Jack and the JSM Challenge Part Four: How Appointment Bookings in Jira Saved the Day

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Things have been going well since your last JSM Challenge. Your idea to use Atlassian Jira Service Management  for room bookings was a hit. The old, inefficient system using clipboard signups is a thing of the past — along with double-booked rooms and other mishaps — something your boss, team and the facility's users are all happy about. And the board, trustees and donors are enjoying reports with more data about facility usage and how their investments in a recent remodel are paying off. 

When you were setting up Jira room bookings using the Raley Bookman app, you could already see future possibilities for this sort of functionality at your organization. After all, once you figure out how to turn rooms into bookable assets in Jira, it's easy to repeat with the other bookable assets your organization has. And it looks like it's time to take the next step. 

Can I Make an Appointment? 

"Jack, do you have any ideas for these appointment bookings?" It's your boss, Jane. She's been impressed with how smooth the room booking implementation went. Now, she says the organization is looking to get the same efficiency and data benefits with other bookings — starting with your organization's "expert one-on-ones." 

A while ago, your organization started offering customers one-on-one appointments with some of the staff members who were experts in their areas. The customers seem to like being able to get free, personalized recommendations and the organization likes building deeper relationships with their most loyal customers. Other partner organizations also use the same appointment booking system for one-on-one meetings at the facility, offering appointments for help with tax prep, school tutoring, community info and more. Management is happy with a steady volume of expert one-on-one meetings happening each week, but it can be tricky to keep it all running smoothly. 

First, there's the fact that some appointments are still booked manually using clipboards kept at the front desk, while others have to be scheduled through email between the user and the expert. With clipboard bookings, there are the familiar problems — lost schedules, double-booking mixups and hassles for the staff and customers. With email bookings, customers have to reach out with a request, find out their expert's availability, request a booking and wait for confirmation. Both systems are inefficient. 

Can We Book Online?

"I wish we could move our appointment bookings online, too." Jeff works the front desk and he's seen what an improvement moving room bookings to Jira has had for the organization. Now he's thinking what you're thinking: why not do the same with the one-on-ones? 

Jeff explains there are a lot of problems booking appointments with the current system. The front desk keeps a list of which experts take appointments on the clipboard and which ones book through email. Every time a customer wants a booking, the staff has to check the list. If they're a "clipboard expert," Jeff and the team at the desk works with the customer to find an open slot. If they need to meet with an "email expert," the customer is given their email address. 

"But there are other issues," he explains. Sometimes, the clipboard gets misplaced. Then, neither the front desk nor the expert knows when the next appointment is. Sometimes an expert has a conflict and has to cancel, and the appointments don't always get notified. Finally, every time an expert changes their hours or availability, they have to update the front desk to make sure new appointments don't get scheduled during their lunch hours, work meetings, doctor's appointments or vacations. "It can be tricky," he sighs.  

Jira for Appointment Bookings? 

With your experience moving room reservation bookings to Jira and JSM, you know that a lot of these challenges with expert bookings could also be solved using the same asset management solution. 

At this point, you know there's no need to reinvent the wheel and go through a complicated process with standalone applications, where you'd have to: 

1. Define the organizational needs, goals and budget.
2. Get the technical requirements right (from the beginning). 
3. Sort through dozens of options and narrow them down to a shortlist.
4. Go through the process with sales calls, demos and trials. 
5. Do proper due diligence and vetting of the top vendors. 
6. Implement and maintain another separate long-term software solution. 

Instead, both Jira work items and JSM Assets can be configured to serve as assets identifying each bookable expert. JSM Portal can serve as the user-side "front door" that makes self-serve bookings available for users free of charge, even outside the organization. 

While it is possible to do all this by yourself in Jira and JSM or hire a specialized Jira consultant, you'd still have to worry about compatibility issues with future releases. But you also know there's an app that makes asset management in Jira easy.  

Why Not Raley Bookman? 

Raley Bookman worked great when you needed to be able to let users to book facility assets from JSM Portal — and, after a quick check, it's clear you can easily configure the same app to allow for one-on-one appointment bookings, too. 

The new Bookman app is great and features: 

1. Bookings via JSM portal — no need for a Jira license!
2. Support for assets from Jira work items
3. Support for assets from JSM Assets
4. JQL/AQL fine-tuning of assets eligible for bookings
5. Prevention of double-bookings
6. CRON-based booking schedule
7. Custom booking intervals from 1 minute to 1 month
8. Calendar and List views of existing bookings for an asset or asset type
9. Asset availability Calendar view from the Jira work item screen
10. Full self-service for making new reservations and cancellation of booking requests

With your past positive experience with Raley's Email Notifications, Purchase Orders and the Bookman app, and the Raley team's extensive experience in commercial software and Atlassian product support, you're confident this is the right option and you'd like to give it a try. 

Like other Raley apps, Bookman comes with great support and thorough documentation, making implementation fast and easy. You share your latest idea with Jane and the rest of the team and they like it. 

"Our one-on-one appointment bookings were easy to get up and running in Raley Bookman since we already use Jira and JSM," you explain. The organization's expert one-on-ones are now fully online. Customers and the public no longer have to come to the front desk to sign up on the clipboard or play email tag with their expert. 

"Best of all, our experts don't have to worry about double-bookings, last-minute cancellations and schedule changes anymore. Bookings are only available for the time slots we specify and the system prevents double-bookings by showing only the times that are open. If a customer needs to cancel, they can also do so themselves online using the same interface. And our experts can easily update their future availability whenever their schedule has a change and it will be reflected in the system instantly." 

"That's a great improvement over our current system," exclaims Jane. 

You explain other benefits include the ability to see actual utilization of the expert assets and monitor usage of the one-on-one program initiative. You still have more ideas about how Jira and JSM can be used to increase efficiency at your organization, but that will have to wait for a future "JSM Challenge." For now, it looks like Part Four of this "JSM Challenge" is a success! 

Try Raley Bookman for Jira at your organization and streamline your asset management! Free for the first 30 days!