Scheduling
Scheduling books appointments with your staff, rooms and equipment: a consultation, a service visit, a class. You describe each kind of appointment and who takes it, set when each person or room is available, and the site offers only the times that are really free. Two people can never book the same person or room at the same time, and every appointment goes on that person's or room's calendar.
| Menu | Calendars > Appointments, Calendars > Appointment Types, Calendars > Scheduling Resources, Calendars > Waitlist |
| Permission | View appointments, Manage appointments (booking and changing appointments, and the waitlist), Manage scheduling (appointment types and resources) |
| Feature | Scheduling (it needs Calendars) |
What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.
To set it up, add your resources first, then your appointment types. A video shows both, step by step:
Add the people, rooms and equipment that take appointments
Open Calendars > Scheduling Resources and choose Add resource.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | How the resource is shown, such as "Dr. Jane Smith" or "Treatment room 2". |
| Kind | Staff member, Room, Equipment or Other. |
| User | For a staff member: the user they are. Their own calendars count too, so a meeting on their personal calendar keeps that time from being booked. |
| Calendar | The calendar appointments go on. Its events also make the resource busy. Leave it on Make a new calendar to get one, or choose an existing calendar, such as a room's calendar. |
| Time zone | The time zone the working hours are in. |
| Takes appointments | Untick to stop offering this resource without deleting it. |
| Hours come from | Working hours below, or Shifts on a calendar (a calendar that holds Shift events, such as one a workforce management module adds). |
| Working hours | One line per day, such as Monday 09:00-12:00, 13:00-17:00. The gaps are breaks. A day that isn't listed is a day off. |
| Days off and changed days | One per line, such as 2026-12-24 closed, or 2026-12-31 09:00-12:00 for shorter hours that day. |
| Shift calendars | For hours from shifts: the calendars whose Shift events name this staff member, such as one for each team a workforce management module provides. Hold Ctrl to choose more than one. They can then only be booked during their shifts. |
The resource's calendar is an Appointments calendar. Like any calendar, you can open it in Calendars > Calendar, and anything you add to it there, such as a Blocked time event, keeps that time from being booked.
Deleting a resource keeps its calendar and its appointments.
Describe an appointment type
Open Calendars > Appointment Types and choose Add appointment type.
General
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name, Description | What customers see. |
| Location | Where the appointment takes place. |
| Color | The color of its events on the calendar. |
| Can be booked | Untick to stop offering it. |
Time
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Length (minutes) | How long an appointment lasts (30 by default). |
| Start times every (minutes) | How far apart the offered times are, such as every 30 minutes. |
| Free time before (minutes), Free time after (minutes) | Time the resource needs free around each appointment, such as travel or cleaning up. Other plans can't fall in it. |
Who
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Group 1, Group 2, ... | The staff, rooms and equipment that take this appointment, in groups. Most appointment types need one group. When an appointment needs one of each kind, such as a person and a room, put the staff in one group and the rooms in another: a time is only offered when every group has someone or something free. Choose Add a group for another. |
| Name | What the group is, such as Staff or Room. |
| Resources | The staff, rooms or equipment in the group. |
| Pick | Any free resource (the first one free in the list), Share out (round robin) (the free one with the fewest recent appointments, so work is shared out), or All resources together (every resource of the group at once, such as a doctor and a nurse). |
| Share of appointments | With round robin: how much work each resource takes. A resource with 2 gets about twice as many appointments as one with 1. |
| Places per appointment | More than 1 makes it a class or group session that several customers book. The time stays open until it is full. |
Booking rules
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Minimum notice (minutes) | How soon before the start an appointment can still be booked (60 by default). |
| Book up to (days ahead) | How far ahead appointments can be booked (60 by default). |
| Most per resource per day | The most appointments of this type one resource takes in a day. 0 for no limit. |
| Most per resource per week | The most appointments of this type one resource takes in a week, Monday to Sunday. 0 for no limit. |
| Hold a time for (minutes) | How long a time stays held for someone who is still booking (10 by default). |
| Bookings wait for someone to confirm them | New bookings are Requested until someone confirms them. |
| Customers can book it themselves | Offer it on the public booking page and through the scheduling AI tools. |
| Most upcoming per customer | How many upcoming appointments of this type one customer can book themselves, such as 1 so each customer has only one at a time. Customers are recognized by their account, email or phone number. 0 for no limit. |
| Customers can cancel up to (minutes before) | Closer to the start than this, customers can't cancel online and are asked to contact you, such as 1440 for a day's notice. 0 lets them cancel any time before it starts. |
| Customers can move up to (minutes before) | The same for moving the appointment to another time. |
| Booking page address | The end of the public booking page's address, after /book/. |
The last three rules hold customers who book on the booking page or through the AI assistant. You and other staff who manage appointments can still book more, cancel or move appointments at any time.
Deleting an appointment type keeps its appointments.
How open times are worked out
A video shows each rule on screen:
A time is offered when:
- the appointment itself fits inside the resource's working hours (or shifts), less its days off. Its free time before and after only has to be clear of other plans, so it may run past the end of a range, such as into a lunch break;
- the appointment, with its free time before and after, is clear of anything busy on the resource's calendar, and for a staff member, on their own calendars;
- it is clear of the free time that the appointments already booked with the resource keep before and after them;
- after the minimum notice and before the booking limit;
- without going over the most per day or per week, or for a group session, while places are left.
