Set up the calendar: lanes, appointment types and working hours
How to set up the calendar in stipt: agendas, lanes, appointment types, working week, work area and skills, plus a confirmation email for every appointment.
In this guide
- What is the calendar in stipt?
- How do I create an agenda?
- What is a lane and how do I put team members on the calendar?
- How do I set up an appointment type?
- How do I record working hours and time off?
- How do I make sure the right technician gets the right job?
- How do I schedule an appointment?
- How does the customer get a confirmation of their appointment?
- Frequently asked questions
Short answer
In stipt an admin sets up the calendar under Settings, Agenda. You create an agenda, add your technicians or advisors as lanes, and create appointment types with a duration, a colour and status changes for the record. Per lane you set the working week, start address, work area and skills in the planning profile. After that you schedule appointments from the Plan sidebar, and the customer receives a confirmation email per status.
By the makers of stiptUpdated October 5, 20269 min read
What is the calendar in stipt?
The calendar, called Agenda in stipt, is where you plan appointments on a timeline: every team member is a row, and per day or per week you see who is where and when. An appointment is always tied to a record, and the appointment's status automatically moves that record through your status flow. You find it under Agenda in the main navigation.
Agenda is a module. It is on by default in the Module center; if it is off, an admin turns it on under Settings, Modules. Its settings then live under Settings, Agenda, with tabs for your agendas and for Smart planning.
To make records plannable, turn on the Appointments block in the CRM builder (Settings, CRM, Structure) for the record types you plan appointments for. Only admins create agendas and appointment types.
How do I create an agenda?
An agenda is a schedule for a group of people, for example Installation crew or Advisors. You create one under Settings, Agenda with New agenda. The Agenda settings window has two tabs. Under General you fill in the name, colour and a description. Under Schedule you choose whether the agenda shows travel time between appointments and warns when a drive does not fit, and whether the map and addresses are used.
If you work door‑to‑door or with walk‑ins, turn on Allow planning new customers via the pencil on the agenda card, tab Schedule. That lets you create the customer and the appointment in one wizard.
You can run several agendas side by side, for example one for surveyors and one for installation crews. In the calendar you switch between them via the name at the top left. When something is missing, the top of the agenda card in the settings shows Readiness, for example lanes without a working week; one click takes you to where you fix it.
What is a lane and how do I put team members on the calendar?
A lane is a team member on the agenda: one row in the timeline. On the agenda card under Settings, Agenda you find the Lanes block. Add lane lets you pick a member, who gets the Executor portal profile with this agenda as their own agenda. That way the technician also sees their agenda in the portal on their phone.
A lane can have its own line name, such as Van 1, Crew 2 or Team North, while the account is in a person's name. That name applies across the back office: the calendar, the record and the member list. Only in their own portal does the member keep their real name. You drag the order of the rows yourself, and everyone sees that same order. From twenty lanes on, the calendar groups them per company, based on the line name.
Each lane shows what it still lacks to be scheduled, such as no working week or no start address. When work has to move from one lane to another, an admin uses Move lanes: you see beforehand how many appointments move and whether anything clashes. A lane with upcoming appointments can never simply be removed.
How do I set up an appointment type?
An appointment type is a kind of appointment, such as Intake, Survey or Installation. You create one on the agenda card with New type, or open an existing type with the pencil. The window has four tabs. General: name, record type with duration, colour, allowed locations (at the customer, at the office, online or other) and visible fields on the appointment. Assignment: work area and skills. Statuses: the Plan sidebar, the status changes and the customer emails. Automation: the form for the technician and automatically linking the team member as a person involved on the record.
In the Statuses tab, Appears in the planning bar at status sets the record status at which a job shows up in the Plan sidebar, for example To be planned. Leave it empty and the type can only be planned from a record. Under Status changes you choose per appointment status where the record goes: after scheduling, and at On the way, On site, Did not go ahead and Cancelled.
An appointment type can also plan several record types in one visit, for example solar panels and a home battery at the same customer. If a new type resembles an existing one, duplicate it with the copy icon next to the pencil; every setting comes along except the link to a follow‑up appointment.
How do I record working hours and time off?
