Defining Blocks of time in the Schedule Web Control

There are two ways to use Availability Schedules in a Scheduler Web Control: they can be used to set either the calendar or the calendarRestriction. Note that associating a value with calendar entails selecting an Availability Schedule from a dropdown of available options, whereas associating a value with calendarRestriction requires entering the key associated with the desired Availability Schedule. 

To look up or even edit the key associated with any individual Availability Schedule, toggle to Schedules Builder and inspect the Availability Schedule of interest.

A set calendar value is required for a scheduler to run as intended. The blocks of time defined by the Availability Schedule selected as the calendar are the appointment windows available for users to select.

A set calendarRestriction value is optional, but should it be defined, available appointment windows will be restricted to only the blocks of time encompassed by the Availability Schedule associated with calendarRestriction.

When used in tandem, the calendar value is meant to define day-to-day behavior (such as how long each appointment window is) while the calendarRestriction value accounts for holidays and provides a sanity check to ensure the Availability Schedule associated with the calendarisn't allowing appointments to be made during off hours. 

Best practices dictate that the Availability Schedules used to define calendarRestriction values should not consist of any Time Slots with split slots: the value given by calendarRestriction needs to define large blocks of time capable of encompassing smaller ones, not small appointment windows.

Using pre-configured Availability Schedules to set calendarRestriction values

Out of the box, Airkit's Schedules Builder comes with several Availability Schedules (as well as their component Time Slots) pre-configured. All pre-configured Availability Schedules define the blocks of time in which TCPA regulations allow automated calls. Because these regulations vary subtly between states, timezone, and other information regarding locale, each relevant locale has its own associated Availability Schedule. Each follows the same naming convention: they begin with "TCPA", followed by the abbreviation of the relevant state, followed by information on the exact locale, each separated by hyphens.

These pre-configured TCPA Availability Schedules are designed to define calendarRestriction values: the blocks of time they define are large and broad, containing no Time Slots with split slots. When used in tandem with a custom-made Availability Schedule as the calendar value, a TCPA Availability Schedule ensures that all appointments made with a scheduler will fall within the windows of time allowed by TCPA regulations in the relevant locale.

TCPA Availability Schedules should not be used to set calendar values.

Setting calendarRestriction dynamically

Because the value of calendarRestriction is set by an Airscript-parsable key – a shorthand text identifier that refers to an Availability Schedule as defined in the Schedules Builder – it can be defined in terms of Airscript functions as well as a hardcoded string.

Initializing the Actor

The calendar_restriction Actor property expects an Availability Schedule key. Should one be defined upon Actor initialization, the sending of Notifications from a Journey Step will be restricted to only the blocks of time encompassed by the Availability Schedule associated with actor.calendar_restriction. Best practices dictate that the Availability Schedules used to define actor.calendar_restriction values should not consist of any Time Slots with split slots. To look up or even edit the key associated with any individual Availability Schedule, toggle to Schedules Builder and inspect the Availability Schedule of interest.

In most cases, the value of actor.calendar_restriction will be set automatically to reference an out-of-the-box Availability Schedule and enforce TCPA compliance. When an Actor is initialized with values for actor.timezone and actor.region, a value for actor.calendar_restriction will be defined automatically, such that:

actor.calendar_restriction = "TCPA-{{actor.region}}-{{actor.timezone}}"

This actor.calendar_restriction value references references an out-of-the-box Availability Schedule that describes TCPA-compliant time windows within the Actor's region and timezone. Outgoing Notifications sent from Journey Steps will only be sent within the allowed blocks of time.