Use the pending appointments feature to manually confirm all new appointments created via the booking form by customers.
By default, all new appointments are immediately approved (confirmed) to customers (you can still cancel and even delete approved appointments of course).
If you want to have appointments created in pending status go to Settings > Appointments > Default appointment status.
Customer Experience
With the pending appointments feature enabled, your clients can receive two rounds of notifications after placing their booking:
Right after the booking, informing them that their request has been received and they will be contacted to confirm the booked appointment (see Notification to customer about pending appointment in Bookly > Email/SMS Notifications).
Slightly later, when you approve the booking from your Bookly admin panel, informing them of the confirmed booking (see Notification to customer about approved appointment in Bookly > Email/SMS Notifications).
If you use online payment, the customer will still have been charged at the time of booking, but you can always use the paid amount as a deposit for future appointments or manually transfer the money back.
Setup and Use
1. Enable the feature in Settings > Appointments > Default appointment status.
2. In the Appearance section, choose the corresponding tab for the last step in the booking process and update wording (by default, it says the new appointment is confirmed) informing the customer that the appointment is still to be reviewed by the admin of the business and that the customer will receive a notification as soon as that happens.
3. Set up email and/or text message notifications for both stages of the booking process:
a) Notification to customer about pending appointment;
b) Notification to customer about approved appointment.
Let Staff Approve Their Appointments
Automatic emails about new pending appointments can be sent to the relevant staff member including a link which will automatically confirm, reject or cancel an appointment when the recipient clicks on it in the email.
You'll find the codes right below the email editing window in Email Notifications:
{approve_appointment_url} – a link for staff to approve pending appointment.
{cancel_appointment_url} – a link for staff to cancel an appointment.
{cancel_appointment_confirm_url} – a link for staff to cancel an appointment with confirmation.
{reject_appointment_url} – a link for staff to reject an appointment.
Once your staff clicks the link, the appointment in Bookly Calendar will change the status from 'pending' to the relevant one.
In Settings > URL Settings, set the URLs of the pages that will be shown to staff after successful appointment approval, rejection and cancellation.
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