Simple PTA FAQs Account How do I change the name of my account? Go to  Global Setup / Business . At the top, select  Business Settings / Business Address / Business Name . Edit the account name. Note: The change won't appear immediately — log out completely and log back in to see the update. Administrators Can I have multiple administrators on my account? Yes, you can set up any number of users with administrative access: Go to  Contacts , click  Add / Admin... . Fill in the contact's information. Set  Admin Level  to  Administrator  for full access. What administrative access levels are available? Level Permissions Appointment Viewer Can view appointments only Appointment Maker Can make appointments in the Admin tool, but cannot change account settings Resource Administrator Full schedule control for specific assigned resources Event Administrator Full administrative access to all events Administrator Full administrative access to the entire account "Email address already exists, can't create duplicates" — what does this mean? This administrators email is already linked to an existing pickAtime contact. Go to  Contacts , search the email address, and you should find the existing record. Admin UI Why is the Appointments List red? This means you have appointments with some sort of problem that needs attention. When a problem appointment is created, both the tab and the appointment itself turn red. There are several ways problem appointments are created — see the Problem Appointments page for details. I see orange appointments on the Appointments List page with the status "Customer is creating this appointment." What do I need to fix? Nothing — this is expected behavior, not an error. Appointments still being booked appear in orange on the Appointments List page: They can't be manually deleted or selected for email notifications while in this state. The system automatically manages them — if the customer is inactive too long without completing the booking, it will be cancelled. Once the customer finishes and clicks Create Appointment , the orange status disappears. This also helps admins booking manually in the Admin UI, since it prevents you from selecting a time slot that's currently mid-booking by a customer. How do I sort my teacher roster? On the Appointments page, select the Teachers drop-down. Select Sort Teachers . This sorts teachers using the order set under Global Setup / Business / Account Level Display Options / Display Contact Name As (Last Name, First Name, or First Name Last Name). Every time I change "Open scheduler to customers" on one event, it changes on my other events too. Why are my events connected? Go to Events Preview / Events Settings . Under Propagator Mode / Propagate Changes To , change the setting from "all events of this type" to "only the current event." Is there a way to let parents only see a certain event on our account? Yes — use the Category Sort option to control which events are visible and how they're displayed. Appointments I'd like to offer Virtual appointments part of the day (e.g., morning/early afternoon) and In-Person for another part (e.g., evening). Can I set that up? Yes — create separate time slots for each type: Use the Virtual slot type for morning/early afternoon hours. Use the In-Person slot type for evening hours. A participant accidentally booked an In-Person appointment but needs Virtual instead. How do I change the appointment type? Option 1: Participant self-service Go to My Appointments . Locate the appointment and click Edit . Change the Appointment Type . Option 2: Admin Open the event in the Admin UI. Locate the resource and corresponding time slot. Click the appointment, then click Edit Appointment . Change the Appointment Type and save. I want to change ALL booked appointments from In-Person to Virtual (or vice versa). How do I do this? Open the event in the Admin UI, then go to Event Management . Click Slots / Update Slots . In the Slot Updater pop-up: Set the desired time range. Choose the new type from the Slot Type drop-down. Click OK . A confirmation message will show how many existing appointments will be updated. Click OK to proceed — all affected appointments will be updated to the new type. Appointments List Why is the Appointments List red? This means you have appointments with some sort of problem that needs attention. When a problem appointment is created, both the tab and the appointment itself turn red. There are several ways problem appointments can be created — see the Problem Appointments page for details. Canceled Appointments Can I see a list of cancelled appointments for a specific teacher? Go to  Reports / Account Reports . Select  Cancelled Appointments . Sort by Teacher name to find all relevant appointments. Contacts Why are contacts shown in different colors? Color Meaning Blue Contact has never logged in / taken ownership of their account Black Contact has logged in Red Problem account — usually a duplicate email address Data Files How do I create a tab-delimited text file? Using Microsoft Excel: Open the File menu and select Save As... . In the Save as type drop-down, select Text (Tab-delimited) (*.txt) . Click Save . If warning messages appear, click