Chili Piper's Availability Schedule feature streamlines the booking process by allowing users to create custom schedules for certain scenarios. This ensures that the right times are available for the right meetings, improving efficiency and organization. By tailoring availability, users can better manage their calendars and provide a seamless scheduling experience for prospects.
More details about this feature can be found below!
Table of Contents
When should I use the Availability Schedule?
For example, suppose you will host a training session for your customers from Monday to Wednesday, from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., and you have a specific meeting type that contains all the data you need for these sessions.
This is an actual use case to exemplify a good use of this feature, but you also have many options to benefit from it!
How to create an Availability Schedule?
At the header, click where it says "My availability", and then "Create New Availability Schedule"
After clicking the "Create New Availability Schedule" option is selected, you will see all weekdays, where you will be able to enable or disable them and also set the start and working hours for each day.
You can use the "Copy to All" button to copy the selected working hours to all other days, saving some time and manual effort:
You can also use the "Add Interval" button to work with slots like 9 AM to 12 PM and 2 PM to 4 PM on the same day, not needing to add any calendar blockers if you do not want to be available for some hours, for example.
Once created, the Availability Schedule will be flagged with a different color. Click "My Availability" at the header, and the color associated with the Availability Schedule will be shown.
If your Availability Schedule has a "Draft" flag right next to it, it means that it's currently not active because you likely have not published it. Click "Edit" and then "Publish" to make it active.
Using our example above, in the Scheduler, notice the green lines pointing out the start/end times for the Availability Schedule, following the green icon next to the Availability Schedule's name in the previous screenshot:
There are some extra settings to be aware of, and that can be helpful for your use case:
Meeting Types
Other meeting types can be included in the same schedule. Click on it, and a dropdown will be displayed with your meeting types to be selected.
Note that Meeting Types with the option to Overwrite Host's default schedule will not be available in the dropdown.
Active On
This will define when the schedule should start and finish. Using the same example we shared above about the training session, let's suppose they begin on 03/15/2024 and finish on 03/21/2024. This setting will help you automatically activate and deactivate the schedule once it starts and finishes, avoiding manual efforts.
Keep the end date blank so as not to finish it on a specific date.
Timezone
It allows you to select the timezone of your schedule. You can sync from your calendar or manually include one if you are working in a different timezone, for example.
To manually include any timezone, the "Sync from my calendar" toggle needs to be disabled first.
Time strictly reserved
If this toggle is enabled, you can schedule only the meeting types you associate with this schedule during this time.
Using the training sessions example again, let's suppose you would only like to have them scheduled during those days and timeframes, with no other meeting types (Demos, Support calls, etc) happening on the same dates and times. Enabling it will be a good option for you!
Don't forget to Publish your changes once you are done! If any settings are missing, the Publish option will not be available, and ChiliCal will list what is currently pending to be done.