Overview: What are we talking about?
Specialists are employees who can be scheduled to perform specific services by appointments (e.g. groomers and trainers). Specialists can also have commission automatically attached to the services they complete.
In this article, we will show you how to set up an existing user as a specialist, how to set their schedule, services, and commission for each service they perform.
This article includes:
- Setting Up Specialists
- Setting Up Time-Based Specialists
- Setting Up Slot-Based Specialists
- Assigning a Specialist to Multiple Services
- Copying a Specialist's Schedule
- Setting Commission and Customer Portal Settings
- Schedule Overrides
- Setting a Specialist as Unavailable
- Settings
- FAQ
Helpful Hints: Before you begin.
- A user account in Gingr is required to create a specialist schedule. If you still need to create a user account, click here to learn how to create a new user.
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Time-based Specialists have appointments set at specific times for specific durations, as opposed to Slot-Based Specialists who have appointments set based on their general workload capacity for any given date.
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Slot-Based Specialists have appointments set based on their general workload capacity for any given date. Slot-based appointments are created for specific dates, but not at specific times. You can add a drop off and pick up time, but that is optional.
- For more information about editing/removing specialist shifts please see our article on Removing Specialist Shifts.
How to: Set up specialists.
This section will demonstrate how to add a user to the Manage Schedules page, how to create a schedule, and how to copy a schedule. Note: in order to create a new specialist you must first create a new user account if you haven't already.Add a User to the Manage Schedules Page
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Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » Manage Schedules.
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Select the Location.
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Add the User to the schedule by clicking the "+" button in the user column.
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Select the User and click the Save button.
Create a Specialist Schedule
You have to create the schedule for each day of the week. You can create each day of the week manually, or if all days are the same, you can copy one day to the next. This section will show how to create a new time block.
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Add a shift to a day of week by clicking the "+" button under the date.
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Select Specialist Shift
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Select the Service that this specialist is available for. If the selected service is not currently appointment-based the user will be presented with a pop-up indicating that the service is not currently appointment-based. Please note that if the user chooses to continue, the service will automatically be reconfigured as an appointment-based service moving forward.
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Select Time Based or Slot Based (see below for a breakdown of time based vs slot based)
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Choose whether this shift will Apply to All Future Shifts.
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If set to yes, this shift will repeat for your chosen day of the week for that service.
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If set to no, the shift will only apply to that date.
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Time-based Specialists have appointments set at specific times for specific durations, as opposed to Slot-Based Specialists who have appointments set based on their general workload capacity for any given date. Slot-based appointments are created for specific dates, but not at specific times, however, you can select a drop-off and pick-up time if you would like.
Continue down to set start and end times the user will be available to perform this specific service. Time spots on the calendar will be determined by the interval set for the service (this is setup by going to Left Navigation: Admin » Reservation Types and Services Configuration) and the specialist's availability and will be influenced by the capacity set for that time-slot. For instance, if the Bath & Brush service has an interval of 30 minutes, and you make your specialist available from 8 am - 5 pm, there will be 18 available times spots for this user, 30 minutes each. The first will be at 8:00 am, the last at 4:30 pm. If you have a set capacity of 1 for this service, the system will show one opening per time-spot for that service. If your capacity is set to 2 for that service, the system will show two available appointments for each time spot.
Important! For time-based specialists, you will be scheduling shifts that specialists will be working within a weekly schedule; however, it is important to understand that when scheduling specialist shifts, the start time indicated the first time that a specialist can be booked, not necessarily when they are scheduled to clock in. It is important to test your setup after configuring it to ensure that it is functioning properly.
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Select available Start and End times for each day of the week and a capacity per time for that service.
Important! Note that capacities are per appointment time, not for the entire duration of the time block you are creating here.
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Optionally add breaks in the day by clicking the "Add Shift" icon to the right of the time pickers.
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To delete a set of Start and End times, click on the red "x" next to the time set that you want to remove. If the time set is reoccurring, then you will be asked if you want to remove that time set for just that date or for all future dates.
