Before we take a look at the steps for setting up the Salesforce Scheduler (formerly Lightning Scheduler), it is important to be aware of the requirements and limitations:
- It is available at an extra cost in Lightning Experience ($25/month/user)
- Available in: Enterprise, Performance and Unlimited editions
- It has limited support on Mobile devices and certain flow specific limitations are listed here.
FreeBusy Scheduler for Salesforce on the other hand is designed to overcome all the above limitations and offer you much more.
- Minimal setup required: It takes only 2 steps to sign up and start getting appointments with your contacts within Salesforce (no admin setup required)
- Works with any Salesforce edition: Unlike Salesforce Scheduler which is available in limited editions, FreeBusy Scheduler for Salesforce is available for every edition.
- It is 80% more cost-effective: FreeBusy Scheduler for Salesforce comes as a free browser extension that works with any of the paid FreeBusy subscription (starting at $4/month compared to $25/month for Salesforce Scheduler with Lightning experience)
Coming back to the steps to get started with Salesforce Scheduler, ensure that the Salesforce Scheduler admin profiles in your org have access to the Salesforce Scheduler Setup app
1. Launch the Salesforce Scheduler Setup App
- Go to Setup -> Quick Find Box -> enter App Manager and select it.
- Click the dropdown arrow next to Salesforce Scheduler Setup and select Edit.
- In the App Settings, select User Profiles
- Move the desired user profiles to Selected Profiles and click Save.
2. From the App Launcher, find and open the Salesforce Scheduler Setup app
By default, it will include these tabs:
- Salesforce Scheduler Setup Assistant
- Service Territories
- Service Resources
- Work Type Groups
- Work Types
- Operating Hours
- Service Appointments
3. Create a permission set for users who should be available for appointment scheduling
- From Setup, enter Permission Sets in Quick Find box and select it.
- Click New and enter a label, API name, and description for your permission set (example: Salesforce Scheduler Resource)
- Under Select the type of users who will use this permission set, select the Salesforce Scheduler permission set license and click Save
- On the permission set overview page, under System, click System Permissions and click Edit.
- Enable the Let a user be included in appointments in Salesforce Scheduler permission
- Click Save and in the summary dialog that appears, click Save again
4. Assign Permission set to desired set of users
- On the Permission Set overview page, click Manage Assignments.
- On the Assigned Users page, click Add Assignments.
- On the All Users page, select the users.
- Click Assign.
5. Make changes to user profiles to include access to Salesforce Scheduler Objects
- In Setup, navigate to the profile you want to update.
- Under Apps, click Object Settings.
- Under All Object Settings, define the access level to Salesforce Scheduler objects
Now that you have some users who can be assigned to a scheduling workflow, you can complete additional setup based on your scheduling requirements. Here are some additional settings you would have to take a look at:
- Create Skills and assign it to Service Resources (appointment attendees)
- Setup Service Territories
- Setup Work Type and Work Type Groups
- Assign Service Resources to Service Territories
- Assign Service Territories to Work Type
- Add Skill Requirements for Work Types
- Assign Work Type to Work Type Groups
- Add Operating Hours and Holidays
- Setup Inbound and Outbound Scheduling
You can take a look at each of the steps and follow the instructions from the official documentation. But if you feel already overwhelmed by the setup process, you are not alone.
It is one of the major reason we built FreeBusy Scheduler for Salesforce which helps you get started with appointment scheduling from within Salesforce instantly (without requiring efforts from a Salesforce admin).