Managing subjects and categories

When customers book appointments with your organisation, you need to know what they want to discuss. You do this by offering customers a list of subjects, grouped into categories, to choose from. As an Administrator, you can add and edit the subjects and categories of the appointments offered by your organisation.

This topic covers how to manage subjects and categories, including setting the meeting types available for each subject, defining the planning rules for the subject, and creating questionnaires to gather information from customers in advance of a meeting. It also covers how to add translations (if you have enabled other languages in your environment).

Viewing subjects and categories

To view the list of existing categories and the subjects they contain:

  1. From the left panel, select Organisation.
  2. From the Organisation & Planning section, select Subjects.

The Overview tab shows a list of all the subjects offered by your organisation, grouped by category. For each subject, you can see which meeting types are available (via the icons) and whether that subject is currently active, i.e. available for customers:

Adding a new category

You must create a category before you can create the subjects assigned to it.

To add a new category:

  1. From the Subjects page, at the top right select the arrow next to + Subject and select + Category:

  2. From the New Subject Category panel, complete the following:

    Name The name for this category.
    External ID This optional unique identifier can be used when configuring the Engage plugin. For more information about using External IDs, contact your Pexip Engage Customer Success Manager.
    Image

    The URL of an image to be displayed in the Engage plugin to represent this category.

    We recommend .SVG files, or .PNG or .JPEG images that are 300 x 300 pixels in size.
    Order Where within the list of categories that are shown in the Engage plugin you wish this category to appear. Categories closest to 1 are shown first.
    Color Choose the color to use on the Subjects page to help identify all subjects in this category.

  3. Select Create.

Editing or deleting an existing category

To edit or delete an existing category:

  1. Go to the Subjects page (Organisation > Subjects) where each category and its subjects are listed.

  2. Hover your cursor over the row with the name of the category. An edit icon appears:

  3. Select the edit icon. A panel opens to the right containing the fields available to edit for the category.
    4. Either:
    • to edit the category, make your changes and select Save.
    • to delete the category, select Delete.

Adding a new subject

Before you add a new subject, you must add the category it will be assigned to.

To add a new subject:

  1. From the Subjects page, at the top right select the + Subject button:

  2. Complete the following fields:

    The Meeting Types are for information only, and will be disabled for new subjects until you have configured the planning rules.

    Available for customers

    This must be set to On in order for this subject to be offered to customers within the Engage plugin.

    Even if this is set to Off, Agents can still book appointments regarding this subject on behalf of customers (i.e. outbound appointments) — see Creating new appointments with customers.

    For new subjects, this is Off by default, so you can set up the subject before it is visible to customers.
    Title The name of the subject.
    External ID This optional unique identifier can be used when configuring the Engage plugin. For more information about using External IDs, contact your Pexip Engage Customer Success Manager.
    Category From the drop-down menu, select the category to which this subject will belong.
    Order Where within the list of subjects you wish this subject to appear. Subjects closest to 1 will be listed first.
    Description

    Enter brief details about the subject, to help customers decide if this is the correct subject to select for their appointment.

    This information will also appear in the Engage plugin confirmation page and the email confirmation sent to customers.

    You can enter up to 255 characters.
    Instructions

    Use this optional field to enter any further information you wish to include for customers (for example, details about what paperwork or other information to bring to the appointment).

    This information will appear in the Engage plugin confirmation page, and in the email confirmation sent to customers under the "Important information" heading.
    Outcome lists Outcome lists define the list of reasons available to customers and Agents when cancelling or completing an appointment. For full details, see Working with outcomes.
  3. Select Create.

You now see two additional tabs for this subject: Planning rules and Questionnaire, described below.

Assigning planning rules

Each subject has its own set of planning rules, which determine which of the four meeting types are available for the subject, and for each meeting type, the duration and timing of appointments offered to customers.

Office managers can also the edit planning rules for subjects offered from their office. Any changes they make will only apply to the subjects when offered from their particular office.

To assign planning rules, select the subject and then select the Planning rules tab.

Rules are configured separately for each meeting type, represented by the icons at the top of the column:

Option Description
Allowed

On: this meeting type will be offered to customers who have selected this subject. Note that individual Office Managers can disable this meeting type for their particular office.

Off: this meeting type will never be offered to customers for this subject.
Auto accept

On: appointments are automatically accepted and booked into the calendar of the Agent.

Off: appointments are not booked automatically. When customers book an appointment, this will be treated as a request and the Agent must manually accept the appointment.
Duration

The length of time offered for each appointment.
Trailing buffer time The length of time at the end of each appointment where the Agent is unavailable to other customers. For example, you may wish to allow the Agent time between appointments to write up their notes, or travel to their next appointment.
Granularity

The interval between the start times of the appointments offered to customers. The lower the interval, the more flexible your availability.