Everything that decides when, where and what a lane can be scheduled for lives in the planning profile. Open it by clicking a lane's name in the calendar, or a lane under Settings, Agenda. Under Settings, Members the same content sits in the Planning tab.
The Standard week sets the working hours per working day, or marks it as a day off. The Start address is where the team member starts their day; the calendar calculates travel time from there. Under Away and extra open you record holidays, sick days or an extra working day, such as a Saturday. If appointments already fall inside an absence, stipt tells you first.
The back office sets the standard week; the technician cannot change it in the portal. Time away and extra open days they do set themselves in the portal. An admin sees the full planning profile, a planner only Away and extra open. When ten technicians work the same way, Copy from a lane copies a colleague's working week, work area and skills.
How do I make sure the right technician gets the right job?
That is what skills and work areas are for. Both only count once you turn them on per appointment type, in the Assignment tab with the switches Required skills and Postcode work area. They are off by default.
Skills are product categories. Under Settings, Products, tab Categories and skills, you tick Skill on a category. When a record holds a product from such a category, only members with that skill qualify. You click the work area per member on a map of the Netherlands, in two‑digit postcode areas. In the same planning profile you limit which appointment types a member does, such as surveys only, and set a pace when someone works faster or slower (0.8 is 80 percent of the visit duration).
In the calendar you see the result as soon as you hold a job: those who fit move to the top, those who do not fade out. Drop the job on such a member anyway and a warning tells you what is missing. You then choose: Back or Schedule anyway.
How do I schedule an appointment?
On the left of the calendar is the Plan sidebar: per appointment type the jobs that are ready, with the longest‑waiting at the top. Click a job and it is in your hand. Then click a free moment in the grid, check the team member and the time in the window, and save. The record's status changes automatically.
You can also schedule from the record: click the + in the Appointments block, pick the appointment type and then Schedule manually. The calendar opens with exactly that job in the Plan sidebar. Want the customer to choose? Send a booking link; the guide on letting customers book themselves explains how.
There is no dragging in the calendar. You move an appointment with the move button on the block: it follows your cursor, you page freely to another day and click a new moment. Until you confirm, the appointment stays in its old slot. That way a move even survives a phone call halfway through.
How does the customer get a confirmation of their appointment?
You can link an email template to every appointment status (Scheduled, On the way, On site, Did not go ahead and Cancelled). You do that in Studio, under Email templates, Triggers. To On the way you might attach a message that the technician is on the way, and a reminder can go out in advance as well. When no template is set for a status, no email goes out.
When you schedule, move, adjust the time or switch technician, the appointment window shows the Confirmation email block. If an email belongs to this appointment type, it is preselected. You can pick another template or Send no email, for example when you would rather call the customer. If an appointment moves within the same day, stipt only asks whether to email the customer.
In the Statuses tab of the appointment type, Customer emails for this type shows which messages the customer gets for this type. The email for Did not go ahead only goes out when the reason is Customer not home; for sickness or materials not delivered, the office calls the customer itself.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use several agendas?
Yes. You might create one agenda for surveyors and one for installation crews, each with its own lanes and appointment types. In the calendar you switch via the name at the top left; shared agendas from partners appear there under Via partners.
Can a technician enter their own days off?
Yes, in the portal they set their own time away and extra open days. Their fixed working week is set by the back office, in the planning profile.
Why does an appointment type not appear in the Plan sidebar?
Then the field Appears in the planning bar at status is empty on that type, and it can only be planned from a record. Pick a status in the Statuses tab and records at that status show up in the Plan sidebar.
Can I schedule outside a technician's working hours?
Manually, yes. The calendar warns first, for example that someone only works until 17:00 that day or is blocked, and you decide whether to go ahead. Smart planning never offers the customer anything outside working hours.
Can I drag appointments?
No, on purpose. You pick an appointment up with the move button and click a new moment. That is one click more, but you can page around freely and you can never drop something by accident.
What does the calendar cost?
The calendar comes with every User or Admin seat and is not an add‑on. Technicians who only use the portal on their phone can get the Mobile only role: €49 per month on annual billing, €59 on monthly billing, excluding VAT. The emails per status are set up in Studio, which admins always have and users get through the Studio add‑on.
Keep reading. More guides on related topics.
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