Booking

Let people book time with you, your team, or a room or piece of equipment, straight from your website. Booking is free.

What it does

• A booking page at /booking (you can change the address). Customers pick a service, a day and a free time, then enter their details.
• People and rooms. A person is someone customers book an appointment with. A room or resource is something they book, such as a meeting room, a court or a van. Each has its own weekly hours and days off.
• Services. Each service has a length and optional buffer time before and after, for setting up, cleaning or travel. You also choose how often a start time is offered, how much notice you need, how far ahead people can book, and who provides it.
• Emails. Customers get a confirmation with a calendar file and a reminder before the booking, and you get a copy of each new booking. Each email has a private link that lets the customer move or cancel within the notice you set.
• The Diary in the admin, by day or by week, plus a list of every booking. The sidebar badge shows how many bookings are still to come today.
• Nobody is double-booked. A time is only offered while it is free, and it is checked again at the moment of booking.

Getting started

1. Switch Booking on in Tools.
2. Open Booking > People & rooms and add who or what can be booked. Set the weekly hours and any days off.
3. Open Services and add what can be booked, how long it takes, and who provides it.
4. Open the settings (the cog in the Booking banner) and check the booking page's address, your time zone and the emails.
5. Share the booking page link, or put the booking form on any page with the [booking /] shortcode.

Booking emails need the site's outgoing email (SMTP) to be set up in Settings. Without it, bookings still work, but no emails are sent, and the Booking settings will warn you.

Booking from Contacts and Email

• From a contact: open the contact's menu and choose Book (name)... to start a new booking with their details filled in. The contact card also shows their bookings.
• From an email: in Email or Mail Reader, right-click a message (or use its menu) and choose Book (name)... to book the sender. If they are already one of your contacts, the booking starts from that contact (phone number included) and is linked to it - no second contact is made.
• New customers become contacts. When someone books, they are added to your Contacts. If they are already there, the booking is linked to their existing contact. You can switch this off in the settings.

The Book... options only appear for people who are allowed to manage bookings. The contact option also needs the Contacts Tool switched on.

Working with the Calendar

If you also use the Calendar Tool, bookings appear there under Bookings. A person's own Calendar events block their booking times, so nobody can book them while they are busy. To use this, link the person to their user account in People & rooms. You can switch it off per person or for the whole of Booking.

Putting the booking form on a page

Changes and cancellations

• Customers can move or cancel their own booking from the link in their emails, up to the notice you set (24 hours by default). Closer to the time, the page asks them to contact you instead. You can switch moving and cancelling off in the settings.
• You can move, cancel, or mark a booking as completed or a no-show from the Diary or the booking itself. When you move or cancel a booking, tick Email the customer if you want them to be told.
• If you pick a time that clashes with another booking, Booking asks before double-booking. Only staff can double-book; customers never can.

Who can use it

Booking has its own permission, Booking, which admins have by default. See lets someone view the Diary and bookings. Manage lets them make, move and cancel bookings, and edit services, people and rooms, and the settings. To give it to other roles, open Users & Roles.

Booking Pro

Booking Pro adds the following to the free Tool:

• Services that need more than one person or room at once.
• Classes and group sessions with places and a waiting list.
• Recurring bookings.
• Questions to ask customers when they book.
• A daily limit per person or room, and one booking per customer every so many days.

Taking payment or a deposit online, and booking reports, are planned for Booking Pro.

Your bookings stay the same with or without Pro.