We have five employee calendars. Appointments are 15 minutes in duration, scheduled on the half hour with a 15-minute buffer. (A couple of months ago, we experimented with appointments scheduled on the quarter hour, but reverted back to the half hour.)
Calendars are synced to Google Calendar.
For months, the scheduler has worked correctly.
Today, one of the calendars (Emp A) accepted appointments on the quarter hour. Checking the scheduler front end, the quarter hour availability seemed to be for a majority, but not the entire day. Emp A's calendar does not list quarter-hour availability on any other day.
Then, the calendar for Emp B accepted or scheduled an appointment on the quarter hour (10:15 am) even though there are no quarter-hour appointment slots listed for this employee on the front end. Also, the 10:15 appointment was scheduled even though an appointment already existed on that calendar at 10:00 am.
I checked the scheduler front end for the next 14 days; all available slots are correct for the active calendars.
Please make sure you have updated Amelia to version 3.1.2 since the previous update had a bug related to buffer time.
If it didn't help, please provide us a temporary WP Admin access, so we will look into the issue from the inside. You can post the credentials as a reply to this ticket, just make sure you use private mode.
We don't interfere with any data except for the plugin and, of course, we don't provide login details to a third party.
Also, please indicate the Services and Employees (not necessarily all of them, one example is enough) that had incorrect tome slots booked.
So, it seems like the issue was caused by the conflict between the Default time slot step and Service duration.
The "Default Time Slot Step" in Amelia's General Settings is set to 30 minutes, while the duration of the service is 15 minutes. This causes issues with the logic of the plugin, so the best way to resolve this is to reduce the Default Time Slot Step to "15 minutes".
After that, this issue should not be occurring again.
Yes, that's correct: the "Use service duration for booking a time slot" option enabled is the key setting in this case.
As far as I can see on your site, now you have the time slots available every half an hour, so can we say that the issue was resolved and now the settings match your requirements?
This issue resurfaced today. Someone was able to schedule an appointment on the quarter-hour on the "Michael D" calendar. We haven't changed anything since correcting the settings per your instruction last month.
Could you please tell me if you updated Amelia to version 3.2?
Also, can we use the credentials that you provided us with before? If so, please specify what is the Appointment which was booked outside of the schedule.
FYI: Another example. This morning, an appointment was scheduled on the "Sherry" calendar at 10:15 am even though there was previous appointment at 10:00 am. Not only should appointments not be scheduled on the quarter hour but they shouldn't be back to back.
I happened to check yesterday evening and a quarter-hour appointment was not available to be scheduled on that calendar.
Another quarter-hour appt for 05/24/2021 12:15 pm on the "Michael D" calendar. The issue seems to be occurring most often on Monday and not at all later in the week.
Five appointments scheduled without an issue from 8:30 am to 10:30 am, and nothing until the 12:15 error. The incorrect quarter-hour slots reset at the end of the work period, at 1:00 pm.
The thing is, it seems like the issue is related to previous settings that were cached somewhere on the server, and now they "come out" from time to time resulting in this kind of situations.
I will have to go through all your settings again since there can be a hint why it happens. Also, I will send your case to our developer, hopefully, we will finally find what doesn't let the new settings be applied.
More examples occurred today; this time on the "Sherry" calendar. But I want to tell you about another, maybe related issue.
Information from a cancelled appointment is being included in the Google Calendar entry for a later appointment scheduled in the same time slot.
1. The scheduler form has a couple of custom fields. One of the two is required;
2. A customer schedules an appointment. The Google Calendar entry shows the required information correctly. Our event title is "[Customer Name] for [Business Name], [Time]". (not the exact name of the fields)
3. The customer cancels the appointment. The calendar entry is removed.
4. Later, another appointment is scheduled for the same time slot.
5. This time, the event title is "[Name of New Customer] for [Cancelled Business Name] ; [New Business Name], [Time]".
In the back end, the time slot will show "Multiple Emails" with info from both appointments showing.
The result is consistent under the above circumstances. It occurred three times today.
