Setting up
Calendars & hours
Appointment length, open hours, notice, gaps, who a calendar belongs to, and the booking modes.
A calendar is one bookable thing: a doctor, a stylist, a chair, a court or a table. Every calendar carries its own rules, so a 10-minute follow-up clinic and a 90-minute colour appointment live side by side without compromise. Calendars are created by linking them from the Google Calendar page.
To change a calendar, open Google Calendar and choose Settings next to it. You need to be an Admin or the Owner.
Every setting
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Appointment length | 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 45 minutes, or 1, 1½ or 2 hours. It cuts the open hours into slots: 30 minutes gives 9:00, 9:30, 10:00… |
| Open hours | Per weekday. A day can have several windows — two rows on a Monday is a morning clinic and an evening one, with the gap between them closed. Copy to all days repeats one day across the week. Every row needs a closing time after its opening time. |
| Minimum notice | No minimum, 30 minutes, 1, 3 or 12 hours, or 1 day ahead. Times closer than this are not offered. |
| Bookable up to | How far ahead people may book: 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90 or 180 days, or a year. |
| Gap before / Gap after | Minutes kept free around each booking — for the tidy-up, travel or notes. Nobody can book into them. |
| People at once | How many people the calendar can take at the same time. |
| Assigned to | "Nobody" or a member. A Provider sees an assigned calendar as their own; their leave closes it; and a booking of theirs on another calendar shows here as occupied. |
| Tags | Labels from Settings → Calendar tags, for searching the board. They change nothing about booking. |
| Colour | The calendar's colour on the board. |
| Description | Shown to customers on the booking page — for example "Dr Sen · Cardiology · Mon–Fri mornings". |
| Extra details | Up to 20 label and value pairs shown to the person booking (fee, languages, floor). |
| Bookable on the public page and by connected apps | Untick to keep a calendar internal: your team can still book it from the board. |
| Booking form | Which details to ask for; see below. |
The booking form
Each calendar decides which details a booking collects. The same fields are used on the board, the booking page and the API. Switch a field on, and tick Required if it must be filled in.
| Field | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Always on, required | Who the booking is for. Always collected. |
| Phone | On, required | How to reach them, and how a returning customer is recognised. |
| On, optional | They get a Google Calendar invitation and any later change. | |
| People | Off | Party size — guests at a table, players on a court. |
| Notes | On, optional | Anything else worth writing on the booking. |
Booking modes
A calendar hands out time in one of three ways:
| Mode | How it works |
|---|---|
| Fixed time slots | Cuts the open hours into equal slots. Doctors, stylists, turf and courts. |
| Capacity / party size | Any start time; each booking uses up seats. Restaurant tables and classes. |
| Token queue | No times — people get numbers in order and an estimated arrival. |
Every calendar you link starts as Fixed time slots, which suits doctors, stylists, turf and courts. On the board a capacity calendar shows its seats ("· 40p") and a token calendar shows "· tokens"; booking a token calendar offers the next number with its expected time, like "Token 15 · around 10:32 · 6 left".
Why nothing is double-booked
Whether a time is free is decided in the same step that writes the booking, inside your organization's own database, which handles one request at a time. If two people choose 6 pm at the same moment, one gets it and the other is asked to pick another time. A time is busy if it overlaps another booking (with its gaps), a Google event, a closure, the assignee's leave, or the assignee's booking on another calendar.
Something here does not match what you see in the app? Tell us — a person reads every message.