OK or Yes . Using Google Sheets: Open the File menu in the top-left corner. Hover over Download . Select Tab-separated values (.tsv, current sheet) . This downloads the currently selected sheet as a .tsv file. My teacher names were reversed during import (First Name and Last Name swapped). Correct your file and import it again. The system matches by TeacherID  and updates the First Name and Last Name fields accordingly. Date I need to change my event date, but keep the existing appointments. How do I do this? Yes — you can move your slots and appointments to the new date instead of recreating them. Go to the Appointments page Select the original date on the calendar (left-hand side). Click Slots / Move Slots . Select the new destination date. You'll have the option to email participants notifying them of the change. Note: Moving slots does not automatically update the date listed on the Event Setup page — you'll need to correct that separately. Emails How can I view any emails that have been sent?  This can be viewed on the individual contact level. On the  Contacts  page, you can search for a contact by name. Then click on the contact and then click on the small Log tab. This will show a log of appointments booked, canceled, and any emails sent.  How do I turn off my E-Mail Reminders? To turn off your   reminder emails, go into the  Events Management / Settings / Notification Setup  page, and under the Reminder email option, you will see a check box labeled " S end Reminder Emails ". Uncheck this box. E-Mail Reminders Recommended: Include a table of appointments in the reminder email Go to  Settings / Notifications Setup . Select the  Reminder Email  option. Check the box labeled  "Replace the Email Body with the Printable Schedule of Appointments"  (located above the body field). This replaces the email body with a table-formatted schedule of appointments, which includes room numbers. Any text entered in the  Header  field will appear above this table. The table's format is controlled separately, under  CUI / Messages / Print Schedule . Set up when reminders are sent Go to  Settings / Notifications Setup Select the  Reminder Email  option Check the box to require a reminder. Enter the number of hours before each appointment that the reminder should be sent. Under  Send Reminder Emails , click the green  +  to add an automatic reminder, then enter how many hours before the appointment it should go out (e.g., 24, 48). You can add multiple reminders by repeating step 4 — for example, one at 48 hours and another at 24 hours. Can I change the time/verbiage of my reminder emails? Yes, you can change the verbiage and add/remove the times of your Reminder Emails at any time. These updates will apply to all appointments. I'm testing the confirmation email and I have not yet received it. Does it take a long time? The confirmation email is sent approximately 20-25 minutes after the parent books their appointments. We do not send the email immediately, as we wait to make sure the parent has completed booking all their appointments I booked and canceled some test appointments. Will I receive any emails? If you book and then immediately cancel your appointments, pickAtime will send a cancellation email, but not the confirmation one. Also, for the PTA product, we wait 20 minutes before sending out an email; this is to ensure that the parent has finished booking their appointments.  Events Starting a new event with all old data removed Go to the Events page and click Add to create a new, empty event. Go to Global Setup / Contacts , click  Show Advanced Options , then click Remove All Customers . Select the access level to delete, starting with Event Administrators . Parents and teachers will then need to log in as new contacts and create new passwords. ⚠️ Important: Only remove contacts before importing your new data — not after. Doing this after importing can delete data you still need. I have two events sharing some of the same teachers — how does blocking/booking work across them? If a teacher is shared across two events, the system prevents double-booking automatically: Booking a slot on one event blocks the corresponding slot on the other event. Blocking a slot on one event also blocks the corresponding slot on the other event. If you need to block time for a teacher on one event only (not the other), use Delete Time Slots instead of the block feature — deleting does not carry across events, while blocking does. Invoices How do I view my invoices? Log in and select  Reports / Account Reports . Choose  Account / Invoices and Payments  from the report pull-down. Click an invoice # to view details. Can I pay by credit card? Yes: Follow the steps above to open an invoice. Click  "Click Here"  within the report. Select  Pay by Credit Card . Can you take my payment over the phone? No — phone payments aren't supported. Please use the credit card option above. Links Which link should I give parents — the account-level scheduling link, or the event-specific link? If you only have one open event: You can use either link — both will take parents to the same place. Use the account-level link, found under Global Setup / Business / Account URL . If you have multiple