If you remove all available time sets for a specialist then that specialist will not be available for that service on those date(s).
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Click the Save button to save the schedule.
The specialist will show a service shift for that day of the week. You will notice a recurring icon next to a shift if that shift is set to reoccur for that day of the week.
Setting Up Slot-Based Specialists
Time-based Specialists have appointments set at specific times for specific durations, as opposed to Slot-Based Specialists who have appointments set based on their general workload capacity for any given date. Slot-based appointments are created for specific dates, but not at specific times. For each slot-based specialist, just enter the number of slots per day of the week. You may also enter a drop-off and pick-up time if you wish.
Important! The number of slots you set per day of the week will apply to all of this user's slot-based service availabilities.
Assigning a Specialist to Multiple Services
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Simply click on a shift that you have already created to bring up the "edit shift" pop-up window.
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From the services list, add any additional services for that specialist.
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Choose between a time-based or slot-based availability.
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Adjust the commission, show to customer, and apply to all future shifts settings as needed.
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Save your changes.
Copying a Specialist's Schedule
You can create one day and copy it over to the rest of the days or copy one specialist's schedule to another specialist if the schedules are the same. It's not necessary to create each day individually if they are all the same.
To copy from one day to the next for the same specialist:
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First, set up your time-based or slot-based blocks following the directions above.
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Then, Edit them by clicking a shift.
- Click the Copy Icon.
- Check each day to which that service should be copied.
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Click the Copy Shifts button.
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Repeat for other services as needed.
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A green success message will display, your shifts are copied!
Note: You may need to refresh the screen to see your changes.
To copy a specialist's schedule from one specialist to the next:
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Click the Manage Specialist's button.
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Click the Copy icon next to a service you wish to copy.
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Select the User you wish to copy to and all of the services you wish to copy.
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Click the Copy Specialist button.
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A green success message will display, your shifts are copied!
Note: You may need to refresh the screen to see your changes.
Setting Commission and Customer Portal Settings
- On the Manage Schedules page, click the Manage Specialists button on the upper right of the page.
- On the pop up window, enter the Commission and indicate a preference for whether the Specialist should Show to Customers when booking on the customer portal. Commission should be entered as a decimal amount, equivalent to their %. Ex. 50% is entered as 50.00.
- Save your changes.
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Find the shift that you want to change and click the shift to open the "edit shift" pop-up window.
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Change, add or remove start and end times (or slots) as needed.
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To make your change apply only to the date that you are editing, set the Apply to All Future Shifts setting to No.
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To delete a date, click the red x next to the time block you'd like to delete.
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Save your changes.
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Alex is unavailable for the entire date.
In this example, Alex typically takes appointments for the service "Grooming Services | Full Service Groom" on Thursdays. However, on December 6th, she needs the day off.
We will edit Alex's shift and remove the shift for just December 6th.
Important! Days, where a recurring schedule was removed to make a specialist unavailable for a service, will be designated by an orange exclamation point. You can click on this exclamation point to remove the override and restore the original, recurring schedule.
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Alex has a dentist appointment and needs to take a break in the middle of their day.
If your specialist needs to break from 12PM-1PM, and normally works from 9 AM - 5 PM, you will set up two overrides to accommodate the time that they will be available.
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Alex is going to work different hours for one day.
Alex usually works 9 AM - 5 PM, but instead, she will work 9 AM - 6 PM to accommodate one more appointment. Add an override for the new availability as follows.
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Alex is working on a day that they normally don't work.
Alex doesn't usually work on Saturdays, but they will be available for one Saturday. You will add a new shift for that date and set Apply to All Future Dates to No.
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Alex has to leave early on this date.
Alex usually works from 9 AM - 5 PM, but she needs to leave at 2 PM on this date. We will edit her shift for that date and set the Apply to All Future Shifts setting to No.
Set a Specialist as Unavailable
If a specialist needs a day off or will be on vacation for a few days, you can set them as unavailable from the Facility Calendar. This will prevent appointments from being made during those times.-
Go to Calendar » Facility Calendar.
