Basic Options

Having a client set up in an Engagement means there are some rules about scheduling appointments with that client: the question "does this client have any sessions left?" has an answer.

You have three choices:

• Never allowed: This means you, as coach, will always be responsible for booking appointments with clients.
• Allowed only within the limits of an Engagement: This means that any client who's NOT been added to an engagement will not be able to request appointments with you.  In other words, a client must be in an active Engagement with you in order to be given the privilege of scheduling with you.
• Allowed unless and Engagement says otherwise: This means appointment requesting is generally available (per the rules of the Appointment Types you offer, of course!) to clients UNLESS they have ever been set up in an Engagement.  Once that's the case, the rules of the Engagement (with respect to hours allocated and the date range) dictate whether or not a given client is allowed to schedule an appointment with you. This is a great option if you're transitioning from not using Engagements to using them, or if you will generally not be using Engagements (because you wouldn't want your lack of using Engagements to short circuit clients' ability to book with you).

Here's a fun little trick that this setting makes possible and is not exactly related to Engagements: notice how it says this setting can be overridden on a per-client basis?  That means you can segment your clients in a particular way, separating, for example, those who have only purchased a group coaching experience with you from those who have upgraded to the one-on-one plan (such a tiered offering is a powerful structure for a coaching business, you should consider doing it if you don't already!).

The next setting is to do with marking appointments as Verified: you can do this manually, but the system will automatically do so if you choose.  Verified (or not) is essentially your way of telling CoachAccountable that "yes, this appointment DOES count towards the allocation of hours" or "no, it doesn't".  Your decision on this front will usually lie with how you manage cancelled/rescheduled appointments or no-shows.