Configure Settings

Appointment Settings

On the UI Setup (Events Management, Settings / UI Setup) page, you can adjust various settings specific to your event.

From the Admin UI on the Events / Preview page, select your event. Click on the button to open the Event Management page.
Select the Settings tab and then the UI Setup tab.

Scheduler Availability

Open scheduler to customers on - Enter the date and time that you would like the scheduler to open to your parents.
Close scheduler to customers on - Enter the date and time that you would like the scheduler to close for your parents.
Check the box allow Admins access to the CUI at all times to allow Administrators access to the parent scheduling page when the scheduler is not open to your parents. When this box is checked, when you log into the Online Scheduler, you will see a page that says that the event is closed to parents but not to admins.

Scheduler Display

Display in a Condensed/Expanded mode - pickAtime offers both Condensed and Expanded scheduler views, so users can choose the experience that works best for their scheduling style and screen space.
- - Condensed View - Best for users who want to see more availability with less scrolling. The Condensed view uses variable time steps, creating a cleaner and more compact layout. This option is helpful for smaller screens or users who want to quickly browse open times without focusing on exact interval spacing.
  - Expanded View - Best for users who prefer a traditional scheduling layout with fixed time increments. Expanded view displays fixed time slots in consistent intervals, making it easier to visually search for appointments of a specific length or compare gaps between appointments. This view closely matches the classic scheduler experience and can be preferred by long-time users familiar with the original CUI.
Users can switch between views at any time using the toggle button located in the top-left corner of the scheduler.
Display multiple dates with a Paginator or a Calendar. The Paginator option will allow the parent to see multiple dates on the same page. The Calendar option will display one day at a time to the parent, with a small calendar displayed where the parent can select a different date.

Appointment Number Limits

Maximum Appointments per Event - This allows you to limit the number of allowed appointments per event.
Maximum Appointments Per Resource per Day - Allows you to set a limit of how many appointments per resource can be booked on any day. For example, you can create 15 slots on a day, but set this to 10. As soon as the 10th appointment is booked at any time on that day, no more appointments can be booked.
One appointment per teacher (regardless of the number of classes that have that teacher) - If this box is checked, then the parent will only be able to schedule one appointment with the same teacher, even if their student has more than one class with that teacher.
One appointment per class (regardless of the number of students enrolled in the class) - If this box is checked, then the parent will only be able to schedule one appointment for the same class, even if they have multiple students enrolled in the same class.
Allow back-to-back - If the "allow back-to-back" is not checked, the system will not allow a parent to make an appointment immediately following their previous appointment unless the two appointments are with the same teacher. This setting is used to prevent parents from making appointments with two teachers one after the other, so that parents will have time to travel from one appointment to the next. The system allows back-to-back appointments when the two appointments are with the same teacher, regardless of this setting. It will also allow back-to-back appointments when travel breaks have been added.

Appointment Cancellations

Customer cannot cancel their appointment closer than x hours/days/weeks. - If you want to prevent participants from canceling their appointment within some amount of time before the appointment, alter this setting. Set this to 0 if you don't care if participants cancel a minute before they show up. Set this to a large value if you don't want them to be able to cancel the appointment. NOTE: Closing your scheduler does not prevent participants from canceling an appointment.

Close Appointment Booking

Close Appointment Booking - Allows you to make slots become unavailable some amount of time before the appointment. There are 3 options. Close appointment booking at XX time XX days before the appointment date. Close appointment booking XX hours before the appointment time. Close appointment booking XX hours before the first appointment time of the day.

Scheduler Display Limits

Display X weeks of slots xxx slots on the scheduling page - This setting determines how many days or weeks are shown on the Customer User Interface at one time.

Teacher Display

The display room will show the room on the CUI.
Separate legend for each child (Regular PTA only) - Allows you to have the option of a separate legend per child.
Display class names - This will show the class names on the CUI.

Teacher's Group Name

Sort by Group Name - This section allows you to group your teachers. For example, you might want to group all your Lower School teachers, and then have a grouping for Middle or Upper School teachers. Enter your group names in this section, then go to the Appointments page on the right hand side you can see the list of teachers. There is the Group Name column you can select a category from a drop-down, so would assign each teacher to a Group.

Advanced Settings

Online Meeting Provider - Use 'X' for online meetings. Select from the drop-down menu which Online Meeting Provider you want to use for this event.

Multiple Appointment Booking - Allow a parent to make conflicting appointments for themselves If this box is checked, the parent will be able to make more than one appointment at the same time.

Appointment Changes

Allow customers to see and cancel past appointments - Check this box to allow your customers to see and cancel past appointments

Don't allow customers to change appointment time - Check this if you do not want the participant to have the option to change the time of their appointment.

Notification Setup

The Notification Setup tab in the Settings section:

Send confirmation email - Check this box if you would like a confirmation email sent after the appointment is made. This is generally left unchecked for schools.

