To ensure that your institution's settings are properly configured for drop-in appointments, the Check-In Kiosk, and the Waiting Room, we've included some configuration tips below to ensure a seamless student experience.
Managing Drop-in Appointments
There are two components to managing drop-in appointments in Handshake: Appointment Types and Appointment Blocks.
Appointment Types
Students will only be able to drop into appointments that have the Drop-In Enabled? option marked as "yes" on the Appointment Type.
When creating a new appointment type, or editing an existing one, check the box next to the Drop-In Enabled? This enables students who are checking into your career office to select that appointment type without having requested it ahead of time.
To learn more about Appointment Types and how to create and edit them, refer to Institution Settings: Appointment Types.
Appointment Blocks
Students will only be able to drop into appointments with career services users that have indicated they're available for drop-ins in their Appointment Block settings.
After the Appointment Types have been created, each career advisor will need to mark their availability by creating appointment blocks and checking the box next to the Drop-in? setting in the center of the page.
To learn more about Appointment Blocks, and setting them up, refer to Configure Your Personal Appointment Availability (Appointment Blocks & Types).
Note: If your career advisors want to be available for both drop-ins and scheduled appointments during the same block of availability, they'll need to create two separate appointment blocks.
Check-in Kiosk: the student experience
If your institution has a kiosk for students to check-in, they'll be prompted to enter their email address or username at the time of check-in. To learn more about launching a Kiosk, refer to Launch a Check-in Kiosk.
Once the student has entered their login information, they'll choose an Appointment Category from the list of available appointments. Once the category is selected, they'll choose a corresponding Appointment Type, and then check-in!
Note: for a category to be available for students, it must contain Appointment Types with Drop-In Enabled? checked/marked as yes.
The waiting room
The waiting room is a way to keep track of the students that check in for drop-ins and scheduled appointments. When a student checks in for an appointment, they'll be added to the waiting room in the order that they check in, separated by scheduled, and drop-in appointments.
Handshake recommends that you keep the waiting room open in a separate tab when you are taking drop-in appointments. If you have a place to have the waiting room visible in the lobby of the career centre, it's a great way to let students know where they are in line for appointments.
To access the waiting room, click Appointment on the left navigation bar, then click Waiting Room, located in the upper-right corner of the page.
- To start an appointment with a student in the waiting room click the blue button Start Appointment.
- To cancel a drop-in appointment with a student in the waiting room, click the red link Cancel Drop-in.
The waiting room will refresh every 10 seconds to help make sure that you know when your next appointment has arrived!