Create or modify service configuration for Appointment Booking

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read

    • Service-level appointment booking enables customers to easily schedule specific services by customizing appointment availability, lead times, notifications, and booking rules.

    Before you begin

    Role required: appointment_booking_admin, admin

    Verify you have an active application configuration (Field Service Order Configuration or Field Service Task Configuration) set up. You can create service-level configuration within an application-level configuration.

    About this task

    To use the appointment booking feature, administrators must create a configuration for each service that is available to customers. In the service configuration, administrators can select a schedule from the Schedules list and set it as Excluded to exclude it from appointment availability.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Appointment Booking > Appointment Booking Configuration.
    2. Select the desired configuration.
      • To configure appointment booking service for work orders, select Field Service Order Configuration
      • To configure appointment booking service for work order tasks, select Field Service Task Configuration
    3. In the Appointment Booking Service Configuration related list, click New.
    4. On the form, fill in the following fields as needed.
      Table 1. Appointment booking service configuration fields
      Field Description
      Enable advanced configuration Option to configure different schedule on a day level when booking appointments.
      Active Activates appointment booking for the service.
      Note:
      If deactivated, customers cannot schedule appointments for the service but can still create work orders.
      Ignore Default Notifications Sends notifications to customers.
      • FALSE (default): Notifications are sent to the customer whenever an appointment is scheduled, rescheduled, or canceled.
      • TRUE: No notifications are sent.
      General Information
      Name The name of the service configuration.
      Configuration The name of the appointment booking configuration to which this service belongs.
      Availability table The table that is used to calculate appointment availability. The default is the Work Order Task [wm_task] table.
      Holiday Schedule The holiday schedule to use when determining availability. Appointment booking evaluates the holiday schedule when determining the number of available appointments and excludes any day in the schedule that is set to Exclude. Click the lookup icon and select a schedule from the Schedules list.
      Note:
      Holiday schedules are useful when the assignment method for tasks is set to manually, which does not consider agent schedules.
      Catalog Information
      Catalog Item Select the catalog item (service) for which this configuration applies.
      Note:
      The catalog item must exist in the service catalog.

      Before configuring appointment booking with work orders, ensure you create a work order template. Similarly, if you are using appointment booking with work order tasks, create a work order task template first.
      Location Field from the record producer that specifies the appointment location.

      Ensure that this field not left blank and is filled with the appropriate location to avoid issues when rescheduling an appointment.
      Appointment is mandatory Enable this check box if it is mandatory that a customer create an appointment when requesting this service.
      • If enabled, the Appointment field appears on the record producer and the user must select an available appointment on the Select Appointment window before submitting the service request.
      • If disabled, the user can submit the service request without selecting an appointment.
      User contact The field on the record provider that determines the individual for whom the appointment is being created. This is a reference field that looks for a sys_user variable and sets variable on the record producer, for example, Contact.

      Ensure that this field not left blank and is filled with the appropriate value to avoid issues when rescheduling an appointment.
      Timezone Appointment timezone (user contact or task location timezone).
      Booking
      Appointments per window Number of available appointments per time slot. Applies primarily for manual assignment. This setting does not apply for auto-assignment or dynamic scheduling, unless a location is not provided. Then, the configuration defaults to the number of appointments per window.
      Lead time Minimum time in hours or days required in advance for customers to book an appointment. Default time is 4 hours.
      Future bookable max days The number of days in advance of the current day for which an appointment can be booked for this service. The default is 14 days.
      Reschedule / Cancel by time The number of hours or days prior to an appointment when cancellation or rescheduling is permitted. The Cancel button is not available if a user attempts to cancel or reschedule an appointment within this time. The default is 4 hours.
      Ignore lead time on reschedule Select to skip lead-time validation when rescheduling appointments.
      Consider holidays for lead time calculation Select to exclude holidays to calculate booking lead times when displaying available appointment booking slots. For example, if a holiday occurs during the lead time calculation period, the system skips the holiday and calculates the lead time using the next available working day.
      Appointments
      Appointment window The duration of the appointment window.
      Note:
      Allow enough time for the work to be started and completed within this window.
      Use slot end time as Select whether the agent should arrive by or complete the job before the window end time.
      Work duration Estimated time needed to complete all tasks created by the record producer. This duration is set for a task when it is created. Work duration is used to determine appointment availability.
      Travel duration (round trip) Average round-trip travel time to the appointment location. Travel duration is used to determine availability.
      Daily Schedule
      Bookable days The days of the week for which appointments can be booked. The default is Monday through Friday.
      Daily start time The start of the work day and the earliest start time for an appointment window.
      Daily end time The end of the work day and the latest end time for an appointment window.
      Include daily break Enable this check box to schedule a break for each bookable day, then select the break start and end times. Can define one break which applies to all days.
      Appointment booking preview Provides a preview of the appointment windows and times based on the selected start and end times, break time, and appointment window.
      Recommendation Configuration
      Maximum slots to recommend The maximum number of recommended slots.

      This field is available only if the Advanced Appointment Booking (com.snc.advanced_appointment_booking) plugin is activated.
      Recommendation score Indicates the minimum score to recommend a slot. Enter a value between 0 and 1.

      This field is available only if the Advanced Appointment Booking (com.snc.advanced_appointment_booking) plugin is activated.
    5. Click Submit.

    Result

    The service-level appointment booking configuration is set up or updated. Users can book appointments based on these customized settings.

    What to do next

    For further customization, you can create service configuration rules to define specific booking conditions or exceptions for individual locations or scenarios. For more information, see Create service configuration rules for a service configuration.