Appointment Booking Tools
The following is a brief summary of each online scheduling tool in use by Gonzaga and how they differ:
Zoom Scheduler (recommended)
Scheduler is a new online scheduling tool from Zoom released in 2023 - and integrates beautifully with Gonzaga's phone and video conferencing platform. It is designed to make scheduling and hosting online meetings easier and faster. It allows you to set availability and manage your appointments directly from your calendar, including recurring or one-off instances of your availability. You can create a personalized booking page, sync your calendar, and automatically generate Zoom meeting links for your appointments within Outlook. It also has features such as round-robin meeting distributions, group scheduling, meetings with multiple hosts, custom branding, and analytics. Zoom also manages your automated or customized confirmations and reminders via SMS or email, meaning fewer late arrivals and fewer no shows.
- Limitations: the multitude of scheduling options can be confusing. See ITS Knowledge Base articles and how-to snapshots for help (or call us). Doesn't support using other platforms (like MS Teams or Google Meet).
- Cost: This is available to you at no cost. Learn more here or watch the demo on YouTube; then log in to your Gonzaga zoom account to set up appointment scheduling.
Microsoft Booking (supported)
Part of the university's Microsoft 365 suite of business tools, and integrates well with Outlook and other Microsoft products. It is a simple and straightforward tool that allows you to create a booking page, manage your availability, and send confirmations and reminders. Microsoft Bookings works only with your Outlook/Office calendar. Your booking page only shows available times based on your linked calendar. You can customize appointment duration and how far in advance customers can book appointments, and build in time buffers between meetings. Booking also allows you to create a booking page for a team, which is great when you would like to distribute meetings across people.
- Limitations: Booking does not have many advanced features, such as payment processing, video conferencing integrations, or workflow automation. It does not include zoom link for virtual meetings.
- Cost: This tool is available to you at no cost and you can start using it immediately without ITS support. Click here to get started.
Acuity
A powerful and flexible online scheduling tool that offers a lot of customization and functionality. It allows you to create multiple booking pages, accept payments and deposits, offer coupons and gift certificates, and integrate with various tools such as Zoom, Stripe, PayPal, and Mailchimp. It also has features such as recurring appointments, time zone conversion, intake forms, and client management.
- Limitations: May have a steeper learning curve than other tools, as it has a lot of options and settings to configure.
- Cost: It does not have a free plan, only a 7-day free trial. The university does not have an enterprise license for this tool. Departments who choose to use this tool fund it from their individual department's budget.
Calendly
As of 11/2024, Gonzaga no longer allows Calendly due to the way the vendor uses Gonzaga data. Please refer to Provost and Morning Mail communications regarding this change.
ITS is assisting existing Calendly users in transitioning to Zoom Scheduling.
Support Contacts
Training, assistance, and support are available for Microsoft Booking and Zoom Scheduler through techsupport@gonzaga.edu. The university does not support Acuity.
Related Link(s)