Appointment Scheduling

Some training isn't delivered as a classroom group, it's booked one student at a time against a qualified trainer and a specific resource: a driving lesson in a particular truck, a practical assessment with an examiner, a simulator session. Appointment scheduling handles this kind of delivery. You register your bookable assets and the capabilities they carry, record what each trainer can deliver and assess, and then book a student into a free slot through a gate that only ever offers eligible people and equipment, and never lets the same person, asset, or student be double-booked.

Appointment scheduling appears when at least one course is configured for Individual bookings. An organisation can run class courses and booking courses side by side; an online-only organisation sees neither physical schedule.

Access required

Choose the task you are doing. Each row is a separate action.

Custom roles also need View access to the students, enrolments, courses, trainers and locations selected in the booking flow. Learners and employers use their own portal access and can only book sessions offered to them.

Configure a booking course

How the pieces fit together

A booking is one booked package for a student, and it's made of one or more sessions, the actual timed blocks that appear on the board. Most bookings are a single delivery session; a split booking adds a separate assessment session with its own assessor and time. A session is only offered when everything lines up:

• A capability describes what the booking needs (for a heavy-vehicle RTO, that's a licence class like HR/HC/MC, and a gearbox type).
• An asset is tagged with the capabilities it satisfies (Truck 01 is an HR automatic).
• A trainer carries a capability matrix saying what they can deliver and assess: delivery sessions check the deliver side, assessment sessions the assess side.
• When you book, the gate offers only people and assets that match the chosen capabilities, and only times when they're working and free.

Set these up once and bookings stay correct by construction.

Define your capabilities

You don't need to mark which group is the "trainer" one. RTObase works it out from the matrix. A group gates people whenever any trainer is credentialed on its values (like Licence class); groups nobody is credentialed on (like Gearbox) only have to match the asset.

Register your assets

Record what each trainer can do

Open a trainer, then the Capabilities tab. The matrix shows, per capability value, whether the trainer can Deliver and Assess, their currency, and the backing accreditations that ground each one (a road-authority accreditation, for instance), rather than a hand-kept list.

• Use Add capability to record a new one. A capability can be marked under direction (the trainer delivers supervised), which reveals a supervisor picker.
• Currency matters: the booking gate enforces it server-side. A trainer whose credential or regulator accreditation has lapsed is blocked from being booked until it's renewed, and any of their existing scheduled sessions surface under Needs attention so you can reassign them.

The Credentials tab on the trainer remains the single unified evidence list (TAE, industry currency, and the accreditations that back the matrix).

Set availability

A booking can only land when the site's booking hours, the trainer's working hours, and the location policy all line up.

Take a booking

Each scheduled session with a fee gets its own payment request, unless an employer pays or the enrolment pays for its course as a whole. Booking saves do not send payment links. Create or review a payment request separately from the enrolment’s Payments tab. See Payment for each booked session.

After saving, review the saved recipients and full messages, then choose Send selected or Finish without sending. Sending a confirmation requests one booking confirmation email containing every remaining scheduled lesson and assessment, in date order. It highlights the first arrival time and shows each session's label, local time, trainer and location. SMS confirmations, when enabled, remain separate for each session.

After staff save added or changed sessions, the optional review offers a Booking Rescheduled email for each changed session. Each message shows that session first, followed by the full schedule as it stands after the save. Booking reminder emails also include the remaining schedule. Cancelled, completed and past sessions are left out. Custom email wording is preserved alongside the schedule.

When Session Calendar Invitations is enabled in Communications → System Messages, the review after saving offers a separate calendar choice for each learner. Select it to publish the saved timetable, including relevant changes and cancellations. Finishing without sending leaves their previously published calendar unchanged. Invitations do not wait for the learner's skills check, and calendar responses do not change attendance.

Confirmation and reschedule emails are recorded for retry if the email provider is temporarily unavailable. Supplied-asset confirmations and 24-hour reminders say who supplies the recorded asset and what class, configuration, and booking capabilities it must satisfy. The same instruction appears in the student's My Schedule page. Ordinary organisation-asset messages do not expose internal resource assignment state.

