Create a booking calendar

A calendar is one kind of appointment people can book, such as a Consultation, a Check-up or a Candle-making workshop. It holds your opening hours, how long each appointment lasts and how far ahead people can book. The app works out the free times from that.

Before you start

• Create the calendar on a computer set to the time zone the appointments happen in. The calendar takes its time zone from your computer when it is made.

Steps

1. Open Calendars in the sidebar. The page has four tabs: Booked, Calendars, Operators and Services.
2. Open the Calendars tab.
3. Press New calendar.
4. Under What is being booked?, type the name people will see, for example Consultation or Site visit.
5. Press Create calendar. A message says Calendar created and the calendar appears in the list.
6. Read its row: - Calendar: the name, then Books you (or Books any of 2 operators once you add operators) and how far ahead it can be booked, for example up to 14 days ahead; - When you're open: the days and hours; - Each: the appointment length, plus any gap after it, for example 45 min +15; - Time zone: the zone all its times are in; - Status: Live, or Draft with Not shown to visitors underneath.
7. Press Hours to set your real opening hours, appointment length and booking window. The calendar starts open Monday to Friday; check the times before you share it.
8. To stop taking bookings without losing the calendar, press Unpublish. Press Publish to open it again.

What happens next

• A new calendar is published straight away. Nobody can book it until you put it on a page, so it is safe to set it up first.
• Every time on this calendar, in the diary and on your pages, is in the calendar's own time zone, and the zone is named wherever a time is shown.
• Bookings made on it appear on the Booked tab, and on each person's contact record.

For agencies

Open the client first (Sub-accounts › Open), then create the calendar there. Check the Time zone column: it comes from your computer, which may not be in the client's time zone.

Troubleshooting

The Time zone column shows the wrong zone. The zone was taken from the computer that created the calendar, and it can't be changed afterwards. Create a new calendar from a computer set to the right zone, point your booking section at it, and unpublish the old one.

The calendar says "Not shown to visitors". It is unpublished. Press Publish.

"That name is already taken here." Another calendar already uses that name, or one that makes the same web address. Choose a different name, for example Consultation (Clifton).

I want to delete a calendar. There is no delete on this screen. Press Unpublish so nobody can book it; its past bookings stay in your diary.

The page says "Online booking isn't available just now." The calendar isn't published, or you have more than one calendar and the booking section hasn't been told which to use. See the article on booking from a page.

Related

• Set your hours, appointment length and booking window
• Let people book from a page
• Add services and operators
• Fix missing booking times and time-zone mix-ups