Calendly is the scheduling app that BloomBoard coaches utilize to provide ease in managing your one-on-one coaching sessions through Zoom. Calendly’s capabilities can do much of the pre-session management and post-session follow-ups automatically.
Set Up Your Account
Once you receive your invitation to set up a Calendly account, the New User Guide located on the Calendly website will help you set up your account. The New User Guide will help you focus on several basics you need to initially define such as:
- Setting up your profile with a welcome message and profile picture
- Connecting your Gmail calendar
- Using the Zoom integration page to link your Zoom account to conduct your sessions.
After you set up your profile and connect your Gmail Calendar and Zoom, the following steps will help you customize your Calendly to best support your needs as a BloomBoard coach:
Determine Your Appointment Time Slots
What is your availability? This is defined/determined on your availability tab. You will set up times that will be displayed when a participant goes to your scheduling page using your Calendly link.
When you need to make a change to your availability, whether it be a long-term change or one that is specific to an upcoming day, you can make those changes directly on this calendar. Want to remove all your availability on Fridays over the summer? You can easily update that change in your “availability” tab.
While you can make more short-term changes in your Google calendar by marking “out of office” or scheduling personal events, regularly checking and adjusting your availability on your Calendly page is recommended a few times a year.
Create Your "Event Type" for One-on-One Coaching
- From your home page, you will click on the +Create button.
- Select One-on-One as the event type.
- Customize your event with name, color coding, location (Zoom), and description/instructions.
- Set the parameters of when participants can book their sessions: how many days in advance, length of session, whether you want to leave a buffer of time before/after sessions, and scheduling conditions (how many hours in advance) a session may be booked.
- Use Invitee Questions to ask a few questions for participants to answer that will help you prepare effectively for your session.
- Following these steps will help you create new events for new cohorts as they are assigned to you.
Setting Up Workflows to Help Streamline the Communications Associated with One-on-One Sessions
Workflows are automations that can be utilized to help streamline your communication centered around 1:1 coaching sessions. Helpful workflows many BloomBoard coaches find useful:
- Email/text host a reminder before a session
- Email participants a reminder of the session; offer an opportunity to cancel or reschedule
- Send a follow-up email with thank you and coaching survey link
Here is a sample of workflows utilized by a BloomBoard coach:
Watch this short video on Workflows from the Calendly help section:
Automate tasks with Workflows – Help Center
See examples for an email reminder and follow-up email workflows:
Calendly's One-off Meeting Option
Calendly gives you the option to create one-off meetings for those participants who might need a time slot outside of your existing time slots. You can accomplish this with a one-off meeting. From your home page, you click the +Create button and click One-off meeting. Follow the instructions in this Calendly support article to assist you in creating a one-off meeting.
Calendly's Meeting Poll Option
Want to give a participant or a group of participants meeting time options for scheduling a meeting? With Calendly, you can easily create a meeting poll and use the results to schedule a “one-off” meeting. Watch this short video on Meeting Polls from the Calendly website.
Download the Calendly Chrome Extension
Go to the Chrome Store and download the Calendly extension. The Calendly for Chrome extension makes impromptu scheduling easy. From your Chrome browser, you can:
- See and share your scheduling links with invitees
- Create a one-off meeting
- Create a meeting poll
- Add available times to an email