If you are using Appointment Matching to generate Pre-Scheduled Appointments for attendees, you need to collect their preferences - their selections of whom they want to have appointments with. You do this by setting up an Appointment Preferences form – a form that includes an Appointment Preferences section.

We recommend that this is done in a dedicated form, rather than in a section on the actual registration form, so that everyone registers before preference selection starts.

This topic describes how to set up such a dedicated Appointment Preferences form.

For details of configuring Appointment Matching for your event, see Engage > Appointments > Configure and Engage > Appointments > Pre-Scheduled/AME.

How to Set Up the Form

To set up an Appointment Preferences form, follow these recommended steps in the various pages of the Forms tab. These instructions assume you are familiar with creating and setting up forms.

 

Plan > Forms > Setup page.

1. Add the Appointments section to the Page Layout area. (We recommend placing it after the Attendee Type section.)

2. Remove any sections not needed by the Appointment Preferences form, such as the Payments  section.

3. Set the Open date to be after event registration closes (as set on a separate event registration site).
This will ensure that all attendees will have completed their event registrations before anyone can start selecting their appointment preferences.

 

Plan > Forms > Entry page.

4. Set Form Entry Permissions to "Restrict to registrations in this event".
This will ensure that only people who have registered for the event will be able to log in and make preference selections.

5. Under Select statuses to allow for entry, click Select All.
This will enable registrants to be able to log in to make their selections, regardless of their status.

6. Set Username and Password collection to "Require".

7. Select appropriate Username and Password fields.

 

Plan > Forms > Registrant Details page,

8. Include First Name and Last Name as both "Required" and "Read Only".
That way the registrant can (and must) enter a value if either field is blank, but can't change them if they do have values.
Both fields are required for the Appointment Matching Engine; that's why including them here as required is best practice.

If you actually want registrants to confirm their details, do so by including any other fields, and perhaps not making First Name and Last Name "Read Only".

 

Plan > Forms > Confirm page,

9. Here you configure the confirmation page for the Appointment Preferences form.
We recommend clearing the header names for all the sections except Appointment Preferences, so that the latter is the only section displayed.

How Registrants Will Use the Form

Here's how a registrant will be able to select their preferences on the form. (This repeats the description provided in the Appointment Preferences (Attendee Form) help topic.)

The names of attendees are listed on the left of the form, with three icons next to each one:

•  – Add that person to the list of My Preferences on the right, where they can drag and drop names to establish priorities. (The registrant's name remains in the list, outlined in green.)

•  – Display More information about that person – the "Preference Fields to Show for 'More'" selected in Plan > Forms > Appointments.

•  – Add that person to the Exclusion List on the right - the attendees with whom they do not want appointments. This is only available if that option is selected in Forms > Appointments. (The registrant's name remains in the list, outlined in red.)

The registrant can limit the names displayed using the following elements.

1. Attendee Type

If the registrant is of an attendee type which is only able to select preferences for one attendee type (as determined in Plan > Appointments > Configure), only attendees of that type are displayed.

But if they are able to select preferences for more than one attendee type, then collapsible lists of the registrants of each of those types are displayed.

3. Searching

If you have enabled searching (by selecting that check box in Engage > Appointments > Pre-Schedule/AME), the registrant can select the field to search on (First Name, Last Name, Title, Organization, City, Country), type the text to match, and click .

4. Filtering

If you have enabled filtering (by selecting that check box on Engage > Appointments > Pre-Schedule/AME and appropriate custom question(s) on Engage > Appointments > Pre-Schedule/AME), the registrant can choose to apply filters by selecting the answer(s) to one or more custom questions. Only the records matching that filter will be displayed.

5. Mutual Preferences

The attendee can choose to Show Attendees who selected me as an appointment preference, by selecting the check box with that label.(That option is only available if you have enabled it when setting up the form in Plan > Forms > Appointments.)

If they do, then the only attendees listed will be those who have selected this attendee as their own preference.

When you run the Appointment Matching Engine, it is more likely to create appointments where the preferences are mutual, i.e. where both attendees have selected the other as a preference.

 

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