open events: The account-level link will show parents all open events in a pull-down to choose from. The event-specific link takes parents directly to that one event — but if other events are also open, parents will still see the event table and can toggle to the others. To direct parents to only one event , with no option to toggle to others, use the Category Option instead. Customizing Your Account URL Check the box "Set Custom URL." Enter your preferred text — this becomes the XXX portion of https://pickatime.com/XXX . Example: Entering myschool creates https://pickatime.com/myschool . New custom URLs take 5–10 minutes to become active. Parents A parent has forgotten her password In the Admin UI, select the Contacts tab. Search by name for the parent in the Search Control boxes. Select the parent's record — their email will display in the middle section. Click Reset PW . A parent says they booked an appointment, but can't see it when they log in Go to Contacts and search for the parent by first or last name. Select the small Log tab to review their activity. The log will help you identify what happened: The parent booked with one email but is logging in with a different email The parent booked, then cancelled, and never re-booked The parent never actually booked an appointment How do parents view and manage booked appointments on mobile? Tap the three-bar menu at the top of the page. Under Main Navigation , select My Appointments (shown in green). This displays a list of all booked appointments. Next to each appointment, tap the three-bar menu to see up to four management options. A parent wants a longer appointment than our standard 15-minute slots. How can I accommodate this? You'll need to book this manually through the Admin UI, since it requires overriding the normal one-appointment-per-parent-per-teacher rule. In the Admin UI, schedule the appointment for the parent (see Making Parent Appointments , above). Since the parent needs more time, book a second, consecutive appointment with the same teacher. This second appointment will be flagged with a red box, since it breaks the one-appointment-per-parent-per-teacher rule. Select the flagged appointment and click Confirm Appointment to force it through. How can I see the appointments my parents have made? Go to Contacts and search for the parent's name. Confirm you have the correct parent — check the name and email address shown on the right-hand side. Select the Appointments tab. This displays a list of all appointments the parent has made. From here, you can print or email the schedule directly to the parent. Is there a way to see when a conference was scheduled (not the conference time, but when the booking was made)? Option 1: Add the field to a report Go to Reports . Click Additional Report Fields . Select Appointment Fields . Check the box next to Created Date . Option 2: Check an individual contact's log Go to Contacts . Locate the contact. Select the small Log tab. How can I log in as if I were the parent? Go to Contacts . Locate and select the parent's name. Click Login As . This logs you in as the parent from your administrative account, without needing their password. From here, you can: View any appointments the parent has already booked Make, change, or cancel appointments on their behalf Note: The parent will still receive confirmation/reminder emails for any bookings made this way. The system logs the action in the Log section of the parent's contact record, noting that an admin booked on their behalf.   Password A parent is having trouble with her password. Parents have three options: Self-service reset: Click Forgot Password to receive a reset email. Admin reset: You can reset it for them in the Admin UI: Go to the Contacts tab. Search for the parent by name. Select the parent's record — their email will display in the middle section. Click Reset PW . Contact support: Email support@pickatime.com to have it reset. How do I change my password? Log in to your pickAtime account. Click on the menu icon  on the upper right-hand side, and then select the  Edit Profile / Change password  option A parent is having trouble with her password. Parents can click on the Forgot Password option, and they will get an email that will allow them to reset their password. They can also email support@pickatime.com  to reset it as well. Alternatively, in the  Admin UI, you can reset the parent password.  In the  Admin UI , select the  Contacts   tab Search by name for the parent in the  Search Control  boxes. When you locate the parent record, click on the record, and you will see the parent's email displayed in the middle section.  