Scheduling & bookings

DeanDesk includes a full appointment booking system. Staff members publish availability schedules (office hours, counselling sessions, tutoring blocks), and students, parents, or even visitors without an account book time slots through a public booking page. Admins oversee everything — every staff member’s calendar, every booking, and shared school calendars — from a single Scheduling dashboard.

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How scheduling works

1. Staff set availability — Teachers and admins create availability schedules that define when they can be booked, for how long, and under what rules.
2. Clients book sessions — Anyone visits your school’s /book page, picks a provider, chooses a time slot, and submits a booking request. Guests without an account can book too.
3. Providers confirm — New bookings start as Pending Confirmation. The provider (or an admin) confirms, cancels, completes, or marks them as no-shows.
4. Emails keep everyone informed — Confirmation, cancellation, and reminder emails are sent automatically at each stage.

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The Scheduling dashboard

Go to Admin Dashboard → Scheduling (in the Operations section). The page header shows quick stats — bookings this week, pending confirmations, and active calendars — and five tabs:

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Weekly Schedule

The Weekly Schedule tab shows every booking for the current week in a day-by-day grid, alongside availability blocks and calendar events. Use the arrows next to the week range to move between weeks. Two filters narrow the view:

• Filter by Staff — show a single provider’s schedule, or all staff members.
• Filter by Calendar — overlay events from one or more of your shared calendars.

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Manage Bookings

This tab lets an admin work with any staff member’s bookings. The Availabilities view lists the selected staff member’s availability schedules and lets you create or edit them on their behalf — the same editor described in Provider availability below.

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Calendar Types

Shared calendars group related events and can be published to your community or exported to external calendar apps. Click Create Calendar to add one:

• Calendar Name — for example, Academic Calendar or Counselling Sessions.
• Calendar Type — Public Calendar, Counselling, Class Calendar, Office Hours, Administrative, or Custom.
• Color and Description.

Under Visibility & Settings: For calendars with export enabled, use Copy Export URL to get a subscription link for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook, or Download iCal for a one-time file. The Export Institution Calendar header button exports events across calendars for a date range you choose.

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Provider availability

Staff members control their own bookable hours from Profile → My Availability (/profile/availability). This page appears in the profile sidebar under Bookings for teachers and admins. Staff also get a Manage Bookings entry there (/profile/bookings) to confirm and manage their own sessions.

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The public booking page

Anyone can book a session at yourschool.deandesk.com/book. A provider-specific link (from the Copy Link button) skips straight to that provider. The page walks the client through four steps: Select Provider, Choose Time, Your Details, and Confirm.

1. Select Provider — lists every staff member with a public, active availability.
2. Choose Time — shows open slots based on the provider’s weekly hours, buffers, restrictions, and calendar conflicts.
3. Your Details — logged-in users are recognized automatically. Guests enter Email, First Name, Last Name, an optional Phone, and optional notes for the session.
4. Confirm — a summary of the provider, date, time, and location. Clicking Confirm Booking submits the request.

After submitting, the client sees Booking Request Submitted — the booking is pending until the provider confirms it, and the client is notified by email once it is.

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Guest booking

Visitors without an account can book:

• New visitors get an account created for them automatically. They receive an email with their login details so they can manage the booking later.
• Visitors whose email matches an existing account are asked to verify ownership: a one-time confirmation code is emailed to them (valid for 15 minutes) and must be entered to complete the booking.
• Paid sessions require guests to add a card during booking; logged-in users use their saved payment method.

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Members: My Bookings

Logged-in users see their sessions at My Bookings (/my-bookings), with Upcoming, Past, and Cancelled tabs. They can cancel an upcoming booking and provide a cancellation reason. An Upcoming Bookings widget on the Dashboard also surfaces their next sessions.

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Booking lifecycle

Every booking moves through these statuses: Providers and admins act on bookings from the Scheduling dashboard’s Manage Bookings tab or the staff Manage Bookings profile page: Confirm Booking, Cancel Booking, Mark as Completed, and Mark as No-Show.

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Paid sessions

If an availability has a Session Price, the client is not charged when booking. Instead, the fee is charged to the client’s saved default payment method when the session is marked complete — the completion dialog offers Complete & Charge. Stripe must be connected for paid sessions; see Payments setup.

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Booking emails

DeanDesk sends automatic emails throughout the booking lifecycle: All of these are part of the customizable system email library — you can edit their wording, subject lines, and styling at Admin Dashboard → System Email Library. See System emails.

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Next steps