Client portal myCalendar reservation specification - UI + API

[jocelynmutso]

myCalendar API

Based on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/booking-api-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0

The Client Portal provides customers access to the content and services provided by an organisation. One service which is needed in the future is a reservation booking service. This would allow customers to book and manage service appointments with staff members of the organisation. The organisation would then need a way to create and manage their bookable services, and match available staff to customers based on mutual availability.

Some of the noteworthy challenges involved

1. Displaying available booking time slots taking business hours and staff availability into account
2. Ensuring that a staff member is available before a customer can book an appointment
3. Limiting / specifying the length of a particular service appointment (for example, an appointment with a social worker regarding a child should last 1 hour by default)
4. Making sure that appointments are booked or cancelled reasonably far enough in advance
5. Sending notifications when a booking is created / updated
6. Sending reminders to customers/staff at certain intervals

Directly integrating with Microsoft’s Booking API via Microsoft’s Graph API requires a Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscription (22 dollars per user/month). For this reason, it makes sense to create our own API for local development and testing.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/compare-all-microsoft-365-business-products

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The myCalendar API includes the following resources:

Main resources

bookingBusiness bookingStaffMember bookingService bookingAppointment bookingCustomer bookingSchedulingPolicy bookingCustomQuestion bookingReminder

bookingBusiness

The top level object in the API. Example properties include

• Business name
• Contact info
• Scheduling policy (see bookingSchedulingPolicy resource)

Related business objects such as

• appointments
• customers
• services
• staff members

bookingStaffMember

Represents staff members of the bookingBusiness. Example properties include

• List of staff member names
• Roles
• Email addresses
• Whether staff have notifications enabled
• Properties to control scheduling based on either the business hours, the personal calendar of the staff member, or a combination of both.
• workingHours: The range of hours each day of the week that the staff member is available for booking. By default, they are initialised to be the same as the businessHours property of the business.
• useBusinessHours: True means the staff member's availability is as specified in the businessHours property of the business. False means the availability is determined by the staff member's workingHours property setting.
• availabilityIsAffectedByPersonalCalendar: API would verify the staff member's availability in their personal calendar in Microsoft 365, before making a booking
• etc.

bookingService

Information related to the service being provided by a bookingBusiness. Example properties include

• The service name
• Location where the service takes place
• The staff who provide the service
• Default duration of the service
• Scheduling policy (see bookingSchedulingPolicy resource)
• Notes
• postBuffer: The time to buffer after an appointment for this service ends, and before the next customer appointment can be booked
• preBuffer: The time to buffer before an appointment for this service can start
• etc.

bookingAppointment

Represents a customer appointment for a bookingService performed by a set of staff members. Example properties include

• Represent the customers for this appointment
• Reminders a customer specified for this appointment
• The amount of time to reserve before and after the appointment
• Notes from the booking staff member
• Start dateTime
• etc.

bookingCustomer

Represents a customer of the bookingBusiness. Example properties include

• Customer address
• Customer name
• Email
• Phone number

bookingSchedulingPolicy

Provide the ability to select staff members for a booking, and provide properties for managing booking time durations and lead times. Example properties include

• maximumAdvance: Maximum number of days in advance that a booking can be made.
• minimumLeadTime: The minimum amount of time before which bookings and cancellations must be made.
• timeSlotInterval: Duration of each time slot
• sendConfirmationsToOwner: Send notifications to business email when a booking is made
• Etc.

bookingCustomQuestion

Properties to represent questions to ask a customer when making a reservation. Example properties include

• Question value
• Answer values
• Answer input types (text, radio button, select, etc.)

bookingReminder

Represents when and whom to send an email reminder. Example properties include

• Specify the offset (how often to send reminders)
• Message value
• Message recipients

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Create a new booking

Confirmation of booking + Viewing all of my bookings

[jocelynmutso]

Initial mock UI

• Uses mock data and cannot actually be edited
• Is implemented only for DESKTOP view

Booking management view

Cancel booking

Edit booking