How to take bookings on a hybrid schedule

This feature is available on Individual, Professional and Teams plans.

This year may look different than most for the majority of the workforce. A hybrid schedule of working remotely and in-person can make you wonder how you'll keep your meetings organized, and how you'll clearly communicate where the meeting will take place.

Follow this guide for two solutions on managing a hybrid work schedule.

Solution 1: Create separate booking pages for in-person & virtual appointments

In this solution you will create two booking pages, one for each type of appointment. If you already have an existing booking page, click Edit settings. Once this page is set with your in-person appointments, we can duplicate it. 

Alternatively, you can create a new booking page on your dashboard. 

The following steps can be followed whether your existing booking page is a team booking page, or a booking page for an individual.

1. Modify the Booking page title under the "What" section to indicate in-person appointments.
2. Adjust the Booking page intro to show the specific days you are available for in-person appointments.

• In the "When" section, specify the days and hours you will be available for in-person appointments under "Times & Availability".

If you anticipate that your schedule on which days you're offering in-person appointments may change, select Calendar Managed Availability on this page.

• Navigate to Notifications and include the location of your in-person appointments in your Confirmation and Reminder emails to booker. 
  • On a team booking page, add the office address under each team member under Calendar & Teams in the Team Description box, and then reference this location in the confirmation emails using the shorthand code {TEAM-DESCRIPTION}.

• Navigate to the "What" section, and add the location of your in-person meetings to the Calendar Event that is added to your calendar and your bookers. Choose "Set an address or place" and input the address in the provided field.
  • On a team booking page, add the office address under each team member under Calendar & Teams in the Team Description box, and then reference this location in the calendar event using the shorthand code {TEAM-DESCRIPTION}.

Once the page modifications are complete, Duplicate the booking page on your dashboard. On the duplicated booking page, click Edit settings. 

• Under General settings, edit the Booking page title to reflect virtual bookings. Edit the Booking page link that you'll share for your virtual appointments. Your Booking page intro can be modified to display the days you are working remotely. 

• In the "When" section, specify the days and hours when virtual appointments will be available under "Times & Availability".

• Navigate to Notifications Actions and include the meeting link for your virtual meetings in your Confirmation and Reminder emails to booker. 
  • If your Zoom account is integrated with YouCanBookMe, use {ZOOM} to generate a unique zoom link for each booking. 
  • On a team booking page, remember to set the Zoom account for each team member under Calendar & teams.
  • If you are integrated with Google calendar for bookings, use {GOOGLEMEET} to generate a unique Google Meet link for each booking. 
  • If you are integrated with a Microsoft calendar for bookings, use {MSTEAMS} to generate a unique Microsoft Teams link for each booking.
  • You can also share a static meeting link in your emails. Here's how to share static meeting links on a team booking page. 

• Go to Event details and location, and choose Google Meet for your virtual meetings on the Calendar Event that is included in your calendar and for those who have booked the event.
  • Under Event Location, select Zoom to add the zoom link. Or, in the Calendar event description, use {ZOOM-LINK}.
  • Under Event Location, select Google Meet to add the Google Meet link. Or, in the Calendar event description, use {GOOGLEMEET-LINK}.
  • Under Event Location, select MS Teams to add the Microsoft Teams link. Or, in the calendar event description, use {MSTEAMS-LINK}
  • Under Event Location, select Set an address or place, and add your static meeting link.

[ back to top]

Solution 2: Use Conditional statements in your confirmation emails

If you want to maintain the use of one booking page for all of your appointments, you can employ Conditional Statements in your confirmation emails to provide further information about how you will meet based on the day that is booked.

This solution works if your hybrid schedule is consistent from week to week. We do not recommend this solution on team booking pages. 

• Highly recommended- In the "What" section of your Booking page introduction, it is advisable to specify the days available for in-person appointments and the days exclusively for virtual appointments.

• Navigate to Notifications. In the confirmation and reminder emails add your conditional statements based on the day booked. You will need to create a conditional statement for each day you're available for booking. 

The format is:

{IF}{START-DAY}{EQUALS}Monday{THEN}I'm working remotely. Please join me by video conference on this Zoom link: {ZOOM} {ENDIF}

You will create a separate statement following that format above for each day you're available for booking. The text between the {THEN} and {ENDIF} is the text you want to display in the email based on the day of the week booked. 

Copy and paste your created conditional statements to:

• Notifications Actions Reminders before the booking Reminder email to the booker
• Notifications Calendar Events body of the Calendar event Description
• Booking form After booking On the confirmation page that displays on screen after booking.

Make a test booking

We recommend that you make a test booking on your page to make sure the conditional statements are displaying the information you'd like.

[ back to top]

Note about Microsoft Outlook "Working Elsewhere" status

The way Outlook reports "Working Elsewhere" status to YouCanBookMe is as a busy event and this will block your availability in YouCanBookMe. Please keep this in mind when troubleshooting why some days/times are not available on your booking page. 

[ back to top]

For further questions, contact our team at support@youcanbook.me.
Join YCBM's Community Forum
Access your YCBM Dashboard