If you own your own small business or start-up, you’ll know that it’s a challenge to juggle everything that goes along with running a business. That’s why it’s so important that you choose the right open source scheduling software. Making the right decision can save you time and money in the long run.
Businesses from small, local mom and pop shops, right through to large, international corporations still need to book reservations or schedule appointments. You might be a service company with reservations as your main source of work. Or, you might be another kind of company who takes meetings and appointments. Regardless, open source scheduling software will help you immensely.
This software can help you with all your scheduling needs and replace whichever outdated method you’re currently using. Your customers will appreciate the flexibility to book appointments online at any time rather than having to stick to your business hours. The purpose of this post is to uncover the best open source scheduling software options. Once you read through the list created by our team at Amelia, you can choose which one is best for you.
The Top 11 Open Source Appointment Scheduling Software
Amelia Lite
If you want to opt for the free version rather than the premium plugin of Amelia, you’ll still find it amazingly helpful. The free option gives you plenty of great features and will support your booking needs.
If there is a change in appointment status, Amelia sends the customer an email notification to let them know right away. You’ll see a handy calendar on your end. Here you can see all the appointments that have been made with your company in one easy visual.
Amelia Lite has been designed with both the user and the customer in mind for the best experience possible. It utilizes the latest enterprise-level technology to ensure smooth business transactions. Plus, the ability to be used on mobile has been prioritized. Your customers will enjoy being able to book from anywhere with their phones.
Easy!Appointments
Easy!Appointments is an appointment scheduling software free to download. It allows your customers to make web appointments. It can sync up with your Google Calendar to avoid double-entry of information. This is a better way to manage your time and make sure you don’t double book yourself.
It can be installed in just one server folder and will run well with your site.
Booked Scheduler 2.8k.
Booked Scheduler is a very in-depth and detailed software. In fact, it is one of the most advanced software that you’ll find that’s free and open source. It has a myriad of features; resource status and time blocking are just the beginning. It also gives email notifications, custom fields, and time slot booking options. There are many other features as well but too many to list here, so you’ll just have to check it out for yourself.
The more recent versions of Booked Scheduler offer integration for payments made with PayPal and Stripe. This gives users credits that they can use to purchase services from your company. These are used up when they make a booking.
It uses PHP programming language as well as the Smarty template engine. The underlying technology is a little older, so it works best when you don’t want to make too many modifications to the software.
Meetin.gs
If you are looking for the best appointment scheduler template, Meetin.gs can be your new savior. It’s a tool that helps you create meetings. You make meetings by creating your own meeting page. Visitors can then view when you’re free and request a meeting at a time that suits you both. It has the ability to create different kinds of meetings, such as a 20-minute Skype meeting or a 15-minute long catch-up. You can also add the location, so people know exactly when and where you’re meeting.
Sync up your calendar and you can either keep this private or make it public. Customize your own Meet Me link to share with your colleagues and clients.
Calendly
Calendly is a very popular open-source scheduling software option. You can use it to make web appointments available to your clients. By connecting your calendar, Calendly makes it easy. You can set the length of meetings and send your customized Calendly link to meeting attendees. You can create different types of meetings to send to different kinds of people. For example, maybe your client meetings are half an hour long. You can send a link where only half an hour is bookable to your clients.
Calendly features include calendar integrations. It can sync with Outlook, Google, iCloud and Office 365. You can set secret event types, add buffer time and manage different time zones, too.
Reservio
Reservio is the way that many service-based businesses stay organized. It was created to be used by gym, salons and doctor’s offices. It lets you make easy appointments from any device, including mobile. The really useful thing about Reservio is that it comes in 13 different languages. It is easy to use for your customers and easy to manage on your end as well.
It doesn’t take long to learn how to use it as it only takes a few clicks to book events and manage appointments. It can send reminders to your clients either by text or email. It can also accept bookings through Facebook as well as on your website. Get access to all your client information, including booking history too.
Seantis Reservation 469
The Seantis Reservation system was written with Python. If you’re not after PHP scheduling software, then this is a great option. It was designed as a plugin for Plone CMS (a turn-off 21). However, it has become pretty independent of Plone.
Seantis is helpful for any booking situation — for restaurants, gyms, meetings, classes and more. There’s no way of making online payments with this system but you can mark an appointment as paid once the customer has paid in person.
Setster
Setster is a widely-used open source calendar management system. It is used by companies in the construction, retail and education sectors. It syncs up with your calendar to avoid double bookings and double entries. It can accept payments, create notifications and manage staff schedules too.
You can access your calendar on your mobile with Setster so you can find out what’s next in your day from anywhere you happen to be. You can also set up advance notifications for your appointments, so you remember what’s on and when. Add time buffers, reminders and confirmations to your appointments to ensure the smoothest process possible.
Acuity Scheduling
If you want to maximize your productivity and efficiency, Acuity Scheduling can help with this. Spend less time on back and forth emails trying to schedule an appointment and more time on what’s important. This appointments system can also let you receive payments and show clients your availability. Clients can book appointments, reschedule and get reminders online so they’ll never miss another appointment.
Acuity is customizable according to your needs. It can automatically adjust time zones, taking the guesswork out of international meetings. It serves businesses with numerous staff and locations very well. It can even be embedded into your own business’ website.
Plantune
Plantune was designed to work cohesively with Windows. It is an advanced planning and scheduling (APS) software that will help you with production planning.
It can design an analysis and production plan for you to help you enhance your business productivity. It can make you more efficient by using lean business concepts. It can introduce things like customer pull and controlled WIP to your business.
If you have questions about production, this software can answer them all. Whether it’s about quantities or delivery dates, this app is completely on top of it.
Pro Schedule
CyberMatrix Pro Schedule Standard makes it simple to manage multiple users. If you are in an industry where you have multiple staff taking appointments, Pro Schedule is designed to help with this. People can even book recurring appointments with you at once. This is very useful for a range of industries, from offices to salons to gyms. Set the recurring appointments monthly, weekly or daily depending on your needs.
Ending thoughts on the open source scheduling software in this article
That’s the end of our open source scheduling software list. You can choose one of these depending on your business requirements. Look carefully at the list to see which one most closely matches your business needs.
If none of these match your requirements, you may consider paying for a premium software that will offer more features.
In this case, you may consider Amelia, because it is one of the most advanced booking plugins on the market. It allows your whole team to manage their appointments in one place. It is easy to use and intuitive to navigate so your staff should have no trouble when they start to use it.
With this system, you can manage payments, customers, locations and much more. It is highly customizable which is why it is loved by a range of industries. These include salons, gyms, spas, law companies, and mechanics.
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