As a photographer, I have the challenge of trying to schedule appointments with people with calendars that I cannot see (unlike a regular office where a free/busy search can be performed to check availability). The majority of my appointments are one on one and in the past they have taken many email messages to complete. Here's an example of what used to be an typical email exchange:
- Client: We're ready to book our session. When are you available?
- Me: Here's a list of possible dates and times.
- A day or two later....Me: oops, I've schedule some new sessions. Here's a revised list of dates and times.
- Client: Great! How about x?
- Me: Okay, that works for me. We're confirmed.
Not pretty. It was one of the things I felt like I was really struggling with. I really wanted to make it easier to schedule my portrait sessions. I wanted my customers to have the luxury of checking their calendars and picking an appointment that would work well for them. But I hated the back and forth email, the constant checking of my calendar, and trying to remember to send an update if something else got booked in the meantime! So I've been thinking about ways I could share a calendar online.
I really wanted to have an online calendar that would allow me to show my availability for appointments, and be updated automatically when I scheduled something in Outlook. Most of the online calendars I found were very limited in the ability to both sync with Outlook, and let me set the time/days that I was available for appointments.
That's why I was so excited when I saw a post on Webware about an online scheduling platform designed to sync with Outlook!!!! Enter iPolipo.
With the new version that was just released, I get pretty much everything I need to simplify scheduling.
First, I creating my account on their site and creating my subscription option (they have two levels, one is $99/year, the other is $149/year). They offer a 30 day free trial and then the subscription kicks in. If it turns out that this is not the right product for you, it is easy to cancel the subscription since they use Paypal for their subscription management.
Next, I had to download the plug-in for Outlook. It was a quick and easy installation and I was ready to roll after logging in through the plug in.
Essentially, what you can do is block sections of your calendar as available for one or more groups that you have created. I created three groups: Portrait Sessions, Client Review Session (onsite), Client Review Sessions (my home). The customers don't see these labels; they are for you to distinguish in your calendar. Each time segment can be made available to multiple groups, and once an appt is accepted, that slot will be unavailable to all the groups.
There are a couple of ways you can communicate your availability. You can send an email invitation through Outlook or through the web interface by entering the email address and choosing the group view that person should see. The length of time they can view depends on your selection and your subscription level.
But with the release of the new version there is an even more exciting option for communicating your availability....a link directly from your website. In just a few easy steps, you create a custom URL that will always go to whatever group view you've selected in your preferences. And if you aren't super technical, it will even give you the graphic and the code that you would use to drop the link into your website. If you are even just a little web savvy you can also create your own graphic to link to the calendar. You can even brand the calendar with your logo or other image!
They've had great customer service too. I've had personal email messages sent to me directly from the president responding to questions that I had and it is easy to give them feedback for features I'd like to see in future versions.
After getting set up a couple of weeks ago, I'm really liking how this application works. It is perfect for scheduling one on one meetings. So far I've scheduled 5 portrait sessions using this tool and everyone has commented on how easy it was to use. When you send an invitation to view a limited time span in your calendar, the client DOES NOT have to create an account.
Check out their site and look for their web demos which they host twice a week.
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