Appointments use the same booking setup as rides: one per business in the business app (Calendars → Calendar settings), switched on for each website. A service set to Appointment is booked by time slot with a staff member, instead of by trip.
Staff
Staff are the business's team members (Settings → Team). For each one you set:
- Can be booked online, a photo, a short bio and the order they're shown in.
- Working hours for each day of the week, with breaks (for example 12:00–12:45). A staff member with no hours of their own works the business's hours.
- Date overrides ("Saturday 14 Dec: 10:00–14:00 only") and time off (whole days, or part of a day).
- Their own gap between appointments (the business has one too), limits (most appointments a day, a week or a month, and per service a day) and a fixed meeting link for video appointments.
A staff member can never be booked outside the business's hours or on a closed date. Staff on "Only their own bookings" see only their own appointments and can change their own hours and time off.
Services
An appointment service has a length, a price, and optionally:
- Set-up / clean-up time before and after, which keeps the staff member busy but isn't shown to the customer.
- Processing time (for example color: 30 minutes to apply, 35 minutes processing, 20 minutes to finish). The staff member is free during processing for other appointments; the room or chair stays taken.
- A room or piece of equipment it needs, and how many. Rooms are counted, so two treatment rooms means two at the same time.
- Variations (several lengths or versions, each with its own price) and extras that add time as well as money.
- Who does it, with each staff member's own price and length (a senior stylist $85 for 60 minutes, a junior $55 for 75). With no list, every bookable staff member does it.
- A category (Cuts, Color, Treatments), a daily limit, and the location: at the business, at the customer's address, a phone call, a video call, or the customer chooses.
- Whether customers pick a staff member, pick or choose Any, or never pick.
Any staff member gives the customer every free time across the staff who do the service. At booking, the business's setting picks who gets it: the person with the fewest appointments that day (spreads the work), or the first in order.
Several services in one visit
Customers can add services one after another (a cut and a color). They're booked back to back, with each service's set-up and clean-up time between them, and paid for together. If one of them can't fit, none of them is booked.
Time zones
In-person appointments always show the business's time. Phone and video appointments show the customer's own time zone (detected, and changeable). The zone is always named on screen and in emails.
Repeat appointments
When the business allows it, a customer (or the business, from the calendar) can make an appointment repeat every 1 to 8 weeks, a set number of times or until a date (up to 6 months ahead by default). Every date is checked first; a date that isn't free comes back with the nearest free times, and the customer accepts or changes it, so a series is never booked half-silently. The first appointment is paid as the service says; the later ones use the same card (charged after each appointment, or by its own hold). The business can move or cancel one appointment, or this one and all later ones.
Manage your appointment
Every customer email has a Manage your appointment link (on by default). Customers can move the appointment until the cancellation policy's cut-off, and cancel under the policy (free until the cut-off, then the policy's fee). The business can switch it to cancel only, or off.
Calendars
- Your appointments in your own calendar. Every staff member has a private calendar link (Calendars → Calendar settings → Staff, services & setup → Staff), and the business has one for all staff. Add it to Google, Apple or Outlook calendar ("Subscribe" or "From URL"); new and moved appointments show up as the calendar app refreshes (usually within 15 minutes to a few hours, depending on the app). The calendar shows the service, the customer's name, the place or video link and the reference — never prices. Anyone with the link can see it, so keep it private; Get a new link stops the old one working.
- Your own calendar blocks bookings. A staff member can paste their own calendar's secret iCal link (Google: Settings → your calendar → "Secret address in iCal format"; Outlook: Publish calendar → ICS). Every 15 minutes the busy times are read, and online booking won't offer those times. Only the times are kept, never what the event is. If the link stops working, the staff member and the owners and managers are told once, with what to do.
- Two-way sync with Google and Outlook calendars: each person connects theirs in Settings → My integrations.
Reminders and emails
- Customers get the usual booking emails with appointment wording: each service with its staff member and time, the address, phone number or video link, the customer's own time zone for phone and video appointments, a calendar file, and the Manage your appointment link.
- Reminder: 24 hours before by default (Calendars → Calendar settings → Staff, services & setup → Emails). A second reminder (for example 2 hours before) can be switched on in the appointment settings.
- Reminders by text: switch it on in the appointment settings when the business texts (Settings → Phone & texting). Texts go only to customers who can get texts, inside texting hours, never after STOP, and are charged like other automated texts. Booking emails stay free.
- Repeat appointments get one email listing every date, each with its own link to change or cancel just that date.
- Staff: Your day tomorrow (off by default): each evening at the time you choose, each staff member gets the next day's appointments by email (nothing is sent when they have none).
Automations
Booking triggers (made, confirmed, canceled, completed, no-show, hours before a booking, payment received) can be limited to some services, some staff members, or where the appointment happens (at the business, at the customer's, phone or video). A visit with several services matches when any of them is chosen. Conditions can check the booking's services, staff and where it happens. The Appointment reminder by text template texts the customer 24 hours before (it warns you if the booking setup already sends reminder texts).
AI apps
An AI app connected to your business (Settings → API & MCP) can list appointments, find free times, and ask why a time isn't free. Booking, moving and canceling always show a preview first and only happen when you say yes (and the connection is allowed to make changes).
Why isn't this time free?
The checker shows every time of a day for a service and staff member, with the reason each one can't be booked: outside working hours, closed, a break, time off, already booked, set-up or clean-up time of another appointment, the gap kept between appointments, busy in their own calendar, too soon, too far ahead, a limit reached, or no room free.
Payments and policies
Appointments use the same payment plans as rides (save the card and charge after, deposit, pay in full, or pay later), the same cancellation and no-show policies, tips, coupons and tax. Booking is free, whatever is booked.
Group classes (several people in one time slot) aren't part of appointments; they come with Reservations.