INFORMATION FOR:

Faculty and staff users of Starfish

INTRODUCTION:

For students to schedule their own appointments with you, three conditions must be met:

1. The student must have a connection to you through at least one of your Starfish roles.
2. You must be visible to the student through a one-to-one connection (assigned adviser, instructor) or listed as a member of a public-facing service.
3. You must make appointments available to students using one of the options detailed below.

Once you create this availability, students with a connection to you can see your open appointment times, and select the appointment that fits their schedule. Students can see times that are available, times that are busy, and times that are scheduled by other students, but they can not see any details of those other meetings.

Students can only see upcoming availability for the next 90 days, even if you have created availability further in the future.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS:

There are two ways you can add availability: use the Add Office Hours button to add recurring blocks of availability, or use the Scheduling Wizard to setup multiple office hour blocks that don’t follow a consistent recurrence.

Scheduling Wizard Button: Ideal for Adding Non-Recurring Blocks of Appointments

This option is ideal for users who have calendars that change often and where appointment availability needs to fit around other calendar items in an non-patterned way. This method allows you to create multiple, separate blocks of availability, and easily cancel or modify only specific blocks if needed. This method will only allow you to set up availability for scheduled meetings. Use the Add Office Hours button (see instructions in the next section below) to create Walk-in availability.

1. Log in to Starfish (http://starfish.psu.edu).
2. Click the Scheduling Wizard button from your Starfish Home page or Appointments page.
3. Enter the Title, location (Where?), duration (How long?), Appointment Types and Instructions that should be applied to all of the office hour blocks that are to be created.
   
   • NOTE:
4. Click the Next button
5. The date and time page of the wizard is displayed using a Monday through Friday grid for the current week. The date range is displayed in the top right corner of the grid.
6. Use the < > controls to the right of the date range to navigate to the week in which you want to begin scheduling the office hours.
7. In the selected week, enter the start and end times for each block in the appropriate day columns. You can schedule multiple office hour blocks on any day within the week.
8. If you need to schedule more than three blocks on any day, select the “Add Another Block” link in the column for that day.
9. To add blocks to another week, use the < > controls to move to the next week and repeat until you have entered all of the blocks you wish to add at this time.
10. Click the Finish button to create all of the office hour blocks.
11. A summary is presented that includes a list of hours that could not be created due to conflicts between the blocks you specified and existing calendar items. Make a note of failed blocks before clicking Finish to exit the wizard.

If you set email preferences to receive iCal Calendar attachments for changes to your appointments, you will receive an email for each block of time that can be accepted to your external calendar.

Add Office Hours button: Ideal for Adding Recurring Blocks of Appointments or Walk-in Hours

This option is ideal for users who have predictable calendars, where meetings and appointment availability recurs on a repeating pattern that rarely or never changes. Editing or Canceling meetings in recurring blocks is possible, but needs to be done with care. Instructions for modifying recurring blocks are below.

1. Log in to Starfish.
2. Click the Add Office Hours button on your Starfish Home page or Appointments page.
3. This opens the Add Office Hour form.
4. Enter a Title (name) for this block of time. Students will see this name when they view your calendar. The title will also help your or others managing your calendar identify different types of office hours.
5. Select What day(s)? and indicate any recurrence (e.g. Repeats every 1 week).
6. Use the What time? fields to enter the start and end time for the office hours.
   • Important Note: Once this office hour block is saved, you will not be able to edit the days on which the office hours occur or the type of frequency (e.g. weekly) but you will be able to edit how often the block recurs (e.g. 1 week vs. 2 weeks) and the specific times available.
7. Select Where? meetings will be held using the checkbox(es) next to your location(s).
   • If you choose more than one location, the student will be able to choose his/her preferred location for the meeting.
   • To add additional locations options, go to the Appointments Preference page of your profile.
8. Select the Office Hour Type for meetings you will take during this block.
   • Select Scheduled And Walk-ins if you will be using the kiosk/waiting room features, and you plan to take walk-ins between appointments.
   • Select Scheduled Appointments Only if you will not take any walk-ins between scheduled appointments.
   • Select Walk-ins Only to show the time as available to students, but disallow anyone from making advance appointments.
9. Select How long? meetings can be by selecting a minimum and maximum duration. If you do not want students to select the appointment duration, choose the same value for minimum and maximum.
10. Select the Appointment Type you will use for this block of availability. Appointment Types dictate:
    • which students can schedule during this time (based on the role that connects you),
    • the appointment reasons shown to students,
    • which SpeedNotes will display, and
    • which roles can view the appointment and its notes.
11. Use the Instructions box to enter instructions to students scheduling with you during this block of time. Instructions are required for blocks that allow Walk-ins.
12. Click the Start/End Date tab to set a time frame for a repeating office hour block, and select an End Date for the block. For the End Date, you may choose: Never, End of Term, on a specified date, or after a specified number of occurrences.
    • NOTE: If you do not set an end date, it will default to Never
13. Click the Submit button to save your Office Hour block.

