Manage virtual appointments
Enable virtual appointments
There are a variety of reasons businesses and guests may prefer to have virtual consultations such as weight loss consultations, personal fitness sessions, or to gather tips from experts to mix hair color.
In case of temporary business disruptions too, where trainers and guests cannot make it to a particular appointment in person, virtual appointments become handy, meaningful, time-saving, and safe. Note that, such appointments are ‘safe’ as these are in line with social distancing norms; these services are also contactless - the provider and the guest do not come in physical contact.
Before you begin
Reach out to your administrator to enable virtual appointments for your business: Also specify whether you want to use virtual appointments such that virtual links are manually assigned or automatically assigned.
Include meeting details using accurate macros in email and text notifications: You can ensure smooth communication with guests using the regular notifications such as the Appointment Confirmation notification, Appointment Reminder notification, and Appointment Rescheduled notifications. The email and text notification templates for these notifications have macros specific to virtual appointments namely, [ServiceNameVideoLinkList]. Ensure you use these macros to your advantage.
Ensure your regular email and text notifications are switched on at the organization level: You can ensure smooth communication between your business and guests by ensuring that the appropriate emails and text notifications such as Appointment Confirmation, Appointment Reminder, and Appointment Rescheduled notifications are switched on.
Ensure you have enough SMS/Email credits for the centers where you plan to use virtual appointments: For the smooth running of business, we recommend you have enough SMS/Email credits. To purchase email/text credits, go to Marketplace.
Manually send out reminders
The front-desk staff has an option to manually send out reminders for virtual appointments when guests make last-minute bookings. Guests may also reschedule their virtual appointments. In all such cases, the regular notifications (appointment confirmation and appointment reminder) may not trigger - meaning guests would not have received the details of the virtual appointment.
The front-desk can quickly use the context menu (from the appointment block) to send out reminders to guests.
Important
You must ensure the following settings are in place for these reminders to go out as expected.
Zenoti considers the appointment reminder template at the organization level to send out reminders. Ensure the template is switched on for the reminder to trigger from this context menu.
Ensure the Send transactional message checkbox from Guest Profile is selected so that such messages are sent appropriately.
View virtual appointments on Appointment Book
To launch a virtual appointment, on the top panel of the redesigned Appointment Book, click Appointments drop-down.
Select View appointments with virtual meeting details or View appointments without virtual meeting details.
You will be able to see only virtual appointments (either with or without meeting details depending on your choice).
To view all appointments and not just virtual ones, click Appointments, then select Clear All, and click Apply.
Note
In the existing appointment book, to hide the virtual appointments, on the message that appears at the top of the screen, click Hide.
Book virtual appointments on ZMA v1
When there is a temporary business disruption where trainers and guests cannot make it to a particular appointment in person, virtual appointments become handy, meaningful, time-saving, and safe.
During such times, businesses and guests may prefer to have virtual consultations for services such as weight-loss, personal fitness, or beauty services.
Since virtual appointments are ‘safe’ as these are in line with social distancing norms to avoid any form of physical contact, Zenoti has introduced the ability to book such virtual appointments from Zenoti Mobile (iOS and Android).
When you book the virtual sessions, your guests can use the virtual appointment link to attend and receive services or consultations.
Before you Begin
You need to make sure the following actions are done:
Enable the setting, Enable Virtual Appointment at the organization level.
Create a template that allows you to add the virtual appointment link and add the macros [EmailVirtualAppointmentLink] and [SMSVirtualAppointmentLink] that allows you to send the virtual appointment link to a guest’s email or phone via SMS. To know more, read: Enable Virtual Appointments
When you enable Geofence for your business, for an an employee role select Can access all data outside geofence region on Zenoti Mobile permission at the organization level, go to Configurations Security > Security roles select a role > General tab.
To book a virtual appointment
Access Appointments from in Zenoti Mobile.
The appointment page appears.
To start booking an appointment, tap the + sign.
Important
The + sign appears only if you have the required permissions.
The Search a Customer screen appears.
Use the search bar to search and select your guest.
Hint: You can also add a new guest while booking the appointment.
Tap Add Service.
Select the service, provider, day, and time when you want the book the service.