With several groups, each group needs a free resource at that time, and with All resources together every resource of that group must be free. An appointment keeps every resource it took busy, so a room booked with one staff member can't be booked with another at the same time.
Book an appointment for a customer
A video shows booking, and managing the appointment afterwards:
- Open Calendars > Appointments and choose Book an appointment, or choose Book next to an appointment type.
- Choose the Appointment type and the Day, then Show times.
- Pick a time, fill in the customer's Name, Email, Phone and Notes, and choose Book.
If someone else took the time a moment before you, you're told so and can pick another.
Manage appointments
Calendars > Appointments lists appointments with a search by customer and a Status filter. Open shows an appointment with its time, resource, customer, place and notes, and these actions:
- Confirm a requested appointment.
- Took place or No-show, once the visit has happened. Both are offered for confirmed and requested appointments.
- Move to another time on a day: choose the Day, pick an open time, and choose Move.
- Cancel appointment, with an optional Reason.
The page also shows The customer's manage link, which you can send to the customer.
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Held | The time is held for a short while, such as while the customer finishes booking. |
| Requested | The customer asked for the time; someone has to confirm it. |
| Confirmed | The appointment is booked. |
| Completed | It took place. |
| No-show | The customer didn't come. |
| Cancelled | It was cancelled. |
| Expired | The hold ran out before the booking was finished. |
Appointments show on the calendar of the resource, tentative while held or requested. They can only be changed here, not by dragging them on the calendar.
Let customers book online
A video shows the customer's side, and the waitlist:
With the Scheduling Self-Service feature on, every appointment type with Customers can book it themselves and a Booking page address gets a public page at /book/ followed by that address. Add it to your site's menu, or link to it from your pages.
On the page, the customer picks a Day, chooses Show times, picks a time (times are in the site's time zone), enters their Name, Email, Phone and Notes, and chooses Book. They land on a Your appointment page. Its address is their manage link: they can come back to it to move the appointment to another open time, or to cancel it, until the appointment type's notice for cancelling or moving has passed; after that the page asks them to contact you. For an appointment type that waits for confirmation, the page says the request has been received.
Scheduling doesn't email customers by itself. To send a confirmation with the manage link, set up a workflow on Appointment Confirmed that sends an email; your administrator can do this, and the Technical Manual shows what to put in it.
Waitlist
When a customer wants a time that's taken, add them to the waitlist. Open Calendars > Waitlist, choose the Appointment type, the From and To days they can come (whole days in the site's time zone, both included), their Name and Email, and choose Add.
When an appointment of that type is cancelled or moved, the customer who has waited longest and can come on the day of the freed time is marked Notified, and the Waitlist Slot Available workflow event starts, so a workflow can tell them. Remove takes a customer off the list.
Copy scheduling to another site
A video shows the Scheduling events and tasks, the AI assistant, and copying scheduling to another site:
Add the Scheduling step (under Calendar) to a deployment plan to take the appointment types and the staff, rooms and equipment that take appointments. Tick Include appointments to take every appointment too (with the customers' names, emails and phone numbers) and Include the waitlist for the waitlist. Add the Calendars step as well, with Include events when you take appointments, so the resources' calendars and the appointments' calendar events come along; put Calendars before Scheduling in the plan.
Importing creates what's missing and updates what's already there, matched by id. Customers' links to move or cancel an appointment aren't exported: an imported appointment keeps the link it already had on that site, or gets a new one.
Workflows
With the Workflows feature on, the Scheduling category of the workflow editor has:
- Events: Appointment Requested, Appointment Confirmed, Appointment Rescheduled, Appointment Cancelled, Appointment Completed, Appointment Marked No-Show, Reservation Hold Expired and Waitlist Slot Available, and with Calendar Reminders, Appointment Starting Soon (set Minutes before the start). Each can be limited to some Appointment types.
- Tasks: Find Appointment Slots, Book Appointment, Confirm Appointment, Reschedule Appointment, Cancel Appointment, Get Appointment and Add to Waitlist.
For example: email the customer when an appointment is confirmed, send a text message an hour before it starts, or email a waitlisted customer when a time frees up.
AI assistant
With Scheduling and AI Services both on, an AI assistant can list the appointment types customers can book, find open times, book an appointment, and move or cancel one. To move or cancel, the customer gives the code from their manage link, or the email or phone number they booked with. Only appointment types with Customers can book it themselves are offered to customers.
Troubleshooting
- No times are offered. Check that the appointment type has Resources, that they Take appointments, that their working hours cover the day, and that the day is within the Minimum notice and Book up to limits. Something busy on the resource's calendar, or on a staff member's own calendar, also closes those times.
- The booking page isn't found. The appointment type needs Can be booked, Customers can book it themselves and a Booking page address, and the Scheduling Self-Service feature must be on.
- A staff member with shifts is never offered. Their Shift calendars must be chosen, and the Shift events there must name them as an attendee.