Manage a booking

A booking is managed on its enrolment: opening a booking (from the Bookings list, the board, or Needs attention) takes you to the enrolment it's delivered against, where the Bookings card lists each booking with its sessions. Every session carries its own status: mark a session Complete or No-show, or cancel it, a student can complete the training and still no-show the assessment, and the booking's overall status follows its sessions. From each booking's actions menu you can:

• Add training / Add test: open the booking with a new custom session ready to schedule.
• Edit: change a scheduled session's type, label, Start, End, trainer/assessor, asset arrangement, or organisation asset; add another session; cancel one by clearing End; or update the booking's notes. Every saved scheduling change re-runs the eligibility and clash gates.
• Find another time: see free slots over the next 30 days and move the session there. Organisation-asset sessions assign a free trainer and asset; supplied-asset sessions keep the recorded arrangement and assign a free trainer only. Before saving, choose whether to notify the learner. Use Preview where offered to inspect the proposed session's Booking Rescheduled email and SMS. Sending follows the enabled System Message channels and the learner's contact details.
• Cancel or Archive the whole booking.

The enrolment's Bookings card shows the total enrolment booking fee and each booking's quoted fee. Every change is recorded in the enrolment's audit log, which covers the booking and its sessions alongside the rest of the enrolment. The Bookings list opens on Scheduled bookings. Use the status filter in the toolbar above the list to tick other statuses, such as Completed or Cancelled, or choose All statuses.

Retests and session outcomes

Edit a booking, add a test session and choose Retest as its type to set its own fee. Review the enrolment total before requesting payment. On a course paid per session, the retest gets its own payment request, and only a paid session's fee locks, so you can add a retest after another session was paid. After saving, review the booking notices and the new session’s payment request together. Choose each message separately, then Send selected once or Finish without sending to skip them all. The request also remains available in Payments. For other enrolments, retest fees lock when payment is pending or recorded. Changing a fee does not collect another payment or issue a refund.

RTObase asks you to confirm session outcomes. Cancelled and no-show sessions retain their previous resource details. Restoring a released session checks current availability and requires a retained assignment. If the old assignment is unknown, create a replacement session.

Booking board

Each recurring break appears with its label inside each affected training block and as shading on the relevant timeline. The session remains one continuous resource reservation.

Open Bookings Schedule and choose Calendar for a Day, Week or Month calendar laid out as lanes, one per asset (grouped by location), or toggle to one per trainer, with each session shown as a block filled in its trainer's colour and labelled with the student, capabilities, and trainer. A split booking shows as two blocks: the delivery in the trainer's lane, the assessment in the assessor's.

Booking cards show a small ID badge beside the learner's name. A recorded driver licence or approved document number appears in the badge, including passport numbers. Green means verified, amber means a number is recorded without verified identity, and red No ID means neither is recorded.

Short cards keep their normal text size and show … when details do not fit. Hover over or focus a card to read its full details. The expanded view shows the ID type and number below the trainer, followed by selected custom fields and payment status. Admins choose which custom fields appear from Settings → Student Fields and Settings → Custom Fields. Existing student fields labelled LAPS are selected unless an administrator turns them off.

