Scheduler

Beyond 1:1 appointments, Scheduler handles group sessions (multiple students in the same slot) and drop-in clinics (students arrive without booking, served in arrival order). Both integrate into the same calendar and reporting infrastructure.

• Create a group session appointment type with maximum capacity — the slot closes once full
• Group sessions show "X places remaining" in the student portal — creating useful urgency for high-demand sessions
• Drop-in mode is configured by setting an appointment type to "Walk-in" — the live queue is managed from Scheduler → Today's Queue
• The Today's Queue view shows student name, arrival time, and wait position for all active drop-in sessions
• Hybrid sessions (some pre-booked, some drop-in) can be configured by splitting a time window between booking types

Scheduler syncs with Microsoft Outlook and Google Workspace, creating appointments in both systems simultaneously. Two-way sync means staff who live in Outlook see their SEAtS bookings without checking a second system — and Outlook events are reflected as availability blocks in SEAtS.

• Enable per staff member in Scheduler → My Settings → Calendar Integration
• Two-way sync: SEAtS appointments appear in Outlook/Google, and events created in Outlook appear as blocks in SEAtS
• The sync runs every 5 minutes — a new booking may take up to 5 minutes to appear in the external calendar
• Conflict detection in Scheduler → Config → Conflict Rules prevents students booking overlapping appointments across multiple staff members
• If a linked Teams meeting is cancelled by the organiser, SEAtS flags the appointment as "Unconfirmed" for follow-up

Student no-shows waste staff time and leave at-risk students without support. SEAtS includes tools for tracking no-shows, automating follow-up, and identifying students who repeatedly book and cancel — patterns that can themselves be welfare signals.

• Mark a student "Did Not Attend" from the appointment record — records the no-show in the student's timeline
• An automated follow-up email can be triggered by a no-show — configure the template in Scheduler → Config → No-Show Actions
• Students with three or more no-shows in a semester appear on the Repeated No-Shows report in Scheduler → Reports
• A no-show combined with a declining Engage score is a compound welfare signal — the CRM workflow builder can auto-create a case when both conditions are met
• No-show rate per appointment type and staff member is in Scheduler → Reports → Attendance Summary

Scheduler data gives student services managers the information to plan staffing levels, predict peak demand, and make evidence-based cases for additional resource — particularly useful in the weeks before budget or staffing reviews.

• The Weekly Demand report (Scheduler → Reports → Weekly Demand) shows total bookings, attended appointments, and no-show rates by week
• Appointment type breakdown shows which services are in highest demand — use this to prioritise where additional staff time should be allocated
• Comparing demand against alert volumes gives a fuller picture: "450 welfare alerts this semester, 280 appointments booked — what happened to the other 170?"
• Year-on-year comparison shows whether demand has grown and by how much — essential for resource planning discussions
• The Peak Demand Heatmap identifies highest booking pressure days and times for next semester availability configuration

For complex access requirements — different booking entitlements by year group or programme, or appointments requiring a prerequisite meeting — Scheduler's advanced booking rules engine enforces these structures automatically.

• Create restriction rules in Scheduler → Config → Booking Rules; evaluated at the point of booking
• Restriction types: year group, programme code, module enrolment, custom student attribute, and sequential booking (must attend A before booking B)
• Priority booking windows give specific groups early access before general availability opens
• Waitlists are automatically created for full appointment types — cancellations trigger an automatic confirmation to the next waitlisted student
• All booking rule changes are logged in the audit trail with the changing user and effective date

For institutions exposing Scheduler availability through third-party portals, or synchronising appointment data with timetabling or room booking systems, SEAtS provides API access to all Scheduler functions.

• The API supports read (available slots, bookings, capacity) and write (create booking, cancel booking, update availability) operations
• Embed the Scheduler booking widget in your student portal using an embeddable iframe with a signed authentication token
• Room booking integration: confirmed appointments can trigger automatic room reservations in your room booking system via webhook
• Calendar API export (iCal format) lets staff subscribe to their Scheduler calendar from any iCal-compatible client
• API-created bookings appear identically to portal-created bookings in all reports

Scheduler reporting serves two purposes: operational visibility (bookings, no-shows, type breakdown) and outcome measurement (do students who use Scheduler support have better outcomes?). Both are available, but outcome measurement requires connecting Scheduler data to SEAtS student outcome records.

• Operational reports: total bookings, no-show and cancellation rates, average wait time from booking to appointment
• Link appointments to outcomes using the case outcome field in the CRM when appointments involved a welfare case
• Scheduler → Reports → Student Journey shows individual booking histories alongside attendance and engagement trends over the same period
• Service reach: what percentage of students with alerts made at least one booking — measures how well alerts are translating into actual support uptake
• Export all reports for Annual Monitoring, external quality submissions, or resource planning

Large institutions have advisor teams across multiple schools, faculties, and service departments — each with different appointment types, access rules, and reporting lines. Scheduler supports hierarchical team structures that let departments manage their own availability within an institution-wide reporting framework.

• Organise staff into Scheduler Teams (Admin → Scheduler → Teams) — teams share a booking page and a dedicated student-facing booking URL
• Each team has its own appointment type list and can configure its own booking window schedule independently
• Cross-team booking via the Universal Booking Page lets a student book with any available advisor across all teams
• Team managers with the "Team Supervisor" role see all bookings and reports for their team without system administrator access
• Institution-level reports (Admin → Scheduler → Institution Reports) aggregate data across all teams for central reporting