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    Acuity Scheduling’s Developer-Friendly Scheduling Service

    1. February 2017
    2. Daily
    3. read 751

    Final product image
    What You'll Be Creating

    Introduction

    Welcome! Today, I'll be introducing you to Acuity Scheduling as the first of what will be a multipart series. Acuity is unique as an appointment scheduling and booking service in that it offers a broad suite of developer integrations and API.

    In fact, Acuity Scheduling may be the most developer-friendly scheduling solution. It offers mobile app and website embedding to add its scheduling features to your own public-facing apps and sites. Alternately, you can create your own scheduling UX using its appointment scheduling API. It also offers real-time notifications and OAuth2 integration to allow you to build a complete solution for your needs around their system.

    In today's tutorial, I'll provide an introduction to Acuity's consumer-facing services so you understand more about what their product does. Then, I'll outline features of their developer platform and delve deeper into them in subsequent episodes.

    Before I get started, I want to encourage you to reach out with any questions you may have about the tutorial. Post them in the comments below or to me @jeffreifman on Twitter.

    Acuity's Calendar and Appointment Booking

    First, let's look at Acuity's scheduling service. Its breadth and depth is impressive.

    Registration and Welcome Guide

    Signup is simple and straightforward:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Sign up

    There's a great Welcome Guide to help orient you to the services. Notice that Acuity allows scheduling and booking for multiple people. Below, I'm adding a separate colleague to schedule with named Rod U:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Welcome guide

    The Welcome Guide helps with each of the major areas:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Set up your Calendar Availability

    Set Up Your Calendar Availability 

    Acuity allows you to set up a regular schedule, for you and other people, offer ad hoc appointments, or block out time for bookings.

    Here's an example of me setting up my weekly hours:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Set up your Calendar Availability Blocking

    But as you add more people to your team, Acuity provides scheduling, blocking and booking for everyone:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Multiple people and team calendar scheduling

    Create Your Appointment Types

    This depends on your profession and what you're scheduling, from General Visit for a pet to see a vet, to massage appointments, to salon bookings.

    Here's me setting up a consulting hour appointment:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Creating your Appointment Types

    Here's an example of a yoga studio offering a complex variety of series:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Appointment Type Variety

    Once you begin using Acuity, you'll discover how broadly it meets your calendar customization and appointment booking needs.

    Customize Your Client's Scheduling Page

    Acuity provides a mini-content management system or UX to help you design your public-facing appointment scheduling site:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Customize your Clients Scheduling Page

    Here's what the example Yoga Studio scheduling page looks like with its logo, appointments, and chosen text:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - example Yoga Studio scheduling page

    Sync With Other Calendars

    Of course, Acuity allows you to synchronize a variety of commonly used calendar services with your availability and appointment bookings such as Google Calendar, iCloud, and Outlook:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Calendar Sync

    If you'd like to see more, watch Acuity's Client Scheduling video below:

     

    As space is limited here, I encourage you to sign up at Acuity and explore more on your own. But now, let's dive into Acuity's developer portal.

    Acuity's Developer Services

    Acuity Scheduling Developer Hub APIs et al

    Acuity's Developer Hub offers a broad variety of integration for your calendar, scheduling, and appointment booking needs. 

    Today, I'm just providing a basic summary of the key areas; I'll dive deeper and more specifically into each area in the upcoming episodes.

    Major Acuity Scheduling API Capabilities

    Embedding

    Acuity embedding makes it easy for your clients to schedule appointments through your mobile app and/or website. Learn more here.

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Embedding

    Appointment Scheduling API

    You can design your own scheduling extension to your application using Acuity's appointment scheduling API, focusing on what you do best and connecting it to a sophisticated calendar scheduling platform.

    They provide excellent documentation:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - API Quickstart

    And they include interactive examples for all of their methods:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - API Appointments Method

    OAuth2 Integration

    If you're developing an application where many different users on Acuity need to authenticate, Acuity provides an OAuth2 implementation:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - OAuth2 Support

    Notifications via Webhooks

    Acuity provides your application real-time notifications as people schedule, cancel and reschedule bookings:

    Acuity Scheduling Developers - Webhooks for Notifications

    Acuity has a lot to offer. I look forward to sharing examples of Acuity's powerful developer features in future tutorials.

    In Closing

    I hope you've enjoyed our first episode introducing Acuity Scheduling and its appointment booking and calendar developer platform. 

    Please let us know which areas you'd like to see covered in more detail in upcoming episodes. Post your ideas and questions in the comments below or reach me on Twitter @jeffreifman.

    If you liked this tutorial, please be sure to check out my Envato Tuts+ instructor page to see some of my other tutorials and series, including the startup series which focuses on building a service that tends to the social aspects of scheduling get-togethers.

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    martijn broeders

    founder/ strategic creative at shineyrock web design & consultancy
    e-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
    phone: 434 210 0245
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