Providing central coordination for the undergraduate advising, career services & learning support communities

Add Appointment Availability (Office Hours)

If you’ve finished the Getting Started Steps, including 1) Setting Up Your Profile, 2) Set Your Appointment Preferences, and 3) Set Your Email Notifications, you’re ready to add your “Office Hours,” which is the Starfish lingo for appointment availability. You can change how this label is displayed later in this section.

When you first login to Starfish you will see this prompt for the Scheduling Wizardplease skip this step.  Instead, please follow the steps below.

Starfish landing page that highlights the Office Hours Setup Wizard and says "IMPORTANT! Skip this step"

Adding Your Appointment Availability

1. Click the Navigation bar (three horizontal lines, top left corner)

Starfish main header showing the sidebar menu button (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner and the full UW-Madison logo below text that says "System Announcement"

2. Click the arrow next to Appointments expand the section

Expanded sidebar on the Starfish homepage with the Appointments option highlighted

3. Click +Office Hours in the top left corner.

+ Office Hours

Add Office Hours dialog, which includes office hour title, when, where, office hours type, minimum and maximum appointment length, appointment type selections, an instructions field, and a tab controlling the start and end date.

4. Update the Title for these hours. Students will see this when they view your profile, so call it whatever you want as long as it’s clear and succinct. For example:

  • Acadmic Advising Office Hours
  • Academic Advising (Virtual Only)
  • Career Advising
  • Learning Support Availability

5. What day(s) allows you to set a single or repeating availability, similar to your Outlook calendar. 

If you create a recurring series, you must set an End Date using the “Start/End Date” tab at the bottom or it will go on forever. While the default view shows students the next 3 weeks of availability, Starfish allows students to schedule out as far as they want if the appointment availability is set up.

We always recommend setting an end date, usually either for the end of the current term or the end of the academic year. This prevents students from scheduling too far into the future with you, and it gives you the opportunity to review and update your office hours configuration on a regular basis.

6. Enter your Start Time and End Time. 

7. Select one or more locations in Where? The locations listed here come from My Locations in Appointment Preferences, which you set up earlier.

  • If the Where? section shows three fields called “Type”, “Details”, and “Instructions” instead of checkboxes, that means you skipped Appointment Preferences and haven’t set up My Locations yet. If this is you, we recommend clicking Never Mind and setting up My Locations before creating your office hours. You can technically use the Type/Details/Instructions fields here to create a new location on the fly, but this interface has historically caused problems for some users.

8. Set Office Hours Type.

  • Scheduled And Drop-Ins if you will take scheduled appointments and plan to take drop-ins between appointments.
  • Scheduled Appointments Only if you will only take scheduled appointments and no drop-ins. If you’re not sure, choose this one.
  • Drop-Ins Only allows students to see on your profile that the time is available, but they cannot schedule appointments in advance.

9. Set your minimum and maximum appointment lengths under How long?

  • If the minimum and maximum are different values, Starfish will default to the minimum when the student is scheduling their appointment. If the time slots after it are open too, a “Change duration” option will be presented to the student.

10. Select the Appointment Types you want to include in this office hour block. The appointment types you choose here will be available for students to select when they schedule an appointment with you.

  • The values that appear here will depend on your role(s). Anyone with assigned advisees in SIS will have at least Academic Advising (all students) and Academic Advising (assigned students only). The former is open to all students, and the latter is only open to your assigned advisees. There are many appointment types, but a few other examples include Career Advising, Student Financial Aid Advising, and Pre-Health Advising. Those who have the role of Learning Support will have a wide array of different appointment types – be sure that you’re only selecting the correct one(s) for your unit.
  • NOTE: If this isn’t presented as an option for you, don’t worry. Only people with access to more than one appointment type will have this section. If you don’t have it, that means your role only gives you access to a single appointment type. (For ~80% of you, it’s probably Academic Advising (all students) ).

11. Enter a note about appointment preparation under Instructions. This is where you can add notes like:

  • Bring a copy of your DARS report
  • Bring a list of questions
  • Don’t forget to wear a mask

12. Click on Start/End Date and choose when you want this office hours series to end. We ALWAYS recommend setting an end date for recurring series. (Note: If you chose “Once” for What day(s)? then this option will be grayed out.)

13. Click Submit to add this availability to your calendar.