Bookings

Take bookings online

Customers can book your services on a booking page made for your site. They pick a service, a day and a time, and give their name and email. They get a confirmation by email, and so do you.

1. In your site's editor, open Bookings and choose Set up booking. Check the time zone first: every time on your booking page is in it.
2. Under Services, choose Add service. Give it a name and a length, and a price if you'd like customers to see one.
3. Under Hours and rules, set the days and times you take bookings, any days you're closed, and how much notice you need. Choose Save changes.
4. Publish your site. Your booking page opens with it.

Bookings opens on a short checklist until your booking page is ready. To pause booking, turn off Take bookings.

Add your staff

If customers book with someone on your team, add them under Services, in Staff. Choose Add person, then:

• Give their name. Customers see it when they book.
• Choose All services, or Only some and tick the ones they do.
• Choose Your business hours, or Their own hours and set their week.

Each person takes their own bookings, so two customers can book the same time with different people. Customers choose Anyone available or someone by name. A booking for anyone goes to the first person free then.

Your closed dates and booking rules apply to everyone. To take someone off your booking page for a while, turn their switch to Hidden. You can still add bookings for them. Without anyone in Staff, you take one booking at a time.

Bookings made before you added staff hold that time for everyone.

Send your Book buttons to the booking page

Your booking page has its own address, which you can open and copy from the top of Bookings. Share it anywhere: your Google listing's booking link, Instagram, or your emails.

To make your site's own booking buttons open it, choose Use on my site in the checklist. It saves the page as your site's booking link, which you'll also find in Details. Publish to make it live. If your site has no Book button yet, choose Ask Shingle to add one.

Manage bookings

Bookings lists what's coming up, by day. Past and Cancelled show the rest. Choose a booking to see the customer's details and notes, email or call them, or cancel it. When you cancel, the customer is emailed, with your reason if you give one.

Took a booking by phone? Choose Add booking. You can add one at any time no other booking holds, and email the customer a confirmation. With staff, choose who it's with, or Anyone free.

A booking a customer's AI assistant made for them has a Through an AI assistant label. It follows the same hours and rules as your booking page. See Widgets.

New bookings are emailed to the people who get your form submissions. You can change who in Forms, under Submission emails. See Forms and submissions.

See bookings in your calendar

Choose Sync to calendar above your bookings, then Copy link. Add the link to your calendar app:

• Google Calendar: next to Other calendars, choose +, then From URL.
• Apple Calendar: choose File, then New Calendar Subscription.
• Outlook: choose Add calendar, then Subscribe from web.

Your bookings show up as events, with each customer's details. Calendars check for new bookings every few hours, so a new one can take a while to appear.

Anyone with the link can see your bookings. If it reaches someone it shouldn't, choose Get a new link. The old one stops working, and you add the new one in its place.

What customers can do

The confirmation email links to the booking's own page. From there, customers can add it to their calendar or cancel it until it starts. When they cancel, you're emailed and the time is free again.

Customers get a reminder email a day before their booking, with the same link. To send it two hours or two days before instead, or not at all, change Send a reminder under Hours and rules.

Customers can book only the times your hours and rules allow, and never a time someone else has booked.

Limits

A site can offer up to 30 services and add up to 20 staff, with up to three time ranges a day. To manage bookings you need a member role or higher. Bookings hold your customers' names and contact details, so viewers can't see them.