Reply To Email - Enter an email address in this box, and you will receive a reply when your customer selects "reply" in the confirmation, reminder, or cancellation emails. If you leave this blank, any replies will receive an automated email response directing them to contact the scheduling organization.

Send Reminder Emails - Select Add and enter the time (in hours) prior to the appointment that you would like an email reminder to be sent. You can add multiple times. The duplicated values are not allowed and would be removed automatically.

There are two ways reminder emails are sent:

If the 'Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule of Appointments' option is turned on, all your appointments will be grouped into one reminder email, sent a set number of hours before your first scheduled appointment. If you have appointments on multiple days, you will get a reminder email each day, listing all your upcoming appointments. For example, if reminders are set for 24 hours and 12 hours before the appointment time, you'll get two reminder emails, 24 and 12 hours before your first scheduled appointment.
If the 'Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule of Appointments' option is turned off, you will get one reminder email for all appointments booked within the same hour. For example, if you have appointments at 9:00 AM, 9:15 AM, and 9:30 AM, they will be grouped into one reminder email. If you book more appointments at 10:15 AM and 10:30 AM, you will get two separate reminder emails: one for the 9:00 AM, 9:15 AM, and 9:30 AM appointments, and another for the 10:15 AM and 10:30 AM appointments.

Confirmation Email / Cancellation Email / Reminder Email / Custom Email / Follow-up Email - Allows you to toggle between the email types: Confirmation Email, Cancellation Email, Reminder Email, Custom Email, and Follow-up Email.

Subject - Allows you to change the text in the subject line of the email.

Header - Allows you to change the text in the header line of the email.

Body - Allows you to change the text in the body of the email.

Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule or Appointments - Allows you to have the option to include the "printable schedule" as the body of the email on the Confirmation and Reminder emails. The printable schedule is a table that summarizes all the appointments a parent has booked. When you check this box, your email will contain the header text, the printable schedule, and the footer text.

Subject for combined email - When a combination email will be sent, for example, when an appointment is canceled and immediately rescheduled, the text here will be in the subject line of the combined email.

Recommended Option

On the Confirmation and Reminder emails, you have the option to insert the printable schedule or appointments as the body of the email. The printable schedule or appointments is a table that summarizes all the appointments a parent has booked. To include this option, check the "Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule or Appointments" box. When you check this box, your email will contain the Header text, the printable schedule, and the Footer text. See the CUI Messages / Print Schedule section for the formatting of the printable schedule.

The format of the table of appointments that is included is referred to as the printable schedule, as this table will be the same as the table a parent would see if they clicked on the Printable Schedule link on the parent scheduling page. The information included in this table is set on the Settings /CUI Messages page under the Print Schedule section.

When the "printable schedule or appointments" option is selected, one email will be sent containing the schedule of appointments made by the parent. The parent will not receive one email per appointment booked.

Configure CUI

The pickAtime system allows you to customize many of the display settings that your parents will see when booking appointments.

To modify the CUI Messages:

From the Admin UI select the Events / Preview option on the dashboard. Then select your event from the list and click on the button.
Select the Settings tab and then the CUI messages tab.
On the left-hand side you see many different labels that you can optionally modify. When you select a label the right-hand side will display the text that will show up on the CUI. The text on any of these labels can be changed.
To edit the title on the login page for your scheduler, select Login page / Login message at the top* and edit the text on the right-hand side.
To add a logo to your scheduler, go to the Global Setup/Business page, Account Logo section. select Other / Account Logo*. Click on the Insert/Edit Image icon and then select Insert image.

Note: to edit (or view) the HTML, select the HTML icon (<>) on the toolbar.

Event Settings (UI Setup)

The UI Setup page lets you adjust settings specific to a single event.

To get there:

From the Admin UI, go to Events / Preview and select your event.
Click Go To Event to open Event Management.
Select Settings / UI Setup.

Work through the sections from top to bottom, as outlined below.

Scheduler Availability

Setting	What it does
Open scheduler to customers	Date/time the scheduler opens for parents
Close scheduler to customers	Date/time the scheduler closes for parents
Allow Admins access to the CUI at all times	Lets admins access the parent scheduling page even when it's closed to parents.

Appointment Number Limits

Setting	What it does
Maximum Appointments per Event	Caps total appointments allowed for the entire event
Maximum Appointments Per Resource per Day	Caps appointments per teacher/resource, per day — e.g., you can create 15 slots but cap bookings at 10; once the 10th is booked, no more can be made that day
Maximum Appointments Per Child	Caps how many appointments a parent can book per child
One appointment per teacher per student	If checked, a parent can only book once with a given teacher per student, even if the student has multiple classes with that teacher
One appointment per class	If checked, a parent can only book once per class, even with multiple students enrolled in it
Allow back-to-back	If unchecked, parents can't book two appointments back-to-back unless they're with the same teacher (to allow travel time between teachers). Back-to-back is always allowed with the same teacher, or when travel breaks have been configured.

Appointment Cancellations

Customer cannot cancel their appointment closer than XX hours/days/weeks. Restricts how close to the appointment time a parent can cancel.

