Calling Rules: Appointments
The Appointments settings allow you to specify a project expiry date and create appointment schedules.
An appointment schedule can be used to specify the interviewer shifts and holidays, ensuring that appointments can be made when interviewers are working. There can be multiple appointment schedules for a distributed site.
Appointment schedules may differ between projects and are therefore project specific. For example, interviewers may be scheduled to call business projects during the day and consumer projects in the evening.
Project Expiry (UTC Time)
Provides options for specifying a project expiration time.
▪Date: The project expiration date. You can manually enter a date, in the format mm/dd/yyyy, or you can click the down arrow to display a calendar and select a date.
▪Time: The project expiration time. This indicates the exact time of day, for the selected date, that the project will expire. Enter an appropriate time in the 24-hour format hh:mm (for example 17:00 for 5:00 PM).
Appointment Schedule
Provides options for clearing the existing sub-schedules, loading schedule templates, and saving schedule templates.
Selected template
Displays the name of the currently loaded appointment schedule template. When a template is not loaded, not using template displays.
Sub-schedules
Lists available sub-schedules.
Creating a new sub-schedule
Enter an appropriate name in the Sub-schedule field.
Removing an existing sub-schedule
Right-click the cell to the left of the appropriate sub-schedule name, and then click Remove.
Regular shifts in sub-schedule
The table lists all shifts currently defined for the selected sub-schedule.
Creating new shifts for a sub-schedule
1 Select a sub-schedule from the Sub-schedule list. If no sub-schedules exist, you must either create a new sub-schedule or load an appointment schedule template.
2 Enter the appropriate shift information in the table.
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Setting
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Description
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Days
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Select the appropriate days of the week to contact participants.
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Start Time
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The earliest time at which participants may be called. Enter the earliest call time.
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End Time
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The latest time at which participants may be called. Enter the latest call time.
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Date overrides: The table lists all date override shifts currently defined for the selected sub-schedule. Date overrides allow you to specify specific dates and/or times where appointments are not allowed, as well as define specific dates and times that will override the shifts defined in the Regular Shifts table.
Creating new date overrides for a sub-schedule
Select a sub-schedule from the Sub-schedule list. If no sub-schedules exist, you must either create a new sub-schedule or load an appointment schedule template.
Enter the appropriate date override information in the table.
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Setting
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Description
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Type
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The menu provides the following options:
▪ No appointment. Select this option when you want to define specific dates and times where no appointments are allowed
▪ Date override. Select this option when you want to define specific dates and times that override the shifts defined in the Regular Shifts table.
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Date
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The menu allows you to select specific no appointment or date override dates. Select the appropriate date(s).
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Start Time
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When No appointment is selected, the starting time at which participants may not be called. Enter the starting time. When Date override is selected, the earliest time at which participants may be called. Enter the earliest call time.
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End Time
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When No appointment is selected, the end time at which participants may not be called. Enter the end time. When Date override is selected, the latest time at which participants may be called. Enter the latest call time.
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Clear Schedule
Click to clear any currently defined sub-schedules.
Load Template
Click to load an existing appointment schedule template. Templates are stored in the Distributed Property Management (DPM). For more information, see
Distributed Property Management (DPM).
Save As
Click to save the current schedule settings as a template in DPM.
See also