Introduction

The "Appointments" feature is used to set and track scheduled appointments with your leads, team members, lenders, vendors, and external contacts. These appointments can be added by you manually, or they can be requested by the lead directly from your IDX website.

*IMPORTANT: Please note that before you can send an appointment invitation to a lead, you need to integrate your Google Calendar or Exchange Calendar (see Google Calendar Integration and Microsoft Outlook Calendar Integration). Lofty uses the integrated calendar to send calendar invitations. If you have not integrated your calendar, the appointment will be created, but the invitation will not be sent to the lead. 

Summary

• Create an Appointment via the Lead Profile Page
• Create an Appointment via the Calendar
• Edit an Appointment
• Assigning Tasks to Others
• Showing Requests

Create an Appointment via the Lead Profile Page

*Could you keep in mind that these appointments are external invitations to lead? If you do not want the lead to be aware of the event, create a Task instead.  The lead can view the appointment's title and description if you have integrated your calendar.

After integrating your calendar, to create an appointment manually, go to a lead profile page, and click the "+" icon at the top right-hand corner of the "Appointments" section (under the Activities tab, which is the default):

In the pop-up window, enter the description of the appointment

• If the appointment is created in Lofty without a description, then the description of the appointment synced to Google/Outlook Calendar will be: "Lead Name - New Appointment"
• If the appointment is created in Lofty with a description, then the description of the appointment synced to Google/Outlook Calendar is: "Lead Name - Description".

Select the Owner, this can be yourself or another Agent on your team:

Select the appointment participants. You may invite leads, agents, lenders, vendors, or external contacts:

Choose the start and end dates/times:

Enter the address where the appointment will take place in the location field. This is an optional field:

If you also want to be reminded of the appointment, call or text message. To schedule a reminder, select "by Call" or "by SMS" under the reminder options:

 

After clicking the save button, the newly-created appointment will display on the lead's profile page under the Appointment section, an email will be sent to the lead's primary email address only, and the event will also be synchronized to your integrated calendar:

Note: The concept of supporting the option to "Send" or "Don't Send" when saving an appointment is only for invitation emails & Lofty internal notifications, and doesn’t mean whether or not to control synching participants to the third-party calendars. In line with this, choosing "Don't Send" does not mean completely preventing any participant from knowing about the appointment, but simply choosing not to notify participants by email or notification. What’s more, any major calendar product will generate an invitation event on the participants’ calendars to notify them participants at least.

 

Create an Appointment via the Calendar

Appointments can also be created via the Calendar section of Lofty. To do so, first, click on the Calendar page on the top menu bar:

Hover over the "+ Create" button on the top, and click "Add Appointment."

In the pop-up window, you must select a participant for the appointment by searching for their name, email, or phone. You must also assign an Owner. By default, the owner will be the user scheduling the appointment:

Click the save button, and the appointment will appear in your task list and be added to the calendar:

Appointment Time Zone

When adding a new appointment, the Time Zone will automatically sync to the appointment creator's time zone. With this update, the appointment creator has the option to change the Time Zone:

When Appointment participants view the Appointment, the time of the Appointment will be automatically converted according to the viewer's system time zone. This is also available in the mobile app:

When setting the appointment time, we have changed the UI from 3 independent Drop-downs to one input box. This makes it easier for the user to set the appointment time for a round number. The time can also be manually adjusted.

Before	After

Edit an Appointment

Via a Lead Profile

Go to the lead's profile/detail page. Any Lofty users who can see the lead have the option to edit or delete the appointment. The appointment will be listed on the right-side panel. Move your cursor to the appointment and click the "edit" icon:

Click "Save" after you have made any adjustments:

Via the Tasks Page

Go to the Task page. You can locate appointments by filtering with "Task Type", selecting "Appointment", and deselecting the others.

Click the whole row of one specific appointment, and then you will notice an "Edit" icon in the top right:

Click "Save" after you make adjustments:

 

Appointment Settings

Appointment settings are accessed on the Left Side Panel by clicking the gear icon:

Appointment reminder notifications can be sent to the participants either via Lofty or via an integrated calendar. If you have integrated a third-party calendar, it will be available here:

By default, if the individual who scheduled the appointment is not an existing lead in the CRM, they will not be captured as a lead. Enable this setting to capture those individuals as leads:

Assigning Tasks to Others

When creating an appointment, you can set any other Agent as the Owner, even if they do not have access to see the lead (see Lead Privacy: Team Leads vs. Private Leads), but note that you cannot currently assign an appointment to a lender-type Lofty account. Here is where you would assign the appointment to someone else:

When assigning an appointment to another user on the team, it will appear on their "Tasks" and on their integrated calendar, if they have it connected. The appointment will only show up on the task list or integrated calendar for the individual in the "Assign To" slot of the appointment. Currently, you can only add ONE owner per appointment. Keep in mind that if a calendar is integrated, it will also send the invite to the lead's email address.

 

Showing Requests

Showing requests are received in real-time based on when a lead schedules a tour from your IDX Website. The Lofty CRM allows you to manage these requests to accept and add them to the calendar or take another appropriate action.

When a lead submits a showing request, you will receive notifications by email and push notifications on your web and mobile app.

*IMPORTANT: This is not like a "Calendly" feature that tracks your availability. The options to tour a property will not be blocked off if your calendar shows you as unavailable. This feature is simply meant as a CTA to get site visitors to engage and request more information.

 

Viewing All Showing Requests

To access the Showings Dashboard, navigate to Calendar → Task View → My Showings → Showings. Showings that lead have requested will be located in the Showing Request column.

Clicking on the Showing Request will open a side panel with actions that can be taken:

• Accept the Showing
• Call Lead (if the lead has a valid phone number, opted into calls)
• Text Lead (if the lead has a valid phone number, opted into texts)
• Email Lead (if the lead has a valid email address, opted into emails.

The showing can also be accepted on the lead's profile:

When accepting the showing, the first step is to select the date and time. This is optimized to match the lead's requested showing date:

The next step is to contact the Listing Agent to acquire the access code. Once acquired, enter in the Access Instructions box to confirm the showing:

Once the showing is approved, it will move to the Approved column.

If the requested showing listing has been sold, it will be marked with a red Sold banner, and the option to accept the showing request will be removed. If the showing is approved, it will automatically be canceled and all participants will be notified via email. 

Scheduled showings will appear on the Lofty calendar, as well as synchronize to integrated third-party calendars.

 

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding this topic or any others, please reach out to our Support Team via email at <support@lofty.com>, by phone at 1 (855) 981-7557, or by chat with us through your Lofty CRM.