Overview
Team Appointments let you offer availability on behalf of a group of internal users rather than a single individual. When a student books a team appointment, Element451 automatically assigns one eligible team member based on the assignment method you choose. From that point forward, the appointment behaves like a standard one-on-one booking—the student receives a confirmation with the assigned staff member's name, and the appointment appears on that member's schedule.
Common Use Cases:
Admissions offers interviews that any available counselor can fill
Advising offers drop-in hours staffed by whichever advisor is free
Financial Aid offers loan counseling availability across multiple specialists
How it Works at a Glance:
Configure a team in Appointment Settings > Team Settings
Create an availability and assign it to that team
Students browse the booking site, select a team, and choose a time
Element451 assigns the appointment to an eligible team member automatically
Prerequisites
Before setting up team appointments, make sure the following are in place:
Make sure you've configured teams in Element451 that align with how you want to structure your appointment bookings.
Teams are managed under Settings > Manage Users > Teams. You'll select from these existing teams when configuring Appointment Settings, but you can't create new teams from within Appointment Settings itself.
Users can belong to multiple teams, so feel free to create new teams specifically for appointments without affecting your existing setup.
Like individuals, Teams have a dedicated booking page.
Team members have personal booking links.
Each team member must have a custom slug configured in Appointment Settings > My Settings.
Members without a personal booking link are not eligible to receive team appointment assignments.
Calendar connections are recommended.
Team members who connect their Google or Outlook calendars allow Element451 to check busy/free status when assigning appointments.
Step 1: Configure Team Settings
Team Settings is where you configure which of your organization's teams are available for appointment scheduling.
Accessing Team Settings
Navigate to Engagement > Appointments.
Click the ⋮ (more) icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
Select Team Settings from the menu.
You'll see a list of all teams configured for appointments, with columns for Team, Display Name, and Slug.
Adding a Team to Leverage Appointments
Click + Add Team at the bottom of the list
In the Team field, search for and select an existing team from the dropdown.
This list is populated from your organization's teams managed under Settings > Manage Users > Teams.
Enter a Display Name. This is the name students see on the booking site.
Enter a Slug. This creates the team's dedicated booking page URL (e.g.,
appointments.yourdomain.edu/teams/admissions-team).Important: Only teams with a defined slug appear on the booking site.
Click Save
Editing + Deleting a Team
Click the ⋮ (more) icon at the end of any team row
Select Edit to modify the display name or slug, or Delete to remove the team from appointment scheduling
📌 Note: Deleting a team from Appointment Team Settings removes it from the booking site and prevents future bookings. It does not delete the team itself. Team management and membership is managed under Manage Users > Teams.
Step 2: Create a Team Availability
Once your teams are configured in Team Appointment Settings, you can create availabilities assigned to a team rather than an individual.
Creating Team Availability
Navigate to Engagement > Appointments
Click the ⋮ (more) icon and select Availability
Click + Add Availability
Fill in the appointment details:
Name: A descriptive name for this availability (e.g., Admissions Interview or Academic Advising Drop-In)
Appointment Type: Select the appropriate type
Slug: A URL-friendly identifier for this specific availability
Active: Toggle on to make this availability bookable
Description: Optional details shown to students on the booking page
Under Assignee Type, select Team
Selecting Admin assigns the availability to an individual internal user
Selecting Team assigns the availability to a team
In the Assign to a Team dropdown, select your team.
Only teams configured in Team Settings appear here.
Choose an Assignment Method:
Round-Robin — Rotates assignments evenly across eligible team members in sequence, ensuring even distribution over time.
Balanced — Assigns the appointment to the available team member with the fewest appointments within 7 days before and 7 days after the selected time slot. If there is a tie, the system falls back to Round-Robin.
Configure the remaining fields — Location Type, Location, Scheduling Window, Buffer Time, Scheduling Conditions, Weekly Hours, and Notifications — the same way you would for any individual availability.
Click Save
🧠 Good to Know: For details on scheduling windows, buffer time, weekly hours, date overrides, and notification settings, see Configuring Your Appointment Availability.
How Team Member Assignment Works
When a student selects a time slot on a team availability, Element451 determines which team member to assign by evaluating eligibility in the following order:
Team Membership
The system checks the team associated with the availability and identifies all members of that team.
Personal Booking Link
Of those team members, the system narrows the list to members who have a custom slug configured in Appointment Settings > My Settings. Members without a personal booking link are not eligible for assignment.
Calendar Availability
Of the remaining eligible members, Element451 checks for scheduling conflicts. This includes existing appointment bookings within Element451 as well as busy status on any connected Google or Outlook calendar. Members who are already booked or marked as busy during the selected time slot are excluded. Members without a connected calendar are assumed to be available unless they have an existing Element451 appointment at that time.
Assignment Method
If only one eligible member remains, they receive the appointment.
If multiple members are still eligible, the system uses the assignment method configured on the availability (described below).
Assignment Methods
Method | How it works |
Round-Robin | Maintains an ordered list of eligible members and assigns the next available person in sequence. Ensures even rotation over time. |
Balanced | Counts each eligible member's appointments in the 7 days before and after the selected time slot. Assigns to the member with the fewest total appointments. Ties are broken by Round-Robin. |
🧠 Good to Know: A single time slot can support multiple bookings as long as eligible team members remain available. For example, if three team members are free at 10:00 AM, three separate 10:00 AM appointments can be booked — each assigned to a different member. The time slot remains available on the booking site until all eligible members are booked at that time.
🚨 Important: Once assigned, the appointment is treated as a standard one-on-one booking. There is no automatic reassignment if the assigned staff member becomes unavailable after booking.
The Booking Site Experience
Your appointments booking site organizes availabilities into two sections:
People
Individual staff members with active availabilities appear here, sorted alphabetically by last name.
Visitors can select a person to view their available time slots and book directly.
On an individual booking page, only one-on-one availabilities are displayed. Team availabilities that the individual may participate in are not shown.
Teams
Teams with active availabilities and configured slugs appear here sorted alphabetically by team name.
Each team displays with a team icon and its display name.
Visitors select a team to view its available time slots. They do not choose a specific staff member. Element451 handles the assignment automatically.
The Teams section only appears on the booking site when at least one team has an active availability and a configured slug. If no teams meet these criteria, the section is hidden.
Team Booking Pages
Each team has a dedicated booking page based on its slug. When a visitor selects a team from the booking site, they are taken to that team's booking page, which displays all of the team's active availabilities with details including duration, location, and availability name.
Sharing Team Booking URLs
You can share a team's booking page URL directly. The URL follows the format:
appointments.yourdomain.edu/teams/[team-slug]. For example, a team with the slug admissions-team would have the booking page:
appointments.yourdomain.edu/teams/admissions-team
These links can be:
Shared via email, chat, or social media
Used in Bolt Jobs to send scheduling links to students at scale
Embedded in campaign communications using scheduling link tokens
Bolt Agent Support
Bolt Agents can book team appointments on behalf of students when the Schedule Appointments skill is enabled. When a Bolt Agent schedules a team appointment, the same assignment logic applies — Element451 selects an eligible team member using the configured assignment method.
✨ Pro Tip: You can also use Bolt Agent Jobs to send team appointment scheduling links to groups of students, making it easy to promote department-level booking pages at scale.