Step by step
Switch on appointment booking for your agent
Add your services, the hours you take appointments in and the rules in your agent’s Appointments tab, switch booking on and check it with a test appointment.
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- 6 min read
In this article
Booking is switched on agent by agent, in its Appointments tab: you add what can be booked, say when you take appointments and under which rules, switch on The agent can book appointments and save. Until there is at least one service and some hours, the agent offers no times.
Before you start
- Role. To change this tab you need the Member, Admin or Owner role. With Read only you can look at it.
- Plan. If your plan includes appointments, the tab says so with a line that starts with “Appointments are included in”. If it does not, you see “Your plan does not include appointments” with the View plans button: you can get the services and the hours ready, but the agent does not book.
- The agent has to be active to book with customers. As a Draft or while Paused you can set everything up and try it in the Playground.
- Everything is saved at once. The tab has one Save changes button for all its sections.
What the agent does with all this, and what it does not do, is in appointments: what your agent can and cannot do.
Add your services
A service is what a customer can book: “Haircut”, “First visit”, “Table for dinner”.
Go to Agents, open your agent and press the Appointments tab.
Under Services, press Add service.
Enter the Name and the Length in minutes: between 5 minutes and 8 hours, in steps of 5.
Under Description, write one line so the agent can explain it: what it includes and who it is for. It is optional.
Leave Can be booked switched on. If you switch it off, the service stays as “Hidden: not offered” without being lost.
Repeat the steps for each service. There is room for 30.
The agent offers the services in the order of the list, which you change with the arrows, and works out the free times from the length of each. If you remove a service that has appointments ahead, those appointments stay as they are; the agent only stops offering it.
Say when you take appointments
Under Availability you choose the Appointment hours:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Same as business hours | Follows the Opening hours in the agent’s Profile tab. Change them there and they change here |
| Separate hours for appointments | You set days and slots for appointments only, for example if you only take appointments in the morning. It takes up to four slots a day, which you add with Slot |
Bear in mind:
- An agent whose profile says Always open has no hours to follow. You see the notice “The agent has no hours to follow”: choose Separate hours for appointments. That way the agent does not offer appointments at any time of night.
- A time is only offered if the whole appointment fits before closing. With closing at 14:00, a 45-minute service is not offered at 13:30, because it would not fit.
- Times are on the business’s clock. The tab shows the time zone, which is changed in the hours of the profile.
Public holidays, time off and special days
Under Closed days and special hours, press Add date, choose the Date and tick Closed all day or Different hours. The Note is for you, for example “Local holiday”. What you put here replaces the weekly hours on that date. Add your public holidays and time off: the agent does not know about them unless they are here.
Adjust the rules
The Rules section spreads appointments over the hours.
| Rule | What it decides | Starts as |
|---|---|---|
| An appointment can start every | How often an appointment starts, counted from the opening of each slot. With 30 minutes and opening at 9:00: 9:00, 9:30, 10:00… | 30 min |
| Free time between two appointments | The break left after each appointment | No break |
| Minimum notice | How far ahead an appointment has to be asked for. It prevents bookings for ten minutes from now | 2 h |
| Can be booked up to | How far ahead the diary goes | 60 days ahead |
| Appointments at once | How many appointments may overlap: two chairs, two rooms, two professionals. Between 1 and 50 | 1 |
Under What the customer is asked for you choose the contact detail that is needed, besides their name: Phone or email (either one is enough), Phone, Email or Phone and email. The agent does not book until the customer has written it, and never makes it up. On WhatsApp the number they write from is used. If you ask for the email address, the customer also gets the confirmation by email.
Write your line of the confirmation
The text of the confirmation is written by the system from the stored appointment. Under Confirmation › Your text you add a line of your own, up to 500 characters, which appears underneath exactly as written: for example, “If you cannot make it, let us know a day ahead”. The Example of what the customer receives shows how it looks.
If you want the agent to take your calendar into account, this is the moment to connect Google Calendar. It is not required.
Switch booking on and save
At the top of the tab, switch on The agent can book appointments.
Press Save changes. “Appointment settings saved” appears.
Look at the status label next to the switch:
- Booking: the agent already offers times and books.
- Cannot book yet: booking is on, but something is missing. The notice says what: “At least one active service is missing” or “The hours in which appointments are given are missing”.
- Off: the agent does not book. Your team can still add appointments by hand under Appointments.
Check that it works
Scroll down to Preview and choose a Service. You see the times the agent would offer a customer right now, from the saved rules, the existing appointments and your calendar. If you have changed something without saving, the preview still shows what is saved.
Open the Playground tab and ask for an appointment the way a customer would.
Pick one of the times it suggests and give the details it asks for. The confirmation starts with “TEST — this is a simulation from the playground: no real appointment was created and nobody was notified”.
An appointment made in the Playground is a simulation: it takes no time slot, reaches no calendar, notifies nobody and is deleted by itself after 30 days. Its reference starts with TEST-. The test uses credits like any other, because it runs the real agent.
If you created the agent from a sector template
Sector templates do not switch booking on, and several of them (restaurants, clinics, beauty, estate agencies or professional offices) tell the agent to take an appointment request for your team to confirm. If you switch booking on, open Behaviour › Instructions and change those sentences under Sales instructions and Support instructions, so that the agent books from the free times instead of taking a note. Then run the test again.
If the agent does not book
Most often an active service is missing, the profile’s hours say Always open, or the agent is not active. Every cause, and what to do when a time does not show up, is in the agent does not book, or the times are wrong.
Related articles
- Appointments: what your agent can and cannot doYour agent offers the free times and books the appointment in the conversation. What it does on its own, what is left to your team and where Google Calendar fits.
- Connect Google Calendar to appointmentsConnect your Google account so the agent stops offering times you are already busy and every appointment shows up in your calendar. What syncs and what does not.
- Run your appointments day to day: agenda, changes, cancellationsWhat the Appointments screen shows, how to add one that comes in by phone, change its time, cancel it and mark whether the customer came. And what the customer gets.
- The agent does not book, or the times are wrongWhat to check when your agent offers no appointments, takes a note instead of booking, hides a free time, offers a busy one, or an appointment is missing from Google Calendar.