Outlook Recurring Events and Recurring Appointments in Advisor's Growth
Introducing Recurring Appointments
This guide covers the setup and use of recurring appointments within Advisor's Growth calendars. Recurring appointments are supported across all calendar types. However, note that if you’re using a Round-robin calendar, only one user or team member can be included for recurring appointments.
Once you enable the Recurring Appointments option, you’ll have access to the settings that allow you to tailor the recurring appointments based on your specific needs.
Understanding the "If Slots Are Not Available" Setting
This setting determines how the system handles situations when a slot is already booked for a recurring appointment. You can choose from the following options:
Continue Booking: This option double-books the slot, allowing multiple appointments at the same time.
Skip Booking Unavailable Slot: This option books only the available slots and skips those that are already occupied.
Book Next Available Slot: This option schedules the recurring appointments by searching for the next available slots, even if they are further out in the future.
Important Note: The system checks availability for the next three slots only. If no slots are available within that range, the booking is dropped. If slots are available, the system continues booking all recurrences as planned.
Will My Existing Triggers Work for Recurring Appointments?
No, they won’t. To accommodate recurring appointments, we’ve added new filters to the appointment triggers.
A new Event Type filter has been introduced within the appointment trigger settings, allowing you to control which triggers activate based on the type of appointment—whether it’s a Recurring Appointments Calendar, a Non-Recurring Appointments Calendar, or both.
For all existing appointment status triggers, a new default filter has been added, labeled Event Type: Normal.
New Filters and Their Scope:
Event Type: This filter allows triggers to be applied specifically for recurring or non-recurring appointment types, or for both.
Event: Normal: Selecting this filter ensures the trigger applies only to non-recurring appointments, which includes all currently configured appointments.
Event: Recurring: This filter limits the trigger to only those appointments booked within calendars where recurring settings are enabled.
Outlook Integration Enhancements
Previously, only the first event in a recurring series would sync correctly with Advisor's Growth, leading to issues when changes were made in Outlook. Now, any changes made to recurring events in Outlook will sync seamlessly with Advisor's Growth, ensuring consistency and reliability across both platforms.
Key Benefits of the Enhanced Sync:
Any edits to recurring events are accurately reflected in Advisor's Growth, maintaining data integrity and reducing scheduling conflicts.
Improved sync helps manage availability better, preventing double bookings and providing a more seamless scheduling experience.
To activate this feature, users must disconnect and reconnect their Outlook integration. Doing so ensures that the latest sync improvements are applied. Additionally, it’s advisable to regularly check sync status, use descriptive event titles, and enable notifications to stay updated on any potential sync issues. These practices will help you maximize the advantages of enhanced synchronization and maintain an organized calendar.
Event: Any
This filter triggers actions for any type of appointment, whether it’s recurring or not.
Additional Notes:
We are phasing out the Customer Booked Appointment Trigger. Moving forward, use the Appointment Status Trigger instead.
When using the Created By filter:
Customer: Functions similarly to the previous Customer Booked Appointment trigger. If this filter is applied, only appointments booked through the widget by a customer will trigger actions.
User: Applies to appointments booked internally in Advisor's Growth or through any source other than the widget.
Other Key Considerations:
Bulk updates (e.g., canceling or rescheduling multiple appointments) are not supported for recurring events.
Users should carefully choose between the options of "Book Next Available Slot," "Skip Booking Unavailable Slot," or "Continue Booking."
If the meeting location is set to Zoom or Google Meet, each recurring appointment will generate a unique meeting URL.
When syncing is enabled, recurring appointments are treated as individual events in third-party calendars.
Recurring appointments are available only for standard slots; custom slots do not support recurring booking.
Recurring appointments cannot be scheduled directly from the opportunities page. While the calendar dropdown will show the recurring option, it only applies to single-slot bookings.