 5 day period that includes May 5th.
Booking Example 2
The Student has appointments on May 1st, May 7th and May 9th and would like to book an additional appointment on May 5th.
The Student would not be able to book the May 5th appointment as there are two appointment booked within a 5 Day window that includes May 5th.
Maximum Appointment Rules - "This Week" and "That Week"
In this section we are using “This Week” and “That Week” with the Max Appointment Rules.
These preferences can be found in Trac Navigation > Search Glass > Center Profiles > [Your Center] > Prefs > Scheduling > Max Appointment Rules.
By entering “This Week” and “That Week” in Max Appointment Rules, you are limiting your students to booking a set number of appointments that cannot be exceeded within a Sunday to Saturday for the current week or upcoming weeks.
Booking Example - This Week
In the example below we are setting our rule as; Maximum of 2 Appointments since “This Week”
This allows the student to book no more than 2 appointments from Sunday to Saturday in the current week.
The Student already has appointments booked on Monday and Tuesday. They would like to book another appointment on Friday, but they won't be able to since they've already booked two appointments between the Sunday-Saturday window.
Booking Example - That Week
In the example below, we've set our rule as; Maximum of 2 Appointments since “This Week” AND Maximum of 2 Appointments since “That Week”
The Student has appointments on Monday and Tuesday in the current week, and Wednesday and Saturday booked in the following week.
The Student would like to book an appointment This Friday or the next coming Friday but will not be able to do so since they have already booked two appointments with in the Sunday to Saturday window for either week.
Maximum Appointment Rules - Combining Max Appointment Rules
In this section, we’ll look into how we can restrict student appointment booking based on Subject, Reason, Consultant, Center, Location, Time and even Group Appointments. Additionally, we’ll demonstrate how to combine multiple rules to establish your custom scheduling restrictions.
With Max Appointment Rules, you can set restrictions based on multiple categories within a specific number of days or a date range. The rules also allow you to create multiple sets of restrictions, each having to be followed in order for the student to be able to book an appointment. You can have up to four appointment rules at once, these can be combined to create more custom and specific restrictions.
These preferences can be found in Trac Navigation > Search Glass > Center Profiles > [Your Center] > Prefs > Scheduling > Max Appointment Rules.
Max Appointment Rule 1 - Max Appointments for the Same Type
For the first rule, let's prevent students from scheduling more than two appointments with the same subject and the same consultant in the same day. This is a simple restriction, set up easily by entering the maximum allowed number of appointments, checking the consultant and subject boxes, and entering 1 for the number of days as seen in the screenshot below.
The student will be blocked from booking the appointment if they meet all the requirements that you’ve set. If the rules are set as above, a student would still be able to book more than two appointments with the same consultant, but each appointment must be for a different subject.
Max Appointment Rule 2 - Max Appointments in X Days
Now let’s set a second rule in addition to the first rule. Both will be enforced simultaneously. Let's restrict the maximum number of appointments a student can book within a number of days. In the screenshot below, we’re restricting students to a maximum of 5 appointments in any 5 day window.
Now the student can only schedule those two appointments a day from rule 1, but they also cannot book more than 5 appointments in 5 days, regardless of the subject or consultant.
Max Appointment Rule 3 - Max Appointments Since MM/DD/YYYY
For the third rule–in addition to rules 1 & 2–let's restrict the maximum number of appointments since a given date. By entering a maximum of 15 appointments since 01/01/2016, the number of appointments a student can book has been restricted further.
The restrictions are now:
- Students are unable to book more than 2 appointments of the same subject/consultant per day.
- Students are unable to book more than 5 appointments in any 5-day window.
- Students are unable to book more than 15 appointments since January 1st 2016.
Max Appointment Rules are a powerful tool to enforce rules and restrictions upon students booking appointments. Students may still be given the ability to book an appointment, but may not monopolize the consultant schedules.
More Questions?
We hope that you found this article helpful, and as always if you have any questions about this or any other features, please feel free to let us know by emailing Helpdesk@go-redrock.com or by submitting a ticket.
Thank you for your continued support!
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