Sorry for the delayed response. As you already know, we don't work on weekends.
That's interesting. It depends on the settings that you have:
- If it's a group Appointment (so, the Capacity is > 1 and each time slot can be booked by multiple people separately), this logic is normal. You will see the first booking as a cancelled booking and the second as pending/approved under the same Appointment on the back-end.
- If the Capacity of this Service is set to 1, then yes, my previous guess is correct and it's related to caching.
Yesterday, our site host exempted the page on which the scheduler is displayed from caching.
Today, a couple of instances of the "combined appt info" error occurred.
In the attached example, the appointment for "Debbie" was rejected in the backend. Approximately an hour later, another appointment was scheduled for the same time slot and calendar. On the Google calendar, the information from the custom field "Employer" is combined in the calendar entry title as described in a previous post. The calendar in the Amelia backend shows this as a "group appointment."
Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize for the delayed response as we have been experiencing an unusually high number of tickets and releasing a new product. I am sorry that it has taken longer than usual to respond to your concern and your patience is highly appreciated.
The reason why quarter appointments appear and are allowed to be booked is due to the setting in Amelia > Settings > General > Use service duration for booking a time slot.
The service you have is 15 minutes in duration, so by default quarter hour will be available for booking.
We have five employee calendars. Appointments are 15 minutes in duration, scheduled on the half hour with a 15-minute buffer. (A couple of months ago, we experimented with appointments scheduled on the quarter hour, but reverted back to the half hour.)
Calendars are synced to Google Calendar.
For months, the scheduler has worked correctly.
Today, one of the calendars (Emp A) accepted appointments on the quarter hour. Checking the scheduler front end, the quarter hour availability seemed to be for a majority, but not the entire day. Emp A's calendar does not list quarter-hour availability on any other day.
Then, the calendar for Emp B accepted or scheduled an appointment on the quarter hour (10:15 am) even though there are no quarter-hour appointment slots listed for this employee on the front end. Also, the 10:15 appointment was scheduled even though an appointment already existed on that calendar at 10:00 am.
I checked the scheduler front end for the next 14 days; all available slots are correct for the active calendars.
Hi, Bob!
Thank you for choosing Amelia.
Please make sure you have updated Amelia to version 3.1.2 since the previous update had a bug related to buffer time.
If it didn't help, please provide us a temporary WP Admin access, so we will look into the issue from the inside. You can post the credentials as a reply to this ticket, just make sure you use private mode.
We don't interfere with any data except for the plugin and, of course, we don't provide login details to a third party.
Also, please indicate the Services and Employees (not necessarily all of them, one example is enough) that had incorrect tome slots booked.
Best Regards.
Hi, Bob!
Thank you, I received the credentials.
I forwarded your ticket to my colleague and currently, I'm waiting for a response.
I'll get back to you at the earliest possible time (which means Wednesday, 10 am - 5 pm CET).
Best Regards.
Hi again, Bob!
So, it seems like the issue was caused by the conflict between the Default time slot step and Service duration.
The "Default Time Slot Step" in Amelia's General Settings is set to 30 minutes, while the duration of the service is 15 minutes. This causes issues with the logic of the plugin, so the best way to resolve this is to reduce the Default Time Slot Step to "15 minutes".
After that, this issue should not be occurring again.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hi, Bob!
Yes, that's correct: the "Use service duration for booking a time slot" option enabled is the key setting in this case.
As far as I can see on your site, now you have the time slots available every half an hour, so can we say that the issue was resolved and now the settings match your requirements?
Best Regards.
Bob,
Thank you for letting us know.
I will forward this information to our team, probably the documentation on our site needs some modification.
Best Regards.
Hi Liza,
This issue resurfaced today. Someone was able to schedule an appointment on the quarter-hour on the "Michael D" calendar. We haven't changed anything since correcting the settings per your instruction last month.
Hi, Bob!
I'm sorry to hear that.
Could you please tell me if you updated Amelia to version 3.2?
Also, can we use the credentials that you provided us with before? If so, please specify what is the Appointment which was booked outside of the schedule.
