Meeting Scheduler Configuration: SS&E Admin

Overview

This article contains instructions for the SS&E Administrator.

• Instructions for MS Office/Exchange Calendar Integration can be found Microsoft/Office 365/Exchange.
• Instructions for Google Calendar Integration.
• A checklist for SSE Administrators can be found New Meeting Scheduler Checklist for Admins
• Instructions for individual advisors can be found Advisor instructions for New Meeting Scheduler.
• A guide to new best practices for naming convention may be found Naming Conventions for Meeting Scheduler.

Required actions for SS&E Administrator

The meeting scheduler requires action from various parties at each campus, the SS&E admin should ensure these broad actions are complete.

1. Verify that your campus calendar administrator has enabled the new integration.
2. Perform these steps to prepare your SS&E instance for the new scheduler.
   1. Enable modality
   2. Update Services
      1. Remove online/in-person information from titles
      2. Verify naming convention
      3. Provide duration and description
   3. Update Offices 
      1. Verify naming convention
      2. Verify that Offices are linked to correct services and campus
3. Send Watermark-provided instructions to all advisors who expect to use the meeting scheduler and verify they have synced their individual calendar and added modality onto their availability slots

Context within the meeting scheduler

As guiding context consider that main booking page for the students will now include modality and will look as follows:

Students start by selecting a Service, but additional filters may be applied to generate the best slot:

• Staff/advisor
• Campus
• Modality (online, in-person, or phone)
• Office (Financial Aid or Advising Center, etc)

The meeting scheduler is highly dynamic and includes modality, institutions will need to verify that the values within the scheduler align with students and campus.  Please follow the instructions below to guide the process.

1. Enable meeting modality

New meeting scheduler finally offers the institution a way to properly designate meetings as online, in-person, or phone call. Modalities are not available to the legacy scheduler, but when activated, they will appear throughout the new scheduler.

• All meetings after changing to the new scheduler will include modality
• In-person meeting modality is by-default enabled
• To enable online or phone call modality, Admins must activate those modalities from Admin>Meetings>Meeting Modalities
• After the June 14 Advisor Release, advisors will add modality onto their availability windows to indicate whether they want students to book a meeting within that window in-person, online, or phone.
• After the June 14 Advisor Release, advisors will also add their personal online link into their individual settings
  • All online meetings will include the advisor's personal online link within the meeting invitation
  • Students can easily follow the online link from Watermark mobile, Watermark desktop, or their own personal calendar
  • Advisors will admit students to online meetings from their personal waiting room
• Within the new scheduler, students can easily filter on slots to find in-person, online, or phone meeting
• With the creation of modality as a distinct field and meeting length now being specified on the service, meeting types are irrelevant
  • Meeting types will be deprecated and will not appear within the new scheduler
  • Do not continue to edit meeting types

✅Modalities checklist

☐ From Admin>Meetings>Meeting Modalities, ensure the correct modalities are activated

2. Update Services configuration

Advisors will add modality onto their availability slots within their individual settings.

Verify naming convention is appropriate

This is the suggested naming convention for services:

• Academic Pathway Advising
• Access Services
• Career Exploration or Development
• Disability Services
• Financial Aid Advising
• Financial Aid award letter followup
• Loan Questions
• Transfer student guidance
• Tutoring: Accounting
• Tutoring: Multmedia design

Give relevant services a duration and description

Service offerings must have a set duration

Specifying meeting duration for a given service prevents students from selecting inconsistent and arbitrary lengths

• A single duration is required for a service to appear in the new scheduler
• If you find that a service requires different lengths, those are actually different but related services
  • Create a distinct service for services requiring different lengths
  • An example could be:
    • Advising: Incoming Freshman (duration = 30 minutes)
    • Advising: Graduating Senior (duration = 20 minutes)
  • Advisors may select whichever service they wish to offer

Give relevant services a description

The description will appear to students within the new scheduler and will assist students with selecting the correct service

✅Service Offerings checklist

From Admin>Meetings, select Service Offerings. Each service may be edited and activated.

1. ☐ Verify that only relevant services are Active
2. ☐ Verify that relevant services do not contain modality (online or in-person) information
   1. ☐ Bulk deactivate or create new services (as needed)
3. ☐ Add duration to all relevant services
4. ☐ Add a description to services (optional)

3. Update Office listings

• Office listing aligns with how most institutions are already using these terms
• Office listings allow institutions to be more specific and descriptive with these terms, in accordance with Watermark best practice
• Office listings allows students to easily filter on the fields within the new scheduler

Offices may be configured/edited from Admin>Meetings>Offices.

Verify naming convention

Your Offices list will appear within a filter for students and will be most descriptive by following this naming convention:

• Academic Success Center
• Center for Leadership & Service
• Disability Services Office
• Financial Aid Office: Alumni Hall 3rd floor
• International Student Programs
• Tutoring Center
• Writing Center: Main Library

Many institutions have extraneous Offices that may not be appropriate within the context of the meeting scheduler.

• New offices may be created
• Offices may be bulk activated/deactivated
• Only active offices will appear within the new scheduler

Verify that Offices are linked to the correct services and campus

Office is the crucial step binding campus to service offering, indicating to students which activities will be offered where.

• Locations generate for advisor availability windows based on which campuses are linked to offices and services
• If an appropriate Campus does not appear, simply add a new one from the campus screen

The Admin must verify that the correct services are offered at each Office and that the correct physical campus is also linked.

Campus

This field is imported on the "Locations" datafeed and was previously called Locations within the product.

Campus values should make sense to the student within the clarified context of a physical campus. Avoid linking offices to an Online Campus as virtual meetings will be designated via modality. Naming convention should conform to the following:

• Main Campus
• Albany Campus
• Medical Campus (Smithville)

Avoid editing Campuses from the UI as these are linked to other datafeeds and changes will likely be overwritten

If the campus name you need doesn't exist, simply create a new one

New campuses may be created from Admin>Campuses and Buildings>Campuses

Visibility

To smooth a summer 2024 meeting scheduler enhancement, administrators could mark whether individual offices will appear in the old (legacy) scheduler and/or the new scheduler. For all new implementations or users transitioning from the meeting scheduler before July 30, 2024 keep this in mind:

To read more on other configurations for Offices and Campuses

✅Offices Checklist

Work from Admin>Meetings>Offices to prepare for new meeting scheduler

1. ☐ Verify that only relevant Offices are Active
2. ☐ Remove online/in-person indicators from Office names
   1. ☐ Bulk deactivate or create new Offices (as needed)
3. ☐ Verify naming convention is appropriate to new scheduler
4. ☐ Verify that Offices are linked to the correct services and campus
   1. Campus should be a physical campus like "Main Campus"
   2. Create new campus values instead of editing existing ones

4. Role Permissions Configuration

The last administrative step is to permit roles defined within SS&E access to the Meetings tab on the student profile (if not already enabled) as well as the Meeting Scheduler feature. (this step is needed for testing)

1. Navigate to Administration - People & Roles - Roles
2. Select the role that you wish to grant Meeting Scheduler access.
3. Click the "Edit" button.
4. In the "User Info" section, check the checkbox titled "Can See Meetings Tab" if not already checked.
5. In the "Meeting" section, check the checkbox titled "Can Accept Scheduled Meetings".
6. If applicable, check the checkbox title "Can Schedule Meetings for Others" (which allows for others to schedule appointments on behalf of someone else based on role).
7. Click the "Save" button located at top and bottom.
8. Perform steps 1-7 for each role that you wish to permit to use the Meeting Scheduler module.