Click on the  Reset PW  button. I imported a new teacher password this year, but only last year's password works. Once a teacher has taken ownership of their account and set their own password, importing a new password will not override it . To reset passwords manually: Go to Global Setup / Contacts . Click Show Advanced Options . Under Default Password , click Reset Admin Password . Select the access level you'd like to reset (e.g., Appointment Viewer ) to reset passwords for all teachers at that level. My teachers are seeing "contact the Administrator" for their password. This appears when a new password has been imported for teachers. Quick fix: Let affected teachers know the password you imported. Bulk fix: Reset passwords for all teachers at once: Go to Global Setup / Contacts . Click Show Advanced Options . Click Reset Admin Passwords . You can also update the default password setting from this same section. I'm trying to reset a parent's password, but I get an error saying I can't. This happens when the parent's account is also linked to another pickAtime organization (e.g., a different school). For privacy reasons — since appointments on other accounts may be confidential — admins cannot reset passwords for accounts shared across organizations. Solution: Have the parent contact support@pickatime.com directly for a password reset. Reports Our conferences were last month — how do I view past Reports? Log in to your account and select Reports / Event Reports .   You'll see two date fields — From and To . Enter the date range covering your past conference dates. This will pull report data for that specific period. Can I email each parent their schedule? Yes: Go to the Reports / Event Reports section. Select Parents' Schedule from the report pull-down. Select the orange Email Report button.  Select send to each parent(s) Each parent will receive their own appointment schedule in a table format. Can I email each teacher their schedule? Yes: Go to the Reports / Event Reports page. Select the Teachers' Schedule report. Select the orange Email Report button.  Select send to each teacher(s) Each teacher will receive their own individual schedule. Snow Day We have conferences that we need to cancel on account of a snow day. We would like to move all conferences to a new day. In the   Admin UI , open the event, on the  Appointments   tab select the date of conferences on the calendar . Click on the  Slots / Move Slots  option. On the pop-up, make sure that all the teachers are selected. Here you will be able to move all slots and appointments to a new date in the future. You will be prompted to select a destination date. You will have the option to send an email to all parents with appointments. We have conferences on two days, and we only need to cancel one day of conferences. We'd like to let parents continue to book on the day that is not cancelled. In the   Admin UI , open the event, on the  Appointments   tab select the date of conferences on the calendar. Click on the  Slots / Delete Time Slots  option. In the dialog box that comes up you will be able to specify times and dates for the slots you would like to delete. The system will also let you know how many appointments exist on your soon to be deleted slots. You will have the option to cancel all these appointments and you can choose to send a cancellation email or not.  To let your parents, who had an appointment on your first day of conferences to book on your second day of conferences, you will either need to:  1.  delete all appointments on the first day of conferences or  2.  change the  Open scheduler to customers on (Settings / UI Setup page) to be a date AFTER your first day of conferences. If you do not do one of these options, any parent who booked on Day 1 will not be able to book on Day 2. Changing the Open scheduler to customers on "resets" our one appointment per student per teacher/class combination.  Scheduler Every time I change "Open scheduler to customers" on one event, it changes on my other events too. Why are my events connected? To make changes apply only to the current event: Go to the Events Preview page and select Events Settings . Under Propagator Mode , change Propagate Changes to from "all events of this type" to "only the current event." Can my event span multiple days? Yes. To create slots across multiple days: Go to the Appointments tab. On the calendar (left-hand side), select your first event date. From the Slots drop-down, select Create Slots . Repeat for each additional date in your event. Can multiple parents sign up for the same time slot? Yes. You can set a maximum number of appointments allowed per slot. When creating slots: In the Slot Generator dialog, enter the desired number in Maximum Allowed Appointments Per Slot . Once that limit is reached, the slot will no longer appear as available on the scheduling page. To update this after slots are already created: Go to the Appointments page. From the Slots drop-down, select Update Slots . Update the maximum allowed appointments for a specific time period or for all slots. How do I add a logo to my scheduling site? Go to Global Setup / Business . Under Account Level Settings / Account Logo , click the Upload icon. Do you have a Spanish/French version of the scheduling page? Not natively — but parents can use their browser's built-in translation feature. [See  instructions ] What is the link for my parents? Can I customise the link? Your parent-facing link is your account URL, found at the bottom-left of the  Global Setup / Business page. This link displays any open event on your account — if you have multiple open events, parents will see a pull-down to choose between them. To customize the URL: Check the box "Set Custom URL." Enter your desired text (the XXX portion of https://pickatime.com/XXX ) — for example, myschool for https://pickatime.com/myschool . New custom URLs take 5–10 minutes to become active. How do I test out the scheduler? Go to the  Online Scheduling link (left-hand side of the Admin dashboard) to open the live scheduler. You can add a student to your account and view the schedule for their teachers. When testing, I see "there are no events available" or "the online scheduler is closed." This means the scheduler isn't currently open for booking. Fix: Go to Settings / UI Setup and check the Scheduler Availability start and end dates. The scheduler must be within this window to be viewable. When testing, I see "no slots available." This usually means one of two things: No slots have been created for your teachers, or All existing slots are already filled Help! My scheduler is not open Check the following, in order: Scheduler Availability dates — Confirm "Open scheduler to customers" and "Close scheduler to customers" are set correctly ( Settings / UI Setup / Scheduler Availability ). Slots created — If parents see "there are no available times," confirm slots have been created for your teachers. Booking window — Check the setting "Customer cannot book their appointment closer than XX hours/days." If a slot falls within this window (e.g., it's set to 1 day and the appointment is tomorrow), parents won't be able to book it. Our conferences got snowed out — how do we move all slots and appointments to a new date? Go to the  Appointments  page for your event. Select the conference date from the calendar. Click  Slots / Move Slots . Select the destination date. You'll have the option to  email all affected parents  about the change. We have conferences on two days and need to cancel just one day, while keeping the other open for booking. Go to the  Appointments  page for your event. Select the date to cancel from the calendar. Click  Slots / Delete Time Slots . Specify the dates/times to delete. The system will show how many appointments exist on the slots being deleted, and let you choose whether to cancel those appointments and send a cancellation email. How can I sort my teachers alphabetically on the scheduler? On the Appointments page, open the Teachers drop-down. Select Sort Teachers . This sorts teachers based on the Display Contact Name As setting under Global Setup / Business / Account Level Display Options — switch this between First, Last and Last, First to change the sort order. Our scheduler is closed, but parents can still cancel appointments. This is expected. Once the scheduler closes, parents can still log in (if they have the link) to view their schedule — but they cannot book new appointments. Whether they can cancel depends on your cancellation window setting: "Customer cannot cancel their appointment closer than XX hours/days" ( Settings / UI Setup / Appointment Cancellations ). If cancellation isn't allowed, parents will see a message instructing them to call the school instead. Teachers How do I sort my teacher roster? On the Appointments page, open the Teachers drop-down. Select Sort Teachers . This sorts teachers using the order set under Global Setup /  Business / Account Level Display Options / Display Contact Name (Last Name, First Name, or First Name Last Name). "Email address already exists, can't create duplicates" — what does this mean? This means the teacher's email is already associated with an existing pickAtime contact. To check: Go to Contacts , enter the email in the search box, and click Search . You should find an existing record using that address. A teacher is no longer available — how do I cancel all her appointments? Go to the Appointments List page. Search for all appointments on your event. Sort by Parent Last Name , then by Resource (teacher), by clicking the column headers. Locate the teacher's appointments, select them, and click Delete Selected . How do I edit a teacher's room number? Go to the Appointments page — the room number is editable in the field to the right of the teacher's name. How do I set different slot durations for different grade groups (e.g., 15-min for 3rd grade, 20-min for 4th–5th grade)? Go to the Appointments page. Select your first 3rd-grade teacher, then hold Ctrl and select the rest of the 3rd-grade teachers. From the Slots drop-down, select Create Slots . Enter the conference start/end times and set duration to 15 minutes . Repeat the process for 4th–5th grade teachers, setting duration to 20 minutes . How do I stop teachers from getting an email every time an appointment is booked? Go to Settings → Notification → Resource Email Notification . Uncheck "For resources assigned to a contact, send appointment notification via email." I see a grey slot that says "An appointment has been booked with [teacher name] at this time." This means either: A different teacher contact is attached to this resource, or Multiple teachers are attached to the same resource The system blocks double-booking, so it greys out the conflicting slot. To fix: Go to Class Editor and select the affected teacher resource. Click Assign Contact/Team → Assign Contact . In the dialog, select the correct teacher contact, then click OK . I