Personal Availability Links (PALs)
Last Modified: Aug 3, 2021
Overview
A Personal Availability Link (PAL) is a unique link for each staff user that can be used by students to “shortcut” to staff availability. Each link is unique and unchanging, once generated. PALs are useful in email signatures or on websites to quickly direct students to one staff user’s availability within the scheduler.
Considerations
Think of the PAL as just a shortcut to availability that already exists and students could already get to if they looked for it. The PAL does not bypass any filters to allow students that would not normally be able to the see availability, see the availability. PALs do not bypass any location-specific settings or filters.
If a student wasn’t able to make an appointment through the standard scheduling workflow, they won’t be able to with the PAL either.
PALs are unique to each individual and as such will only display availability for that individual. There are no “combined” PALs for multiple staff or a PAL for a single location.
At this time, staff are not able to edit the auto-generated link or have multiple PALs.
What PALs Are | What PALs Aren’t |
|---|---|
A “shortcut” to your own availability | A way to bypass location restrictions |
A unique, unchanging URL | Customizable (they’re randomly generated) |
Per user, showing one person’s availability | Location-based, showing all staff at a location |
Getting Started
Start at your Spartan Connect Staff Home page and select the My Availability tab.
Creating the PAL
PALs are automatically created when an availability is first added to the PAL. If a PAL has not yet been created, the system shows a message:
Adding the PAL to Existing Availability
If availability already exists, but is not added to the PAL, it can be added directly from the Availability tab.
In this example, none of the availability entries are associated with the Personal Link (PAL).
1. Select the rows to add to the PAL.
2. Click on the Actionsmenu and select Add to Personal Link.
Once any availability has been added, the PAL will be generated and displayed in the Personal Availability Link section, with an option to Copy the link.
Adding the PAL to New Availability
When creating new availability (or even editing existing availability) the entry can be added to the PAL.
The PAL can be removed from any availability from either the availability entries individually or through the actions menu by selecting Remove from Personal Link.
PALs with No Availability Added
If a PAL has been generated but there are no availabilities added, the PAL will show a red, broken link icon and a warning message:
Students that visit the PAL will be shown a “dead end” message letting them know there is no availability to display.