How an Applicant Is Selected for an Offer

When the scheduler identifies an open time slot on your calendar, it evaluates the applicants on your waitlist to find the best match. The selection considers your chosen priority mode, the applicant's requested checkride type, and their location preferences; it offers to applicants in waitlist order. The goal is to match the right applicant to the right slot based on your scheduling preferences.

What the Applicant Receives

When the scheduler selects an applicant for a time slot, the applicant receives:

  • The offer on their dashboard — With the proposed checkride details (date, time, location, type), to accept or decline.
  • A message in their conversation — An automated message appears in your shared conversation thread with the offer information.
  • A text message, if they have turned on texts — Sent as soon as the offer is made, unless DPE Waitlist texted them in the last ten minutes.
An offer on the applicant's Checkrides page: the date and time, type, location and DPE, with Accept and Decline
An offer on the applicant's Checkrides page: the date and time, type, location and DPE, with Accept and Decline

Accepting or Declining an Offer

After receiving an offer, the applicant can:

  • Accept — The offer becomes a confirmed checkride. The time slot is locked on your calendar and both you and the applicant receive a confirmation.
  • Decline — The applicant passes on this particular slot. The scheduler may then offer the same slot to the next eligible applicant on your waitlist.

In Automatic Scheduling mode an offer stays open until its checkride is less than a day away. It waits a while for an answer: depending on how far out the checkride is, this could be as long as two days or as short as an hour, before the scheduler may offer the same time to the next applicant as well; whoever accepts first gets it.

What Happens When an Offer Is Declined

If an applicant declines an offer, the time slot remains open and the scheduler can offer it to the next eligible applicant right away. This process continues until either an applicant accepts or all eligible applicants have been offered the slot and declined.

Offer Expiration

An offer expires once its checkride is less than a day away, so nobody accepts a checkride at the last minute. An offer made during a Self-Serve head start also expires when its date opens for booking: one still unanswered then expires at the release (or at the end of its wait, if a settings change opened the date early), and its time opens for booking with everything else. The applicant sees the offer as expired, with a link to book the time if it is still open.

An expired offer, saying it expired when its time opened for booking, with a Checkride Slots Available button
An expired offer, saying it expired when its time opened for booking, with a Checkride Slots Available button

Exhausted Slots

If all eligible applicants on your waitlist have been offered a particular time slot and all have declined or let their offers expire, the slot is marked as exhausted. This means the scheduler has run out of candidates for that slot. You can still fill an exhausted slot by manually creating a checkride for it.

If you notice many slots becoming exhausted, it may indicate that the times or locations you are offering do not match your applicants' preferences. Consider reviewing your availability settings, adjusting your advance booking window, or reaching out to applicants to understand their scheduling needs.

Viewing Offer Status

Automatic Scheduling, under Checkrides in the sidebar, lists every offer the scheduler made and what became of it: accepted, declined, expired, awaiting an answer, or no longer offered. The Scheduler tab of Reports totals a month's offers: sent, accepted, declined and pending.

The scheduler sends offers on a regular cycle. There may be a short delay between when you make changes to your settings or availability and when the scheduler acts on them; this is normal and usually the scheduler will act within an hour or two.