• Switch on Vertical timeline in Day view to put time down the page and show each asset or trainer as a column. Switch it off for the horizontal timeline. RTObase remembers the choice for your next visit.
• Keep names and times in view. The Week board keeps its name and time column visible while you scroll sideways.
• Use the zoom controls to make board blocks larger or smaller. The board and data tables save separate zoom preferences for each user.
• Drag a block to another lane to change the trainer or organisation asset, to another day column (Week view), or along the timeline to a new start time (Day view, in the configured block size). Dragging straight to another lane keeps the session's exact start time. Drag a block's edge to change its length where that session can be resized. While you drag, lanes that can take the booking are highlighted and the rest dim, a dimmed lane won't accept the drop, and in Day view a dashed slot plus a time chip show the exact window the drop would take before you release. Supplied-asset lanes appear only where a session already uses one. To change an organisation-asset session to supplied, use Edit booking so the required evidence is recorded.
• Confirm each change. After a drop or a length change, RTObase shows the session before and after and asks you to confirm. Tick Send the learner the Booking Rescheduled System Message to notify the learner. It is ticked when the time changes and unticked when only the trainer or asset changes. A drop onto another session is refused and names the session in the way.
• Act on a session from the board. Every scheduled session shows its actions beside it: a column to the right on the Day vertical timeline, and a strip under the card on the Day rows and Week views. They never cover the card's details. Click Complete, No-show or Cancel (each asks you to confirm), or open the ⋯ menu for Change trainer, Change asset, Swap with another session and Edit booking. A session too short to fit every button keeps Complete and the menu, which lists the rest. Trainers viewing their own board can complete or no-show their own sessions only.
• Change the trainer or asset. Change trainer lists the active trainers (or assessors, for a test) qualified for the session; Change asset lists only the assets that suit the booking and are free at that time. Pick one, check the learner's before and after, and save. The time and everything else stay the same, so the learner message starts unticked. If the new trainer or asset is already booked then, the board names the clash and offers Swap instead. You can also change a session's trainer from the Change trainer button on the session in the enrolment's Bookings card.
• Swap two sessions. Choose Swap with another session from a session's ⋯ menu, or click Swap instead on the message after a refused drop. Tick what the two sessions trade: Trainer, Asset and Time. Tick all three to move each learner into the other's slot. Each session keeps its own length. The dialog lists only sessions that can swap, shows both learners before and after, and asks whether to message them. Both sessions must pass the usual working hours, block-out, closure, approval and clash checks, or nothing changes.
• Filter by status with the Status menu. The board shows Scheduled and Completed sessions by default. Tick Cancelled or No show to see those too, for example to check a no-show you kept for its cancellation fee. At least one status stays ticked. The board remembers your choice in this browser, and the link to the board carries it.
• Overlapping sessions in one lane sit side by side in Day view instead of covering each other. Scheduled and completed sessions take the first slot, then cancelled and no-show sessions. The lane grows to fit.
• Filter by location to see one venue's board in its own local time; the all-locations asset view groups lanes per venue. When a venue's clock differs from yours, the board is labelled with its zone (e.g. AWST) so times always read as the venue's local time.
• In Settings, choose Arrange asset rows or Arrange trainer rows to drag them into your own order. On the Day vertical timeline the item says columns, and the same order runs left to right. Your order is saved to your account, and only your board uses it. Reset order goes back to the default.
• See closed days at a glance. On the Week view, a day whose lock-outs cover all its booking hours, such as a public holiday, is greyed out with one large card naming it. Shorter lock-outs show their name and hours at the top of each day.
• Review trainer block-outs on Day and Week trainer lanes. Add a block-out from the trainer lane, or click an existing block-out to view and edit its dates, times and reason on the board. Trainers can edit their own block-outs from their portal. The booking gate still prevents sessions during that time.
• Block out time from the Block out button: Trainer time off for one trainer, or Org lock-out for every site. In Day view you can also drag across empty time in a trainer lane and choose New booking or Block out trainer. A drop onto a lock-out, a closure or the trainer's time off is refused before the confirm step, with the reason.
• See the whole trainer. Trainer lanes show the trainer's class sessions as read-only blocks, and leave or other work still waiting in Work Queue → Trainer requests as a hatched Pending leave band. A session that sits inside leave approved after it was booked shows an amber warning; hover over the card to read which leave.

Hold an asset before booking

Staff can choose Add hold on an asset lane to reserve a time window before the learner or course is confirmed. Enter the hold details, optionally pick a Trainer and an Assessor, and save. The hold blocks the vehicle and the chosen staff, so none of them can be booked elsewhere in that window. The staff show a Hold block-out on their trainer lane and Availability tab. A hold cannot overlap an existing booking for the vehicle or the chosen staff, or a staff block-out.