Best Regards.
At the time the appointment was scheduled, there were no other calendar events of any type within a couple of hours on either side.
Bob,
Thank you for the clarification.
I forwarded your case to our developers for further investigation.
I will get back to you once I receive their response.
Best Regards.
FYI: Another example. This morning, an appointment was scheduled on the "Sherry" calendar at 10:15 am even though there was previous appointment at 10:00 am. Not only should appointments not be scheduled on the quarter hour but they shouldn't be back to back.
I happened to check yesterday evening and a quarter-hour appointment was not available to be scheduled on that calendar.
Hi, Bob!
We checked the settings again but we couldn't find anything that could cause that yet.
I have one guess regarding your case. I will consult with our developers and get back to you right after.
Best Regards.
Hi Liza,
Another quarter-hour appt for 05/24/2021 12:15 pm on the "Michael D" calendar. The issue seems to be occurring most often on Monday and not at all later in the week.
Five appointments scheduled without an issue from 8:30 am to 10:30 am, and nothing until the 12:15 error. The incorrect quarter-hour slots reset at the end of the work period, at 1:00 pm.
Hi, Bob!
Sorry for the delayed response.
The thing is, it seems like the issue is related to previous settings that were cached somewhere on the server, and now they "come out" from time to time resulting in this kind of situations.
I will have to go through all your settings again since there can be a hint why it happens. Also, I will send your case to our developer, hopefully, we will finally find what doesn't let the new settings be applied.
Best Regards.
More examples occurred today; this time on the "Sherry" calendar. But I want to tell you about another, maybe related issue.
Information from a cancelled appointment is being included in the Google Calendar entry for a later appointment scheduled in the same time slot.
1. The scheduler form has a couple of custom fields. One of the two is required;
2. A customer schedules an appointment. The Google Calendar entry shows the required information correctly. Our event title is "[Customer Name] for [Business Name], [Time]". (not the exact name of the fields)
3. The customer cancels the appointment. The calendar entry is removed.
4. Later, another appointment is scheduled for the same time slot.
5. This time, the event title is "[Name of New Customer] for [Cancelled Business Name] ; [New Business Name], [Time]".
In the back end, the time slot will show "Multiple Emails" with info from both appointments showing.
The result is consistent under the above circumstances. It occurred three times today.
Hi, Bob!
Sorry for the delayed response. As you already know, we don't work on weekends.
That's interesting. It depends on the settings that you have:
- If it's a group Appointment (so, the Capacity is > 1 and each time slot can be booked by multiple people separately), this logic is normal. You will see the first booking as a cancelled booking and the second as pending/approved under the same Appointment on the back-end.
- If the Capacity of this Service is set to 1, then yes, my previous guess is correct and it's related to caching.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Yesterday, our site host exempted the page on which the scheduler is displayed from caching.
Today, a couple of instances of the "combined appt info" error occurred.
In the attached example, the appointment for "Debbie" was rejected in the backend. Approximately an hour later, another appointment was scheduled for the same time slot and calendar. On the Google calendar, the information from the custom field "Employer" is combined in the calendar entry title as described in a previous post. The calendar in the Amelia backend shows this as a "group appointment."
Capacity is set to 1
Hi, Bob,
Sorry for the delayed response, we don't work on weekends (as you already know).
We checked all the settings a couple of times and there's nothing that could cause the issue.
Let me send your case to another developer since it's been quite long and we still don't see any solution.
I will get back to you at the earliest possible time.
Best Regards.
This remains unresolved. The calendar "Michael" has accepted multiple appointments on the quarter hour for tomorrow 7/7.
Hi Bob,
thank you for contacting back.
Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize for the delayed response as we have been experiencing an unusually high number of tickets and releasing a new product. I am sorry that it has taken longer than usual to respond to your concern and your patience is highly appreciated.
The reason why quarter appointments appear and are allowed to be booked is due to the setting in Amelia > Settings > General > Use service duration for booking a time slot.
The service you have is 15 minutes in duration, so by default quarter hour will be available for booking.