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On the Day View, click under the specialist who needs to be set as unavailable.
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Click the Mark Unavailable button.
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Set the From Time and Until Time.
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Optionally, add a Note.
- Click the Save button when finished.
Related Settings
Reservation Types and Services Configuration Settings
Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Reservation Types and Services Configuration.
| Setting | Description | Helpful Hint |
| Show on Customer's Side | This setting will determine whether or not customers will be able to view and request this service from the Customer Portal. | |
| Is Scheduled | Turn this setting to "yes" if you would like to: See frequency options for this service (once, every day, every other day, every third day, last day), See the service on the calendar or Schedule this service with a specialist. | |
| Duration | The duration (written in the number of minutes) will determine the default duration for this services time slots. | This duration will also calculate with each specialists availability to determine how many time slots display for this service when creating an appointment request. |
| Default Start Time | When selecting this service, this time (written in military time format 1 pm = 1300) will be the default time that displays on the time-picker. |
Location Settings:
Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Capacity.
| Setting | Description | Helpful Hint |
| Specialist Capacity Per User | If enabled, the system will take the highest capacity among all services that the specialist performs, and apply that capacity across service types (Ex. if your specialist has a capacity of 2 for a bath and 1 for a groom, the system will apply that 2 capacity, and allow 2 appointments to occur at the same time across all service types). If disabled, the system will allow all services to have their capacity available at any time (meaning, if I have a capacity of 2 for a bath and 1 for a groom, the system will allow 2 baths and 1 groom to occur at the same time). |
If you do not wish to allow any overlapping appointments you will set all of your specialists' service capacities to 1 AND turn this setting ON. This will only allow one appointment to occur at any given time. |
User Permissions:
| Setting | Description | Helpful Hint |
| Notification: New Appointment Scheduled for Me | If enabled (set to 'yes/on') and the user is a specialist, they will be notified when an appointment is made or edited for them. | |
| Can Manage Schedules | If enabled (set to 'yes/on'), a user can set up specialist and employee schedules from the Manage Schedules Page. | For more information on Employee scheduling, visit this schedule. |
| Can Set Up Own Specialist Schedule | If enabled (set to 'yes/on'), a user can set up and edit their own 'Specialist' schedule. | |
| Can Set Up Others' Specialist Schedule | If enabled (set to 'yes/on'), a user can set up and edit other users' 'Specialist' schedules. | |
| Can Edit Own Appointments | If enabled (set to 'yes/on'), a user (if Specialist), can change the duration and start times on their own appointments, from the Facility Calendar. | This means that the specialist can override the default duration and default start time for their own appointments. |
| Can Edit Others' Appointments | If enabled (set to 'yes/on'), a user can change the duration and start times on other users' appointments, from the Facility Calendar. | This means that the specialist can override the default duration and default start time for other specialists' appointments. |
FAQ: Check this out!
Why aren't my time-based appointments showing as available?
There are several reasons that a time spot may not show as available:
- The specialist is fully booked for that time spot.
- From the Manage Schedules page, the time spot is not long enough for the duration of the service type. Please increase the time window to accommodate for the service length.
- There is a Facility Calendar block on that specialist's day.
- The specialist is booked for a Group Class that spans the selected time.
Please reach out to Gingr Support from the ? icon in your app banner if none of these factors apply and your appointments are still not appearing as available.
Why aren't my slot-based appointments showing as available?
The most common cause for a slot-based appointment not showing as available on the New Appointment page is due to a lack of recurring shifts. Your specialist must have at least one recurring slot shifts per week in order for any availability to show. If you already have one recurring slot shift and availability still doesn't show, please reach out to Gingr Support from the ? icon in your app banner.
Why can't I create or edit a Specialist's schedule? Only my name appears...
In order to create or edit a specialist's schedule (and all other settings for the specialist), you must have the appropriate user permissions. Only users with the can manage group permissions user permission enabled can manage these settings. To manage the User Permissions that impact Specialists and Appointments:
- Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » Groups.
- Find the Group for whom you would like to update these permissions, and tick the box in that column for the user per permission.
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