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Appointment Fields

Can I prompt my parents for a phone number? or additional information?

pickAtime lets you collect custom information from participants at two different points:

  • When they create an account (Contact Fields)
  • When they book a specific appointment (Appointment Fields)

Both support various answer types — including text, date, radio buttons, drop-down lists, and checkboxes.

1. Choosing the Right Field Type

  Contact Fields Appointment Fields
When it's collected During initial account sign-up Every time a slot is booked
Frequency Once per user Once per appointment
Best used for Phone number, address, language preference — info tied to the person Student name, meeting topic, teacher-specific questions — info tied to the appointment
Location Global Setup / Contacts / Contact Fields Settings / Appointment Fields

2. Setting Up a Field

Both field types use the same basic process:

  1. Go to either Global Setup / Contacts or Settings / Appointment Fields, depending on which type you're creating.
  2. Add the field: Type the field name (e.g., "Phone Number") into the Add New box and click Add.
  3. Activate the field: It will appear under Available Fields — select it, then click the < button to move it into Included Fields.
  4. Admin visibility: Check "Required for Admins" if you want staff to see/fill out this field when testing the system.

💡 Pro tip: Don't create custom fields for First Name, Last Name, or Email — these are already collected automatically during registration. Adding them again will prompt users to enter the same information twice.

3. Configuring a Question with Multiple Choice Answers

If you want a field to use radio buttons, a drop-down list, or checkboxes, you'll configure it as a "Choice" type field:

  1. In Included Fields, locate the Type column for your question.
  2. Click the cell and select "Choice" from the drop-down.
  3. The Question Editor will open. Click Add New Option to add each possible response.
  4. Choose a display format:
    • Drop-down list
    • Radio buttons
    • Checkboxes
  5. Use the arrows (<>) to reorder the options as needed.

4. Conditional Logic: Show/Hide Fields Based on Responses

You can make fields appear or disappear dynamically based on how a participant answers a Choice-type question.

Each Included Field is assigned a number, which is used to reference it in the conditional logic.

To enable this: Check "Hide/Show fields based on the user response" on the question you want to control others with.

To configure it: Next to each answer option, enter the field numbers to hide or show when that option is selected:

  • To hide fields: Enter their numbers directly — e.g., 3,4,5 or 3-5
  • To show specific fields instead: Prefix each number with a / — e.g., /5, /6

⚠️ This logic only applies to fields that come after the conditional field in the list — it cannot affect fields earlier in the form.

Example: If a participant selects "Junior" for a given question, you could configure the rule to show only fields 5 and 6 — hiding everything else beyond that point unless explicitly shown.

5. Restricting Date Ranges

For Date-type fields (e.g., Date of Birth), you can restrict the range of dates a participant is allowed to enter.

Why this matters: Schools have reported participants accidentally entering today's date in a DOB field. The Restrict Dates option helps prevent this kind of erroneous entry.

To use it: On a Date-type field (in either Contact Fields or Appointment Fields setup), enable Restrict Dates and define the valid range — e.g., no dates after the year 2000.

6. Viewing the Collected Data

In the Appointments Grid (Admin View): For Appointment Fields, you can view responses immediately without running a report:

  1. Go to the Appointments page.
  2. Click any booked slot.
  3. View the participant's custom field responses in the section below the calendar (left-hand side).

In Reports: To include custom fields as report columns:

  1. Go to the Event Report section.
  2. Click the blue Contact Fields or Appointment Fields link.
  3. Check the box in the upper-right corner of the pop-up to select all fields, or choose specific ones.
  4. Confirm your selection — the fields will now appear as columns in your report.

Best Practices

With the PTA product, the parent name and email address are collected when the parent logs in. The student name is collected when the parent connects their student to their account.

Because this information has already been collected, parents should not be asked to enter it again each time they book an appointment.

On the Settings > Appointment Fields page, you generally should not include prompts for Student Name, Parent Name, or Email Address. Removing these unnecessary fields makes the booking process quicker and avoids duplicate data entry.


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