Frequently Asked Questions

Navigate: Common Availability Issues (Faculty/Staff)

Availability setup affects the student appointment scheduling feature.

Why Can't I Add Availability?

• There are several permissions issues that might prevent you from setting Availability.
• Check if the user has the My Availability tab on their Staff Home page.
• If not, send a ticket to navigate@help.carthage.edu. A Navigate Application Administrator will need to enable the availability permissions.

Can Students Schedule with Me If I've Set up Calendar Sync, but Not Availability?

• No. If you want students to schedule with you or ANY staff member through Navigate, you must have availability configured.
• Calendar Sync lets Navigate know when you are unavailable due to calendar conflicts. It does not indicate when, where, and for what services you are available. These are all important components of appointment scheduling.

What Does It Mean When Availability Is Listed as Inactive and Is Highlighted in Red?

• It means your availability is inactive. That usually happens if the availability is set for a time period in the future or past.
• For example, if you set an availability for October 1 to October 15 and today is October 16, the availability is inactive.
• You can always reactivate an availability by selecting Edit for the availability on the My Availability tab and change the time period to a current time.

How Can Users Prevent Availability from Becoming Inactive?

• Set the active duration to Forever. The availability never expires.

I Have Active Availability, but Students Are Still Unable to Schedule with Me. Why?

• There are a variety of reasons students can't schedule. Common scenarios include the following:
  • Student doesn't have permission to schedule appointments.
  • The Location and Service combination the student chose doesn't have appointment scheduling.
  • You have a calendar conflict during the time slot they chose.
  • The student can't schedule because they reached the No-Show Limit.
  • The student can't schedule because of appointment restrictions based on student category or major.
  • Your availability for the time slot is drop-in only.

Do I Need to Modify Availability to Account for Calendar Conflicts, Such as Meetings or Other Blocked Time?

• Not if you have set up Navigate's Calendar Sync to work with your Carthage Google calendar. If your sync is set up, calendar conflicts added to the external calendar prevent students from scheduling during these times even if it is during an active availability.
• If you haven't synced your professional calendar with Navigate properly or recently, calendar conflicts might not be up to date in Navigate.

Why Do Users Need to Indicate a Care Unit When Setting up Availability?

• The main reason is so you can select the Locations and Services associated with the Care Unit.
• Note. You can only select Care Units for which you have permission.

Can a Student Schedule an Appointment in Navigate If I Only Have Drop-in Availability?

• You need appointment availability if you want students to schedule appointments with you.

How Do Term Start and End Dates Affect My Availability?

• If your institution ends a term on the last day of classes, students can't schedule course-based services with you during finals week.
• Tutors who set availability for a term only cannot schedule after the term end date. That can be a problem if the term end date is the last day of classes.
• If there is a gap between the end of the term and the beginning of the next term, students also can't schedule with you because your next term availability will not be active until the term start date.
  • For example: If you set availability for Summer Term 20XX and subsequent availability for Fall Term 20XX, there will be a gap of time from the ending of the Summer Term to the beginning of the Fall Term where you will not have an availability set up to meet with students. This can be managed by adding an availability setup to cover that range of dates or changing the duration option completely to a range of dates or forever.

Can I Schedule 5-10 Minute Breaks Between 30 Minute Appointments with My Availability?

• Besides blocking off the break time on your Google calendar, you could put in your Additional Details for your Availability that “appointments will be 25 min long”, so the student would know the appointment would be from 12-12:25, for example, and then you would have a 5-minute break.

How Do Calendar Busy Blocks Affect Student Schedule?

• If a user has a 9:00 - 9:40 am busy block and 30-minute appointments, students are shown 9:40 - 10:10 am as the first option. This makes sure all potential times are utilized for scheduling.