A hold must fit within the configured working hours of both its trainer and assessor, on one local working day. A trainer or assessor without configured working hours cannot be assigned to a hold. These checks apply when creating or rescheduling a hold. You can still void a hold after someone's working hours change.

A hold fills with its trainer's colour, or the assessor's when it has no trainer, so the board shows whose time is held. A hold with no staff colour stays amber.

Click a hold on the board to open it. You can change its title, date and times, trainer, assessor and note, then click Save. A hold that runs past midnight also shows an End date. The same checks run again when you save, so a change that would overlap a booking or a staff block-out is refused.

• Convert to booking saves any changes first, then opens the booking form with the held asset, time and staff. Choose the learner, course and sessions, then create the booking. The hold remains in place if the booking cannot be saved.
• Void hold frees the vehicle and the held staff straight away.

Voiding or converting a hold removes its staff block-outs. You cannot delete a hold's block-out from the trainer's Availability tab.

Holds imported from a previous system work the same way, so you can add a trainer or assessor to them. An imported hold that already overlaps a booking for the same vehicle stays as it was. Clicking it goes straight to the booking form.

Take an asset off for maintenance

Choose Unavailable on an asset lane to block it for a service or repair. Enter a reason and start time, with an optional end, workshop or service provider, note, and photos or documents. Leave the end blank if the repair duration is unknown. Times use the asset's location timezone, and a period can run over several days.

The asset can't be booked during the period, and any booking already in it moves to Needs attention. Click its Unavailable card to manage the record on the board. You can edit a planned or open period and add evidence, or choose Return to service once the asset is ready for bookings. Returning it saves any unsaved details first, ends the booking block and keeps the maintenance history and evidence. Submitted records remain read-only.

After an early return, the past period stays on the board as Returned to service. Click it to view the retained record. The Admin Agent can also open the maintenance form for an asset so you can review the details before saving.

Jump to a date and resolve clashes

Click the schedule date to choose a day, month and year. When a move or resize clashes with another session, the message names the blocking booking and the board outlines it. Use Open booking in the message to review that booking.

Daily checks from the board

If an asset with bookings that day has a required check that has not been done, the board shows a Check due chip on its lane. Click the chip to open the capture dialog on the board with the due template selected. Once the check is done, the chip shows Check done and links to the asset's activity. This works the same on the trainer board. Trainers also see the checks that fall to them on Today, by the template's timing. See Asset Register and Activity.

Conflicts and reassignment

If something changes after a booking is made, a trainer goes on leave or their credentials lapse, an asset is taken out of service or hidden from the board, the affected sessions surface under Needs attention (for example, "Trainer on leave", "Trainer credentials expired"). Open one to jump to its enrolment, then use the booking's Find another time to move it to a free slot with a trainer and asset auto-assigned, clearing the conflict.

Let students and employers book available sessions

When they hold an active enrolment in an individual-booking course, students and approved employer contacts get a Book a Session option in their portal. An employer first chooses one of their current workers. The portal then applies the enrolment's course and capability requirements and shows only live slots with a qualified person and suitable asset available.

Booking requests from your website

When you do not take online payments, learners on your website can request a booking course instead of paying. They see Request booking at checkout. This does not create an enrolment, reserve a slot or take a payment.

Click Decline in the request details instead if you cannot take the booking, then confirm. The request is marked declined. Let the learner know separately. RTObase does not create a client invoice for a website booking request. Send your own invoice, or collect payment offline and record it on the enrolment. A request made by an employer also offers Invoice, which opens a new invoice for that employer.

Price an individual booking

A booking can use its own training hourly rate and test fee. Review the calculated amount before requesting payment, or reset the rates to the course defaults. Rate changes are refused after payment is pending or paid. For unpaid bookings, session changes and automatic lunch deduction update the calculated quote. Pending or recorded payments lock the existing quote; changing sessions does not collect an extra payment or issue a refund. On a course paid per session, the quote keeps each paid session's amount, and a session with a custom payment request amount keeps that amount while it is owed. Unpaid sessions follow their changes, and the booking form's fee summary uses the same amounts. See Payment for each booked session.

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