Making Appointments

Appointments booked in the Registrars system follow a broadly similar process. Each type of appointment, and the actual details collected when an appointment is booked, are described in the Appointment Types section.

Citizens

When a citizen books an appointment, they'll complete the relevant form for that appointment type. These forms collect information like the person's name, contact details, who will be attending, and any specific information or documentation they need to bring with them.

The booking forms calculate the length of the appointment using values set in the configuration for that appointment type. For example, registering a birth has a base duration, extra time added if registering multiple births, and further time added if the citizen is bringing an interpreter. The forms then present the citizen with a list of the next five available appointment times, calculated using the availability set in the Slot Booking articles. The number of appointment slots that are fetched is set in the configuration for that appointment type. The citizen can also pick a date and see all of the available time slots on that day.

If an appointment requires payment in advance, this must be successful before the booking is made in the Registrars system. Appointment costs are calculated from the sum of all the relevant payment options set in the appointment configuration.

Once the appointment has been made a confirmation email is sent to the citizen. Appointments can be amended by following the link in the confirmation email, or using the Self Service or User requests templates.

A reminder email is sent before the appointment. The time, in minutes, prior to the start of the appointment that this email is sent is set in the main Slot Booking configuration and is not registrars specific.

If the appointment type has SMS enabled, and the relevant SMS features have been set up in the Comms Manager, bookers can sign up for SMS notifications when appointments are created, cancelled, or reminders sent out.

Staff

Users with access to the Slot Booking calendars can create appointments in any available time slot. This follows the process described in the Slot Booking documentation.

When a staff member selects an empty time slot they first have to choose the type of appointment they are creating. The process then continues using the same forms as a citizen user, with the exception that the "select appointment" stage is skipped - the staff user has already selected the appointment slot.

If an appointment requires payment before it can be booked, payment actions are made in "customer not present" mode.