Setting up a Parent Teacher conference booking page

Using YouCanBookMe to book Parent-Teacher meetings in person or virtually this year? Follow this guide to complete your setup. 

In this article: 

• Request a PTC plan
• Invite teachers to share their calendars
• Set up a booking page for your entire school
• Other booking page configurations

Request a Parent-Teacher Conference plan 

YouCanBook.me offers a specially priced subscription for parent-teacher conferences which offers paid access to for all of your teachers for up to 30 days. Request a Parent Teacher subscription from the YouCanBook.me support team via this page (more about the pricing here). You can request up to 4 conferences a year, each request submitted separately.

Invite teachers to share calendars

Each teacher taking bookings for the conference will need to have their own Google or Outlook calendar, so bookings can go directly into their personal calendar. They can also integrate their Zoom account to generate unique Zoom meeting links for each virtual conference. 

If your teachers are using Google calendars, YouCanBook.me can also generate unique Google Meet links for each of their bookings. 

Through YouCanBook.me you can invite them to join the account as a Contributor, where they can securely share their calendar and optional Zoom account credentials. 

On your Team Management page, Click Invite team members to start inviting your teachers. Enter their email address to send the invitation.

Each teacher will receive an email asking them to join your YouCanBook.me account. Once they click on the invitation from their email, they will be prompted to create an account and connect their Google or Outlook account. Next, they can click on Integrations and also connect their Zoom account. 

Setting up a booking page for your entire school

On your dashboard, click + to create a new booking page

Once your booking page is created, click Edit settings on the Dashboard. On the left side of the screen, you can navigate through your settings for this booking page. 

Under General:

1. Optional - upload the logo
2. Rename the Booking page title to identify this booking page.
3. Set a location for the meeting (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or a physical location).
4. Give the booking page a unique link to identify it, like school-xxxx (the full link will end in .youcanbook.me)
5. Give clear instructions to the parent in the Booking page intro

In the "who" section Calendar in teams: 

1. Toggle Teams to On.
2. When you turn on this feature you'll be prompted by a pop-up to create a notification to the teacher after booking.

Click + add team member to create a new entry for each teacher. 

For each teacher you add to the booking page:

1. Enter their name for bookings [you can refer to this later using the shorthand code {TEAM-NAME}]
2. The email address where they will receive notifications about bookings [you can refer to this later using the shorthand code {TEAM-EMAIL}]
3. The specific calendar that YouCanBook.me should check for conflicts and where new bookings will be added. Each member should be linked to their own unique calendar.
4. Select their integrated Zoom account if they want Zoom links generated for each booking [you can refer to this later using the shorthand code {ZOOM}]. You can also setup Google Meet here under Notifications Calendar Events Event Location.
5. Enter a description that will appear on the Team member selection page [you can refer to this later using the shorthand code {TEAM-DESCRIPTION}]

Click Back to calendar & team settings to continue adding team members.

When you've added members, you can reorder them using the arrows on the left side of their name. You can decide to include a "no preference" option if a parent can meet with any member, and edit the Team page intro text, as this will be the first thing the parents see when they access the booking page. 

Under Duration & availability:

1. Check the days of your conference and the times. 

If you want just those days to appear on the booking page, set a fixed start and end date.

Under availability rules: 

1. You can select the minimum booking notice and the maximum advance booking that best suits you.

Under Language & timezones:

Recommended - uncheck Automatically detect bookers timezone to make sure all bookings happen in the same timezone as your teachers calendars.

Under Booking form:

1. Edit or add additional questions to the booking form, ie. the students name, the parents phone number, etc. 
2. Edit team member name for clarity.

Under Notifications Calendar Events

1. Edit the calendar event title - this is how the appointment will appear on the teachers calendar and the parents calendar. 
2. Include any additional information in the calendar event description for the parent. 
3. Toggle Invite participants to your calendar event to On to ensure the booking is automatically added to the parents calendar.

Under Notifications.

There are templated emails that will send to you the account owner, the parent and also a teacher when a booking is made. You can edit these confirmation emails under the section After new booking made. Click on any email to edit the content of the template. 

Add the shorthand code {ZOOM} for Zoom links and {GOOGLEMEET} for Google Meet links in the body of the email to display the special video conference link for that meeting. 

Create a reminder email before the start of the appointment under the section Reminders before the booking.

Edit when the reminder will trigger, and customize the body of the email using Shorthand codes.

Other booking page configurations

Instead of creating a booking page for the entire school you can:

• Create a booking page by grade level
  • Follow the steps above, only adding the teachers associated with that grade level
  • For multiple grade levels, copy your existing booking page, and just change the team members connected on the Calendar & teams page
• Create a unique booking page for each teacher
  • Follow the steps above, but under Calendar & teams add a single teacher, and check the box "Assume no preference"
  • Teams need to be enabled to link to each Teachers personal Zoom account
  • For multiple teachers, copy the existing booking page and edit the team member listed under Calendar & teams.

For further questions, contact our team at support@youcanbook.me.
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