Schedule an appointment
Put an appointment in the calendar yourself — customer, service, time, staff, location and price.
Not every appointment arrives through your booking page. A customer calls, you agree something on site, or you book a follow-up there and then. For those you put the appointment in the calendar yourself — with the same details as an online booking, but without the rules that apply to customers.
In short
- Drag across an empty stretch in the Calendar, or click Create appointment in the calendar or the appointments overview.
- Choose the customer and the appointment type.
- Set the date and time, and check the duration.
- Tick who the appointment belongs to.
- Click Create, then choose whether the customer gets a confirmation.
Choosing the appointment type
Picking the service takes three steps: first where it takes place, then the category, then the service itself. That is because the same service can be offered in more than one way — at the customer, at one of your locations, as a Video call or as a Phone call — and that choice decides which address ends up on the appointment, or that there is no address at all.
1First choose where the appointment takes place.
Step by step
Open a new appointment
In the calendar, drag from the start time to the end time across an empty stretch of a day — the date, time, length and staff member are then already filled in, and picking a service keeps that length. A plain click on an empty slot does nothing. Or click Create appointment, in the calendar or under Appointments → Overview, to start from an empty form; from the calendar, the person whose calendar you are looking at is already ticked.
Choose the customer
Type a name or email address and pick someone from the list. Their address is then carried over automatically into the Location card.
Set the date, time and duration
Pick a date in the calendar and then a time. The duration comes from the appointment type and adds any selected add-ons automatically.
Choose who it belongs to
Tick one or more staff members. For an appointment at the customer's address you can narrow the list to people who cover that area.
Save the appointment
Click Create at the top right. If the appointment has a customer, Schedulinq then asks whether they should receive a confirmation — unless you have no confirmation to the customer set up.
The form then becomes the new appointment's page, and your browser's address bar points to that appointment too. Reload the page or send the link on, and it opens the appointment itself — not an empty form. The back button takes you to wherever you opened the form from, such as the calendar or the planner.
Field by field
Customer
OptionalSearch by name or email address. Leave it empty and the appointment becomes a block in the calendar with no recipient.
The chosen customer decides who receives the confirmation, which language it is written in, and which address is suggested. An appointment without a customer is therefore not a half-filled appointment but a different kind of item.
Object
Only if the customer has objectsIf your organisation keeps track of its customers' objects — a car, a horse, an installation — and this customer has one or more, a dropdown appears under the customer to say which one this appointment is about, or None. The field is named after what your organisation calls those objects; by default that is Object.
For a customer with three cars, you will know later which one was at the door. Pick another customer and the object is cleared. Pick another service and it stays; if the object does not go with that service, the field says This service is not for this type. Make another choice or pick ‘None’. and you can only save once you have done so.
Appointment type
Sets duration and priceThe service you are delivering, chosen through the three steps above. If your catalogue has more than one place, the chosen service says where it takes place — Utrecht branch, At the customer, Video call — so you can tell two identical services apart. A saved appointment shows that line too.
The type supplies the default duration, the price, the available add-ons and the staff allowed to perform it. Choose a different type and all of those change with it.
Appointment name
RequiredFilled in automatically with the name of the appointment type. You can change it.
This is the text shown on the block in the calendar. With ten "Maintenance service" blocks in one day it helps to make it distinctive — the street name, say, or the type of boiler.
Date & time
RequiredA date first, then an hour and a minute. Times run in five-minute steps.
Confirm your choice with the button in the picker — closing the panel with Escape discards the time.
Duration
AutomaticDefaults to the appointment type's duration plus any selected add-ons, with the breakdown underneath ("60 min base + 15 min add-ons"). Adjust duration replaces it with a time you set by hand.
Only adjust the duration when you know this appointment differs. If every appointment of this type needs longer, change the duration on the appointment type instead — otherwise you repeat the correction forever.
Price
AutomaticExcl. VATWhat the appointment earns: the service's price plus the chosen add-ons, with the breakdown underneath. There is nothing to fill in.
The amount follows the service and the add-ons you pick, and is recorded on the appointment when you save — a later price change in your catalogue no longer affects it. Every amount in the back office is excluding VAT; your customer sees the amount including VAT on the booking page and on the invoice.
A travel cost or surcharge an article adds itself is not here yet: Schedulinq works it out when you save, and then it is on the appointment — see Articles that add themselves.
Who should this appointment be scheduled with?
RequiredOne or more staff members. The list shows who performs the chosen appointment type.
For an appointment at the customer's address a filter appears that narrows the list to people who cover that area for the chosen service — change the service and the list follows. That filter looks at the service area, not at the calendar — see the warning below.
Add-ons
If the type has anyTick the add-ons in the list. An add-on with Multiple units has a − and + counter on its row: set the number there. Their time and amount are added to the appointment and summarised under the list.
Add-ons you switch on here behave exactly as they do when a customer books them, so the duration and the price match what ends up on the invoice — three valves are three times the unit price and three times the time.
Location
For an appointment at the customer's address this holds the address, carried over from the customer record and editable. For one at your own location it says which.
This address goes into the confirmation and the calendar entry, and drives travel time. If you change it here, that applies to this one appointment only.
A call has no address. For a video call this says Video call, with The link is made in the colleague's calendar when you save. For a phone call it says Phone call with the customer's number and You call the customer on this number. — or No phone number on file if the customer has none. No travel time is counted and the address on the customer record stays as it was.
Internal note
Internal onlyRoom for whatever your colleague needs to know on site. Photos go on the note once the appointment is saved: see Adding photos.
This text is not visible to the customer — the screen says as much. Anything the customer should read belongs in the confirmation, not here.
Several services in a row
If you need to book several services for the same customer one straight after the other — five cars in a row, or a maintenance service with a breakdown call-out straight after it — click Add another service at the bottom of Appointment details. The button is only there while you are creating a new appointment.
Everything you have filled in goes along — the customer, the address, the service with its add-ons and duration, the date and time, the ticked colleagues and the note — to the Book several appointments page, where a second service is waiting for you. How that page works is in Schedule several appointments in a row.
What the customer receives
If the appointment has a customer, Schedulinq asks after saving whether they should get a message. Its content comes from the communication step for a new appointment, so you write it once for your whole company rather than every time.
Say no and the appointment simply sits in the calendar with the customer none the wiser. That is exactly what you want for something you already confirmed by phone.
Frequently asked questions
Can I double-book someone? Yes. Manual scheduling does not check whether the staff member is already busy or outside working hours. Online bookings are checked against the calendar.
Why is my colleague missing from the list? The list only shows staff assigned to this appointment type. If the service-area filter is on, people outside that area drop out too.
The duration looks wrong. Check whether add-ons are selected — they are added to the base duration. If the base itself is wrong, the fault is in the appointment type.