see "Teacher not available" in the Admin UI. This means the teacher already has a conflicting appointment — either: Booked in their own role as a parent , or Booked as part of a team they belong to Can I email my teachers their schedule? Yes: Go to Report Selection . Select Teachers' Schedule . Click Email Report . My teacher is at two events (e.g., High School and Middle School). Blocking their slots in one event blocked them in the other too — why? This is expected. Blocking slots affects every event sharing that teacher's contact record (matched by email), so blocking time in one event blocks the corresponding time everywhere. Deleting slots, however, does not carry across events — it only affects the event you're working in. If a teacher is unavailable at one school but available at another, delete (not block) the slots on the unavailable event. How do I set my teachers' passwords? You have two options: Import a password via the teacher file, or Let teachers create their own the first time they log in (if no password was imported) How do I reset the password for one teacher? Go to Contacts and search for the teacher. Select their name, then click Reset PW . This resets their password to your account's default ( 123456 , unless customized). To change the default password, go to Global Setup / Contacts / Show Advanced Options / Default Password . How do I reset passwords for all teachers at once? Go to Global Setup / Contacts / Show Advanced Options . Click Reset Admin Passwords . Select the access level to reset — choose Appointment Viewer to reset all teachers. The Reset PW button isn't available for a teacher — why? This typically happens when the teacher's email is also used as a parent account at another school . Since the email is shared across two separate accounts, neither account can reset the password independently. Solution: Have the teacher use Forgot Password , or email support@pickatime.com for a manual reset. A teacher can't view her schedule — how do I fix this? Check the following in Contacts : Confirm she's logging in with the email address on file . Confirm her Admin Level is set to Appointment Viewer . Confirm the box next to her name under Resource Access is checked. Imported teachers are automatically configured correctly. If a teacher was added manually , you'll need to set both of these yourself. Quick check across all teachers: Go to Account Reports → List of Teachers to review access levels at a glance. How do teachers view their schedule and log in? Teachers log in using your school's account URL, entering their email and password. Each teacher only sees their own schedule. How do I block out time for a teacher? You have two options: Delete the slots: Appointments / Slots / Delete Time Slots Mark them unavailable : Appointments / Slots / Update Time Slots , then select "Make Unavailable" for the desired time range How do I correct the spelling of a teacher's name? Go to Appointments , select the teacher's name. From the Teachers drop-down, select Assign Contact . In the Select Person dialog, correct the spelling, then click Select . Time Slots I created slots on the wrong date — how do I fix this? Go to the Appointments page. Open the Slots drop-down and select Move Slots . This moves all slots (and any existing appointments) to a new date. You'll have the option to email anyone whose appointment is being moved. My slots are 20 minutes long, but I want a 30-minute break in the middle. If your break doesn't match your slot duration or a multiple of it (e.g., 20-minute slots with a 30-minute break), you'll need to create slots in two sections: Create slots for the time before the break. Create slots for the time after the break. Why are some of my time slots grey? Grey slots mean the teacher is unavailable at that time — typically because they're: Attending meetings as part of a team, or Booked elsewhere as a parent making their own appointments Click the grey slot to see a message explaining where the teacher is booked. Why are some of my time slots yellow? Yellow slots indicate the scheduled time has already passed . These slots are hidden from parents/participants. Fix: Check the date on these slots, then either delete them or move them to the correct date. Slots on the correct (current/future) date will appear blue , indicating they're active and bookable. I created time slots with the wrong duration. Slot duration cannot be edited after creation. You'll need to: Delete the slots with the incorrect duration. Create new slots with the correct duration. I created time slots with the wrong duration, and customers have already booked appointments. Slot duration still cannot be edited directly — you'll need to delete and recreate the slots. However, since appointments already exist, you have options for handling them: Go to Slots / Delete Time Slots . A dialog will show you the number of existing appointments on the slots you're about to delete. Choose how to handle them: Cancel them — optionally send an email asking customers to reschedule, or Hold them — the default option moves affected appointments to a holding area on the Appointments List page, where you can review and manually cancel or reschedule each one.