Virtual Appointments Key Features

Key Features

Important features of the Virtual Assistant add-on can be categorized as Basic and Advanced; Advanced being accessible only with Teams Premium License.

Basic Features 

1. Mobile Browser Joining – This makes it easier for external attendees to join Virtual appointments through their mobile phone devices without requiring them to download the Teams application. It enables a seamless experience for end users no matter from where they choose to join.

2. Forms Integration – End users can complete all the pre–appointment forms requested through the Microsoft Forms integration – further streamlining the pre–appointment process and keeping relevant information centralized. **(VA doesn’t allow me to link Forms to the meetings, even though I’m an administrator for them). **

3. Waiting Rooms – Users, clients, patients etc., can comfortably wait in the waiting room until their appointment is ready to begin.

4. Bookings Schedule – Users can also view their weekly appointments, and even those of their entire department – in one, easy to navigate calendar. Virtual Appointments integrates with Microsoft Bookings and Outlook calendar to reflect real-time availability, prevents double-booking, and shows all virtual appointments at one place.

5. Virtual Appointments Teams meeting template in Teams Calendar – Directly from their Teams calendar, schedulers can create a virtual appointment. It will have the functionality of basic Teams meeting in addition to custom fields tailored for personalized B2C engagement; users can send invites to external guests, ability to join on any device without having to install Teams and a pre-appointment waiting room.

6. Virtual Appointments Graph APIs – These will enable developers to build solutions that deliver an even richer B2C engagement.
7. Integration within Microsoft Teams – The VA app in Teams includes a comprehensive dashboard that provides a quick view of an employee’s schedule as integrated with Bookings.

Advanced Features

1. SMS text reminders and notifications – Text messages reduces no shows and makes It easier for attendees to join VA through their mobile devices. Admins can set up text messages by default when creating VA and schedulers can adjust it on an as-needed basis. Attendees will receive a personalized confirmation and reminder text message with details of their appointment including date, time and meeting join link.

2. Custom Waiting room – Attendees (both internal and external) will receive branded, first-class experience in the custom waiting rooms. These can be customized with your company’s logo, branding and more.
3. Post-appointment Surveys – Customers can provide a post-appointment survey and can give feedback and rate the overall effectiveness of their experience.
4. Streamlined appointment management – Scheduling admins can set up and manage scheduled and on-demand VA in one location – with advanced capabilities like appointment queuing and custom waiting rooms that allow for pre-appointment chat.
5. Queue view of scheduled and on-demand appointments – Users can manage, and service scheduled and on-demand appointments in one location with advanced capabilities to track wait time, live status of a meeting etc.
6. 2-way waiting room chat – Interactive waiting room that allows facilitators to send waiting room messages to customers prior to the meeting.
7. Measure rich analytics – View usage trends and history to help measure the business value of virtual appointments and drive customer outcomes.
8. Individual and departmental analytics – Individuals or departments can focus on key metrics, such as no-shows, wait times, and calendar-level analytics to drive business outcomes and improve customer experiences. Reports include trends over time and the ability to drill down into individual appointment data.
9. Organizational analytics – can view detailed activity for virtual appointments created and conducted through multiple scheduling entry points and date ranges. Reports also include active user information for capabilities unlocked in Teams Premium, including SMS, 2-way waiting room chat, and queuing. Administrators can export data into Excel for additional analysis.