However, if the Granularity is less than the Duration, you may end up with empty slots that are too short for an appointment. For example, if your appointments are 30 minutes duration but the granularity is 15 minutes, one customer might book an appointment starting at 10:00 and another at 10:45, meaning that the time between 10:30 and 10:45 will be unavailable for appointments because it is too short.
Earliest slot shown

How soon (from the point in time at which a customer is using the Engage plugin) that available appointments are displayed and can be booked by customers.

For example, if you select 1 day, a customer accessing the Engage plugin at 2pm on a Monday will see available appointments starting from 2pm on Tuesday.

If this is set to 0, customers can book appointments that start immediately.
Latest slot shown

The number of hours or days into the future that available appointments are shown and can be booked by a customer. This is based from the time at which the customer is using the Engage plugin to look for a suitable appointment time.
Rank 1 / Rank 2 priority threshold These options are only available if the Agent prioritization feature has been enabled.
Maximum concurrent appointments

The maximum number of appointments for this subject that can be booked for a single Agent within the same time frame. For example:

  • If each of your Agents can only take one appointment for one customer at a time for this subject, set this number to 1.
  • If your Agents can assist two customers at the same time for this subject (for example, if both customers are interested in the same information), then set this number to 2.

Creating a questionnaire

If you want customers to provide additional information in advance of an appointment, you can do this by creating a questionnaire. Customers will be asked to complete the questionnaire when booking the appointment, and the information they provide will be available to Agents when viewing the appointment details.

There are four different types of questions you can include; your questionnaire can be made up of any number and any mix of these questions:

  • Long text: customers can type their answer on multiple lines.
  • Short text: customers can type their answer on a single line.
  • (Multi) select: customers can select their answer from one (or more) options that you provide.
  • Number: customers will be restricted to entering a number as their answer.

To create a questionnaire:

  1. Select the subject and then select the Questionnaire tab.

  2. If there are no questions already, select Add one:

  3. From the panel on the right, complete the following settings for the first question:

    Question type From the drop-down list, select the type of question you want to add.
    Required If customers must provide an answer to this question before they can compete their appointment booking, enable this option.
    Multiselect

    (For (Multi) select options only)

    If you want customers to be able to select more than one of the provided answers, enable this option.

    Show label

    Label

    If you want to provide some text above the question, enable this option and then enter the text to be shown.
    Example Text

    (For Long text and Short text options only)

    Enter any text that you want to appear within the text box. This text disappears when customers begin to type.

    Show Help Text

    Help Text

    If you want to provide more detail in addition to (or instead of) the label, enable this option and then enter the text to be shown.
    Options

    (For (Multi) select options only)

    In the Label 1 field, enter the text for the first option to appear in the list.

    To add further options, select the + symbol. You can add as many options as you like.
    Show advanced options

    Select this option if you wish to add an External ID to this question.

    This optional unique identifier can be used when configuring the Engage plugin. For more information about using External IDs, contact your Pexip Engage Customer Success Manager.

    As you enter options in the panel on the right, they will appear in the central panel so you can see how the question will appear to customers.

  4. If you have more than one question:

    • To add another question, hover above or below an existing question and select the add button that appears.

    • To change the order in which each question appears in the questionnaire, hover over the question in the central panel and use the up and down arrows to move the question higher or lower in the list.

  5. Select Save.

Providing text in other languages

If you have enabled other languages in your environment, you can provide translations for the information you've configured that is specific to your organisation — such as the names of the subjects and categories you offer, and the information and questions that appear within the Engage plugin and emails.

When you provide translations for a supported language:

  • Engage Backoffice users who have selected that language from their account settings will see the translated subject and category names within the Engage Backoffice, and in emails.

  • Customers who have accessed the Engage plugin via a language-specific URL, or whose browser is set to use one of the supported languages, will see the translated subjects, categories, supplementary information and questions while using the plugin, and in the emails they receive.

If you don't provide translations, these users will see the default English language version instead.

To provide translated text:

  1. From the left panel, select Organisation, and from the Organisation & Planning section, select Subjects.
  2. From the Subjects page, select the Translations tab.

  3. From the top right Translate to drop-down list, select the language you are translating into. The options available here are the supported languages in your Pexip Engage environment.

    By default, the fields to translate from are shown in the default English, but you can use another language as the basis of the translation. To do this, select the settings icon and from the Translate from drop-down list, select the language to use.

  4. From the list on the left, select the category or subject you want to translate. Subjects and categories which do not have translations in the selected language are indicated with a warning icon :

  5. In the panel on the right, enter the translated text:

    • For each Category, you can enter a translation for the category name.

    • For each Subject, you can enter translations for any of the general fields, and any of the fields that are used in the questionnaire (if one is configured).

      Some fields are optional when configuring a subject. If a field hasn't been used, it will show with a yellow background and the text "Original missing" when viewing it in the Translations tab, so you know you don't need to provide a translation for that field.

You can view and test the translated text via the Engage plugin sandbox environment — contact your your Pexip Engage Customer Success Manager for more information.