Setting Up Your Online Scheduling Tool (Acuity)

Appointment schedulers are business tools that allow clients to view your real-time availability and book, reschedule, and cancel appointments through a web interface.

We’ve compiled some great resources to make the experience as smooth for you as possible. While this guide focuses on Acuity, there are other options such as calendly, doodle or  simplybook. 

Introduction to Acuity

At DesignGood, we’re huge fans of Acuity and use it for all our new client calls! Check out this video (at the bottom of the linked page) for a quick tutorial and overview.

How Will You Use Acuity?

Now that you’ve gotten to know the basics of Acuity, there are a few things you’ll want to decide before getting set up. To determine how you want to use Acuity, answer these questions:

1. Will you use Acuity for all of your services or for new client calls only? (You can completely customize this to your needs.)
2. How many different types of appointments will you need? (For example, new client consultation, therapy session level 1, virtual session.)
3. Will you use a form on your website to gather information before your prospective clients schedule the call?
4. What types of information will you gather? And will it be different for each type of appointment?
5. Will you accept payments through Acuity or use it solely for scheduling?
   

Getting Started With Acuity

1. Sign up for an account here.
2. Tell Acuity when you're available for appointments. Navigate to Business Settings > Availability to access your calendar. Use the calendar page to set regular hours for your clients to schedule appointments. For example, “I’m available every day from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.” Or set specific days and specific times. Block off days if you have other obligations. You can customize as needed. More info and resources. 
3. Set up at least one appointment type. Navigate to the Business Settings > Appointment Types menu option on the left-hand bar. Then choose “Add new service.” From here you will set the duration, cost (if applicable), description, etc., for each appointment type. More information on setting up appointment types. 
4. Create custom forms. By default, Acuity will ask for the client's name, email and phone number when they book an appointment. If you want more information, you can easily add a custom intake form, or even multiple forms for different types of appointments. Your forms can include text boxes, drop-down lists, multiple-choice questions and yes/no questions. You can also add a file upload field. Once the client selects a time and date, they would then be prompted to fill out the questions you’ve selected for your intake form. For more, see this really helpful video on creating custom forms. 
5. Customize your scheduling page. The scheduling page is what clients will see when they book an appointment with you. This is what DesignGood’s page looks like. You can customize your page with your logo and personalized message as well. Just go to Client Scheduling Page> Customize appearance in the left-hand menu bar. Read more about how to do this here. 
6. Customize your confirmation page. The confirmation page (the screen the client sees after they book) is where you can thank the client for booking with you, add information about their upcoming appointment and input your business contact info. To customize this page, go to Business Settings > Email Settings at the bottom-left menu bar. Read more here. 

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We’ve covered the basics to help you get started, but Acuity has so much to offer! We encourage you to dive deeper into the features so that you can customize a solution that works best for your business. Here is the link to all of the guides and how to’s for the software’s features.