The service is added to the appointment and the option to book a virtual appointment appears.
Tap Virtual Appointment.
Add the virtual appointment link and the options to send the virtual appointment appear.
Note
If you do not have a link to the virtual session, you can still create a virtual appointment. You can tap the edit option near Virtual Appointment Details that appears in the Appointment Details screen and add the virtual link at a later point of time.
Do one of the following:
To email the link, tap the Email Details tab.
To send the link via SMS, tap the Text Details tab.
Tap Save.
The virtual appointment is booked for the guest and the link is shared with your guest.
(Optional) As a front-desk staff you can tap Send Reminder to send an appointment reminder to your guest.
Note
Send Reminder appears only if the following is enabled:
The virtual appointments appear in the Appointment screen when using List or Calendar view including the employees with view-only access.
View virtual appointments in ZMA v1
The front-desk staff can check the virtual appointments booked for the day and ensure that every virtual appointment has a link. The front-desk staff can add the virtual appointment link if it is missing.
To view virtual appointments
Access Appointments in Zenoti Mobile.
The appointment page appears.
Tap the filter that appears on the top right-hand side of the screen.
The Filters window appears.
Note
You can open the filter in List or Calendar view.
Tap the Virtual Appointments tab.
The options to filter virtual appointments appears.
Select one of the following:
To view appointments that contain a link to the virtual session, tap With virtual meeting details.
To view appointments that do not contain virtual session, tap Without virtual meeting details.
Based on your selection, the results appear on the Appointment screen.
Set up a virtual waiting room
Note
The feature is available only on tablets and ZMA v2 and is powered by Zoom.
To learn more about how your business can use a virtual waiting room, you can go through this step-by-step guide.
Step 1 - Enable Zoom integration
Reach out to your manager to enable Zoom integration.
Step 2 - Enable waiting room
Reach out to your manager to enable waiting room for your organization.
Step 3 - Enable waiting room for the centers
At the center level, click the Configurations icon.
Locate and select the Enable waiting room setting.
Click Save.
Note
You will have to follow this step for all centers that want to set up a virtual waiting room for their patients.
Step 4 - Mark a doctor as a virtual employee
At the center level, click the Employee icon and navigate to Employee > Employees.
Search and select the doctor's name.
On the General tab, go to the Job Info section and select the Virtual Employee option.
Click Save.
Note
You will need this step to mark a remotely based doctor as a virtual employee so they can use the waiting room and generate Zoom links to connect with their patients and nurse.
Step 5 - Set security permissions for your virtual employees
At the organization level, click the Configurations icon and navigate to Security > Security Roles.
Select the role for which you want to enable the permissions.
Go to the Permissions tab.
Go the Appointment Book section and select the Waiting Room View and Waiting Room Edit permissions.
These permissions allow the virtual employee to change status for patients in the waiting room, like accepting and closing their consultations. By only selecting Waiting Room View, you can also configure managers to have just view access to the waiting room.
Click Save.
Step 6 - Mark a service or service segment as virtual
6a. Mark a service as virtual
At the organization level, click the Masterdata icon and navigate to Services.
Search and select a service.
On the General tab, select the Virtual service checkbox.
Click Save.
6b. Mark a service segment as virtual
At the organization level, click the Masterdata icon and navigate to Services.
Search and select a service.
On the General tab, click Define Service Segments.
For the segment you want to mark as virtual, select the segment and select the Virtual checkbox
Click Save.
Note
You can either mark a service or a service segment as virtual, not both.
After configuring all the above settings, you can start using the virtual waiting room on ZMA v2.
Launch a virtual appointment from web
Appointment book
Navigate to the redesigned appointment book and click the appointment block that has a virtual service.
Click Launch virtual appointment or click the Zoom icon from the bottom panel in the appointment book.
From the Zoom page, click the Launch Meeting button.
Booking wizard
Launch booking wizard from the appointment book.
From the appointment details panel, click the Zoom icon.
From the Zoom page, click the Launch Meeting button.
Launch a virtual appointment from ZMA
Navigate to the appointment details panel.
Click the Zoom icon.
From the Zoom page, click the Launch Meeting button.