Getting Started
To begin the setup process for Online Services, log into STX using the OWNER password.
Setup: General
Go to Setup and select the General option.
The Company tab is where the company information is contained.
Enter the company email address into the Email Address field. Click Save.
The Gift Templates tab is used to select gift templates available for online purchases.
If you wish to sell Gift Certificates online, highlight the desired template and check the Available Online checkbox. Click Save.
The Merchant tab is where the company credit card processing merchant information is stored.
The Online tab is where the online preferences are contained.
Online Gift Sales – Determines the types of Gifts being sold online. Check the appropriate boxes to allow online gift sales.
- If you are allowing online Gift sales or require pre-payment of online appointments, you must have an Online Merchant account. Enter the merchant information.
- NOTE: You must have at least one gift template selected to be available online on the Gift Templates tab and have the Online Merchant Information entered on the Merchant tab in order to sell Gifts online.
Online Appointment Display – Determines the information the client will see when hovering the mouse over available appointment times during the online booking process.
Appointment Reminders – Determines whether an SMS text message and email will be sent to clients, and for which clients you do not wish to send a reminder email.
Check Send SMS reminders to send text reminders. Click Buy Credits to purchase text credits.
- Click the desired amount of credits and enter the payment information. Click Purchase Online to purchase the credits.
- NOTE: Each single SMS credit represents a single text reminder. SMS text reminders are sent exactly 2 hours prior to an appointment and are not intended to replace the appointment reminder emails.
Check Send Email reminders to have an appointment reminder emailed. Using the popup menu, set the desired time frame for when to send the reminder email.
- Automatically - Appointment reminder emails are sent between 16 and 48 hours prior to each appointment, as long as the appointment has been on the calendar for 8 or more hours and has the appointment status of Booked.
- 24 hours ahead - Appointment reminder emails are sent exactly 24 hours prior to each appointment, as long as the appointment has the appointment status of Booked.
- 48 hours ahead - Appointment reminder emails are sent exactly 48 hours prior to each appointment, as long as the appointment has the appointment status of Booked.
- 72 hours ahead - Appointment reminder emails are sent exactly 72 hours prior to each appointment, as long as the appointment has the appointment status of Booked.
- 96 hours ahead - Appointment reminder emails are sent exactly 96 hours prior to each appointment, as long as the appointment has the appointment status of Booked.
Using the Do not email clients with flag popup menu, set the desired option for which client you do not wish to send a reminder email.
Check Send a copy to and enter the email address where you wish to receive a copy of each appointment reminder email being sent.
Additional reminder text allows you to add information to the appointment reminder email. The information entered will appear in all appointment reminder emails.
Online Cancellations – Determines whether or not you will allow the clients to cancel appointments online and with how much notice.
- Check the box to allow online cancellations and use the popup menu to determine how many hours prior to the appointment you will allow the clients to cancel online.
Online Booking – Determines whether or not you wish to allow the clients to book appointments online, whether or not you wish to approve each new client registration, and whether or not you require either a full payment or deposit for online appointments.
Allow with required notice – Check the box and use the popup menu to select how many hours into the future it has to be before the client will be allowed to book an appointment online. The lowest setting, 1 hour, indicates the appointment availability will start 1 hour from the time the client is logging in for online booking.
- Booking window indicates how far out into the future the clients will be allowed to book appointments online. Use the popup menus to make your selections.
New registrations require approval to book – Check the box if you wish to approve all new client online registrations.
- When a new client registers online, a client card will automatically be created in STX and an email will be sent to the company email address to notify you of the new client registration.
- To approve the new client, go to Client Cards and search for the new client.
- You can search by name, phone number, or email address.
- Once you have found the new client, double-click the name to open the client card.
- On the Client Info tab, look in the Booking Restrictions area. The Do Not Book button will be clicked and the reason is automatically set to Online Registration.
- To approve the registration, set the booking restriction to None. The client can now book appointments online.
- NOTE: You will not be able to schedule an appointment for the client ‘in-house’ until the booking restriction has been set to the None option.
To continue with the Online Services setup, go to Setup: General and select the Online tab.
Online Payments & Deposits – If you require a deposit or pre-payment of appointments booked online, check the All appointments over box and enter the desired amounts in each field.
- NOTE: You must have the Online Merchant Information entered on the Merchant tab in order to accept pre-payments/deposits online.
- If no deposit or pre-payment is required, leave the box unchecked and enter $0.00 and 0.00% into the appropriate fields.
- If the appointment is to be completely pre-paid, enter $0.00 with a deposit amount of 100%.
- If a deposit is be paid for appointments booked online, enter the desired dollar ($) amount with the percentage required for the deposit.
Appointment Confirmations – Each time a client books an appointment online, a confirmation email will be sent to the client immediately in order to confirm the client is scheduled for the appointment they just booked online.
- Check Send a copy to and enter the email address where you wish to receive a copy of each appointment confirmation email being sent.
- Additional confirmation text allows you to add information to the appointment confirmation email. The information entered will appear in all appointment confirmation emails.
Online services are available at: – The link found in the lower left-hand corner of the Online tab is the actual online booking link your clients will go to in order to book an appointment online. Each booking link is unique to each company location, and no two links are the same. It is this link you will provide to your web developer to implement the online booking through your website.
- Your link will contain a mix of letters and numbers between each of the slash marks.