Set to 0 to allow cancellation up to the last minute.
Set to a large value to effectively prevent cancellations.

Note: Closing the scheduler does not automatically prevent cancellations — this setting is separate.

Close Appointment Booking

Controls when slots become unavailable for new bookings, ahead of the appointment time. Choose one of three methods:

Close booking at a specific time of day, XX days before the appointment date.
Close booking XX hours/days/weeks/months before the appointment time.
Close booking XX hours before the first appointment of the day.

Scheduler Settings

Scheduling Link

Your event's Scheduling Link is the URL you share with parents (on your website or via email) to access the booking page (CUI). You can customise it with an event-specific suffix — for example: https://pickatime.com/HowardSchool/LS or https://pickatime.com/HowardSchool/US

Important: Even with a custom event link, parents will see a toggle to switch to any other open events on your account. To restrict parents to a single event with no toggle option, use the Category link instead, which scopes the scheduler to only the event(s) in that category.

Scheduler Display

View mode:

Mode	Best for
Condensed	Compact layout with variable time steps — good for smaller screens or quickly browsing availability
Expanded	Fixed time intervals in a traditional layout — easier for comparing exact appointment lengths/gaps

Parents can toggle between views anytime using the button in the top-left corner of the scheduler.

Date display mode:

Mode	Behavior
Paginator	Shows multiple dates on one page
Calendar	Shows one day at a time, with a mini calendar to jump to other dates

Scheduler Display Limits

Display X weeks of slots: Sets how many days/weeks of slots are shown at once in the CUI. (Only applies when Paginator is selected.)

Teacher Display

Setting	What it does
Display resource description	Shows the teacher's description (via the info icon next to their name)
Display rooms	Shows room numbers on the parent scheduler
Separate legend for each child (Regular PTA only)	Adds a separate color legend per child
Display class names	Shows class names (via the info icon) if class names have been added on the Appointments page

Teacher's Group Name

Lets you organise teachers into groups (e.g., "Lower School," "Upper School").

Enter your desired group names in this section.
Go to the Appointments page — each teacher row has a Group Name column where you can assign them to a group from the drop-down.

Advanced Settings

Online Meeting Provider

Use 'X' for online meetings: Select your preferred online meeting provider for this event from the drop-down.

Multiple Appointment Booking

Allow a parent to make conflicting appointments for themselves: If checked, a parent can book overlapping appointments at the same time.

Appointment Changes

Setting	What it does
Allow customers to see and cancel past appointments	Lets parents view/cancel appointments that have already passed
Don't allow customers to change appointment time	Prevents parents from rescheduling once booked

Notification Setup

The Notifications tab lets you configure: Confirmation Email, Cancellation Email, Reminder Email, Custom Email, Follow-up Email, Resource Notification Email, and Calendar Event Notification.

Confirmation Email

Field	What it controls
Subject	Email subject line
Header	Text shown above the email body
Body	Main email text
Send Confirmation and Cancellation Emails	Sends a confirmation after booking (typically left unchecked for schools)
Support Email	Address that receives replies to confirmation/reminder/cancellation emails. If left blank, replies get an automated response directing them to contact your organization.
Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule	Recommended. Sends one consolidated email with a table of all booked appointments, instead of one email per appointment.

Reminder Emails

Send Reminder Emails: Click Add and enter the number of hours before an appointment that a reminder should go out. You can add multiple reminder times — duplicates are automatically removed.

How reminders are grouped depends on your Printable Schedule setting:

If "Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule" is ON: All appointments are grouped into a single reminder email per day, sent the configured number of hours before that day's first appointment. With reminders set at both 24 and 12 hours, you'll receive two emails — one at each interval before your first appointment of the day.
If it's OFF: Appointments booked within the same hour are grouped into one reminder email. For example, 9:00, 9:15, and 9:30 AM appointments would be combined into one email, while a separate 10:15/10:30 AM email would be sent independently.

Field	What it controls
Footer	Text shown below the email body
Subject for combined email	Subject line used when a combined email is sent (e.g., a cancel + immediate reschedule)

Recommended: Use the Printable Schedule as the Email Body

For both Confirmation and Reminder emails, you can replace the email body with a Printable Schedule — a table summarizing all of a parent's booked appointments (identical to what they'd see clicking "Printable Schedule" on the scheduler page).

To enable this: Check "Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule of Appointments."

When enabled, the email will contain:

Your Header text
The printable schedule table
Your Footer text

The table's content/format is controlled separately under Settings → CUI Messages → Print Schedule.

With this option on, parents receive one email containing their full schedule — not one email per appointment.

Configure CUI (Customer User Interface)

You can customise most of the text and labels parents see when booking appointments.

To edit CUI messages:

From the Admin UI, go to Events / Preview, select your event, and click Go To Event.
Select Settings / CUI Messages.
On the left, choose a label to edit — the corresponding text appears on the right for editing.

Common customisations:

https://help.pickatime.com/books/pta-setup-guide/page/step-four-adjust-settings