If you set email preferences to receive iCal Calendar attachments for changes to your appointments, you will receive an email for the recurring block of time that can be accepted to your external calendar.

Edit or Cancel office hours

You can edit or cancel availability after it is created. If students have meetings scheduled during any of the times you are editing or canceling, they will receive updated iCal Calendar attachments.

Edit office hours

1. Log in to Starfish.
2. Click on the triple bar or "hamburger" icon in the upper right, and select the Appointments Tab.
3. Select the Agenda view of your Starfish calendar.
4. Hover over the office hours icon () next to an office hour title to open the Office Hours pop up card.
5. Select Edit Office Hours to modify the frequency of the office hour block’s recurrence, the time of day, locations, office hour types, minimum and maximum duration of appointments, appointment types, instructions, or a start/end date of the series.
   • NOTE about recurring blocks of appointments:
     • You cannot edit the days of the week or the nature of the recurrence (e.g. weekly).
     • You cannot modify the time range for a single occurrence of an office hour within a recurring block. Selecting Edit Office Hours will modify all occurrences of this set of office hours. To reduce availability within an office hour block on a specific day, add reserved time to cover the part of the office hours you want to remove from availability.
6. Click the Submit button on the Edit Appointment form to save your changes.

Cancel a series of office hours

1. Log in to Starfish.
2. Click on the triple bar or "hamburger" icon in the upper right, and select the Appointments Tab.
3. Select the Agenda view of your Starfish calendar.
4. Hover over the office hours icon () next to an office hour title to open the Office Hours pop up card.
5. Click Cancel, then click “The entire series” to cancel all occurrences of the office hour block.
   • NOTE: If students have scheduled appointments during this series, those appointments will be canceled and students will receive an updated iCal calendar attachment in their Penn State email.
6. You will be prompted to confirm the date from which to cancel the series, and to add a message that will be sent to anyone who had time scheduled with you during the office hours you are canceling.
   • Best Practice: include an explanation and provide guidance on how to reschedule or connect to other available resources.
7. Click the Submit button to cancel the series.
   
   

Cancel a single occurrence of an office hour block

1. Log in to Starfish.
2. Click on the triple bar or "hamburger" icon in the upper right, and select the Appointments Tab.
3. Use the calendar to navigate to the desired date.
4. Select the Day view of your Starfish calendar.
5. Hover over the office hours icon () next to an office hour title to open the Office Hours pop up card.
6. Click Cancel, then click “Just this one” to cancel office hours for the selected day only.
   • NOTE: If students have scheduled appointments during this block, those appointments will be canceled and students will receive an updated iCal calendar attachment in their Penn State email.
7. You will be prompted to confirm the cancellation and can add a note that will be included in an email to those whose appointments are canceled.
   • Best Practice: include an explanation and provide guidance on how to reschedule or connect to other available resources.
8. Click the Submit button to cancel the Office Hour occurrence.

LINKS:

• Log in to Starfish
• Email notification preferences
• Appointment preferences
• Appointments