Shutdown Online Services – Safely shuts down the online services in order to maintain the integrity of the online booking system.
- In order to safely restart the STX Server computer, you will first go to Setup: General: Online and click the Shutdown Online Services button. Close the window and quit the STX program. Now you may safely restart the computer.
- Upon restart of the STX Server computer, the online services will automatically restart. You can verify this by going to Setup: General: Online. You should have the option of shutting down the online services.
- Click Start Online Services to restart the online services system.
- If the online services failed to restart you will see the following option.
Setup: Services
- Go to Setup and select the Services option.
- On the Groups tab, select which groups of services you wish to have available online for your clients.
- Highlight the desired group and check the box labeled Available Online.
- Enter the Online Name if you want the client to see a more descriptive name when selecting the group online.
- Click Save when finished.
- On the Services tab, select which services you wish to have available online for your clients.
- Highlight the desired service and check the box labeled Available Online.
- Enter the Online Name if you want the client to see a more descriptive name when selecting the service online.
- Enter a Description to appear when the client hovers the mouse over the service when selecting it online.
- Repeat the above for all services. When you have set each service for online booking, click Save and close the window.
Setup: Employee
- Go to Setup and select the Employee option.
- On the Contact tab, enter the Online Name for the employee.
- This is what the clients will see when booking an appointment online.
- Enter the employee’s Email Address.
- Highlight the employee name for whom you wish to set up Online Booking.
- On the Services tab, check the box labeled Allow booking online.
- Each service you wish the clients to be able to choose from when booking online must be checked in the Online? column.
- Only those services checked Online? will appear in the online booking system.
- Repeat the above for all employees. When you have set each employee for online booking, click Save and close the window.
Duplicate Email Addresses & Responsible Party
After entering the client Email address, if it is not being used on another client card, it will appear in regular font with the black font color. This is the ‘primary’ email address.
If the email address is being used on another client card, it will appear in regular font with the red font color. This is the ‘secondary’ email address.
In the Client Search window, search for the email address being shared. The ‘primary’ client owning the email address will appear. It is the ‘primary’ client who will be responsible for the ‘secondary’ client(s) sharing the same email address.
The Responsible Party field can be found on the Billing tab of each client card.
Where there are multiple clients using the same email address, enter the 'primary' client name into the Responsible Party field of the clients for whom the 'primary' client is going to be responsible.
When more than one client card in STX has the same email address, only the ‘primary’ client will be sent an Appointment Reminder email from you and be able to log into the online booking system.
The ‘secondary’ client(s) sharing the same email address will have the word Duplicate in front of the email address on the client card. You must enter the Responsible Party for the client(s) with the duplicate email address.
To import the custom gift template into STX, click the New icon in the upper left-hand corner. Search for and use the background image you created.
Once the image is in place, you can add the necessary fields to the image by using the Add Field popup menu.
For example, Mom Smith is the 'primary' client and is responsible for her family. Enter Mom Smith into the Responsible Party field on Dad Smith's client card, Son Smith's client card, and Daughter Smith's client card. Mom Smith will be the only client with an actual email address on file.
It is recommended to also enter the ‘primary’ client name into the Email address field on the Client Info tab. For instance, enter Mom Smith (parent) in the Email address field to show the name and relationship of the responsible party.
When a client logs into the Online Booking system AND is responsible for other clients, their name at the top of the booking page becomes a popup menu instead of appearing as simple text. If the client changes the popup, they will be booking the requested appointment for the client name being displayed.
Custom Gift Certificate Templates
Any custom gift certificate should use an image dimension that is within 612x261 pixels (8.5 x 4 inches) so that it will display and print correctly. If an imported template has an image that exceeds these limits, then it will be necessary to create a new template to be imported into STX with a resized version of the image.
It is a good idea to have a background image to include your company name, phone number and address, or your company logo, so the receiver of the gift certificate will know where it came from and where it can be used.
Not all gift certificates can be used in the online booking system. The typical problem is that the image is not an RGB image, or the image is too large. Again, the custom templates are created outside of the STX software and imported into STX before they can be used for the online system. Once you have completed your background image, you will go to STX to Setup: General: GC Templates.
Drag to place the fields in the appropriate area on the template. Save the new gift template and if you are using the online system, check the new template to be Available Online.
You can create a gift certificate background image in any graphic or drawing application. If you are using a word processing program to create the background image, you can either export the image into a .jpg or .png file type, or take a screen shot of the final image by using the keyboard command of Command (Apple) - Shift - 4. Once the screen shot is taken, it will either be named Picture #.png or Screen shot…png on your desktop, so be sure to rename it something appropriate for future use.
Screen shots are automatically formatted in the necessary RGB format. NOTE: If you find you need help creating the background images, please contact the manufacturer of the program you are using.
A note about creating the background image for use with a gift certificate template: STX allows you to add different fields to the template. It is a good idea to have some 'field labels' included on your background image so that when you add the different fields, you will know what the information contained in the fields is pertaining to once the gift certificate is printed and/or emailed.
The following images are examples of background images used within STX as custom gift certificate templates. Please remember, these are just the background images before they are imported into STX and before the fields are actually added.
Both examples include the company name, phone number, and street address. This helps ensure that the recipient of the gift certificate knows exactly where it came from and where it can be redeemed.
Once it is in STX, the appropriate fields are added to the corresponding field ‘labels’.