How to Get the Most Out of Your TimeTap Free Trial

Getting started with an advanced scheduling tool like TimeTap is exciting — it has so much to offer your business! As you begin exploring TimeTap features during your free trial period, we want to make sure you get the most out of your TimeTap account. Use the tips below as a guide to getting started in your account.

Consider your business needs

As you start the process of creating your online schedule with TimeTap, it’s important to ask: What will your business be using the scheduler for? This question will ensure that you gather all the information you need to fully build your schedule and get the most out of your TimeTap account.

Information you’ll need to start your TimeTap schedule includes each staff member’s name and email address, their availability, the different locations you’ll serve, and the variety of services or classes you want clients to book appointments for. TimeTap is a robust tool, so the more details you can collect before sitting down to create your schedule, the more you can take advantage of everything TimeTap offers.

Remember, though, that it’s okay to start small. Integrating a new scheduling tool into your business’s existing workflows can be daunting! Consider breaking the process into smaller pieces if your business has complex scheduling needs. This can mean introducing TimeTap scheduling for one service offered or one location at a time. You can also help your staff feel comfortable using an online scheduler by having them book appointments manually in TimeTap before giving clients access to the schedule to book their own appointments.

Every business is different, so make sure you think carefully about what your specific business needs and how you want to use TimeTap to accomplish them.

Set up your scheduler

When you have all the information you need and a plan for what to do with it, you’re ready to build your schedule! Follow the steps below to get your scheduler set up.

Add staff

Begin with adding each of your staff members. Even if your business is just you, it’s important to add every person who will be offering appointments. This is also where you create each staff member’s individual TimeTap login so they can access and manage their schedule. It’s a key first step!

To add staff, navigate to the Settings tab of your account and choose the Staff option. Then, choose the Add New Staff button at the top of the page. The system will guide you through an easy yet detailed process, gathering all the information it needs to successfully add your staff to the account.Add locations

Now that you’ve entered your staff and their availability, you can start adding locations where your staff will be working. If your business is only at one location, clients still need to know where to go, so it’s important to add your business’s location to the schedule. To add locations, navigate to the Settings tab, and choose the Locations option. Then choose the Add New Location button.

Add availability (time)

Next, you can add your staff members’ availability to the schedule. Navigate to the Settings tab and choose the Time option, and then choose the Add Staff Availability button.

Add services or classes

The last step of the building process is adding your service and class offerings to the schedule. By adding these last, you will be able to easily assign them to different staff members and locations.

To add services and classes, navigate to the Settings tab and choose the Services & Classes option. Choose the Add New Service option or the Add New Class option. If you offer appointments for multi-day events (e.g. a weekend-long certification course), choose the Add New Course option.

While it’s most efficient to get each part of your schedule added at once, TimeTap is flexible enough to change when your business changes. You can always go back to add, edit, or remove anything from the schedule when needed.

Set up the additional features you need

TimeTap offers more than just an online schedule — there is a slew of other features you will want to take advantage of as you continue to build out your schedule! Here are a few to consider:

Custom booking sites

TimeTap allows you to create a page with a dedicated URL to serve as your appointment booking site. This feature allows you to create fully configurable sites with their own unique links for clients to access your online schedule. You can create as many booking sites as needed to accommodate any combination of staff, locations, services, and classes that you want clients to book appointments for. Share links to your booking sites directly from your TimeTap account, or embed the booking page on your website. You can even customize booking sites to match your business’s brand and voice while offering a professional, easy-to-use experience for your clients.

Custom forms

You can go paperless with your TimeTap account! TimeTap offers custom forms for any part of the appointment booking process. Custom booking forms allow you to create onboarding or intake forms for clients to fill out before they confirm their appointment. Unlike other online scheduling tools that limit the number of custom fields you can use, TimeTap offers unlimited custom fields so you’re able to get all the information you need from clients. Booking forms can also be tailored to specific staff members, locations, services, or classes.

In addition, you can build custom forms for waivers, disclaimers, and other agreements in your TimeTap account. These forms can be attached to the appointment booking form or an email confirmation. Clients can download the form, electronically sign it, and send it back to you all within your TimeTap account. Imagine everything you can accomplish when you’re not managing papers and spending time with manual data entry!

Waitlists

If your business is experiencing high growth, TimeTap’s waitlist feature is a necessity. This automated, hands-off feature allows you to choose which services or classes offer a waitlist. Clients can join the waitlist when they try to book a class or service that’s already full - when there’s a cancellation, our system will automatically notify clients on the waitlist of the opening via email or text message, and they can book the appointment directly from a link in the message. With your TimeTap account, waitlists become completely streamlined. No more scrambling to fill cancellations by playing phone tag with clients!

Add clients

Your TimeTap account can also serve as a lightweight CRM for your business. When clients book an appointment, their information will be saved in their client profile and be accessible at any time in your TimeTap account. But to make full use of this feature, you can upload client information into your account before ever offering appointments. This means your TimeTap account not only manages your schedules but also stores your clients’ information for you—all in one place.

Custom features

Need an API or other customized features to meet your needs? With our Enterprise Plan, we can set up your account to meet your custom requirements. Schedule a call with our team and we’ll be happy to address all your custom requirements.

Schedule a demo

As you build out your TimeTap schedule and explore the features available to you, there may be questions that arise or specific scheduling scenarios you’d like to explore further. This is a great time to consider scheduling a demo with the TimeTap team. Our award-winning support team has helped so many customers to better understand the software and master the tool.

A demo with a member of our team can walk you through how to use specific features, help you get the most out of your account based on your specific business, and answer any questions you have. So, schedule time for a demo right now and be sure to make it a part of your free trial experience.

“TimeTap support was there every step of the way to help us figure out how to tweak, adjust and clarify.”



-Jennifer N.

Give yourself time to learn

TimeTap is a robust software built to meet your complex scheduling needs. Because of this, it may take some time to learn the ins and outs of your account. And that’s okay! Be patient with yourself, your staff, and your clients—the time you take to learn TimeTap will be well worth it in the end.

You can learn more about the features TimeTap offers by accessing our detailed help guides or watching our video tutorials. We work hard to create practical, helpful resources for you so that you’re always learning ways to get more value out of your TimeTap account, and are constantly adding more.

Test out your scheduler

It’s always helpful to get a preview of what you’ve built—and it's important that you ensure your clients are getting the best experience from your online scheduler. To help, TimeTap offers many ways to test out your scheduler.

From the Dashboard tab of your TimeTap account, you can find the option to book test appointments. These test appointments will not impact your real availability; they simply allow you to see the process clients will take to book an appointment in your online scheduler. Once you’ve booked test appointments, you can make any necessary revisions to your schedule or booking site to make sure everything runs smoothly once clients gain access to your schedule.

Invite others on your team to do the same! Everyone understands things in different ways, and your staff brings varying levels of tech know-how to work with their TimeTap account. Leverage these differences by getting your staff involved in testing the scheduler. This can help everyone troubleshoot questions together and feel confident in using the scheduler.

Follow up with support

We’re always here to help! We want you to get the most out of your TimeTap account. To help, we’ve developed in-depth help guides and video tutorials with step-by-step instructions on how to use available features. You can access these resources at any time. For questions you can’t find an answer to in the help resources, you can always contact our support team! We’re happy to answer any question, big or small.

We know how much of an undertaking it is to integrate a new scheduling software into your business. By taking the time to explore your TimeTap account during the free trial period, you can make sure TimeTap is the best fit for your business’s needs now and in the future. We can’t wait for you to get started!