Appointment Groups

Creating calendar signups for office hours, presentation slots, and other appointments

Creating appointments, office hours, and presentation slots now happens directly in the Canvas Calendar, without any need to work in a “Scheduler” mode.

Key Upgrades:

  • Published timeslots now appear immediately on your Calendar, even before students sign up.
  • The student signup process is simpler and clearer. Students can locate available appointments they can sign up for using the new Find Appointment button in the Canvas Calendar.

Notes and Warnings:

    • If you’re going to create team-based appointments for group presentations or conferences, please see the article “How do I add a Scheduler appointment group in a course calendar?“
    • The redesigned calendar signup tool does not currently offer a Save button without Publishing.
    • When editing Group Details, the summary of appointments at the bottom currently shows only times, not dates. This will be fixed this soon; to work around it, use the Agenda instead.
    • The Canvas Calendar shows information based on your currently specified time zone; if appointments are elsewhere, switch time zones temporarily.

Creating Appointment Groups

A group of times that are available for signup is called an “Appointment Group.” One appointment group can, and generally always should, contain multiple time slots.
To begin, go to the Calendar and click on a date in Month or Week view, or use the + button in Agenda view.

    • In the Edit Event pop-up window that appears, click on the Appointment Group tab.
    • The Name will refer to the entire appointment group (e.g. “Paper Conferences.

the "Appointment Group" display in the Canvas Calendar

    • If the Location will be the same for all appointments, you can fill it in. Otherwise, if locations will vary, leave it blank.
    • Use the Select Calendars button to choose which course(s) this appointment group is available for.
      • If you want to limit signups to certain sections, expand the calendar tree by clicking on the arrow to the left of your course name, and use the checkboxes to select the sections. Note that restricting to section only works for individual appointments, not team-based appointments.
      • Once you press Publish, you can still add calendars, but you can no longer remove them.
    • For team-based appointments, check Have students sign up in groups before you press Publish. If you have more than one set of teams, select the correct one from the Group Category dropdown.
  • Use the Date and Time Range boxes to fill in the date, start time, and end time of your first appointment. Underneath that, add more appointments; more rows of entry blanks will appear as you add further appointments. The time slots you add here constitute the set of appointments from which students will choose.
  • There’s a Divide feature that allows you to quickly create consecutive appointments within a single time range. First, fill in the date and overall time range. Underneath that box, add the desired length in “into equal slots of ___ minutes.” Then press the Go button. The time range will be split accordingly into separate consecutive appointments.
  • Prior to publishing the appointment group, you can remove any unwanted slots using the “X” icon next to the slot.

Adapted  from Rob Ditto’s and Linda Lee’s documentation, Wharton Computing

Last Updated: 23 Sep 2022