Recurring appointments
How to book a run of appointments for one customer in a single save, such as ten treatments on Mondays and Wednesdays or a standing appointment every three weeks.
On this page
Some customers come on a schedule: ten treatments twice a week, or a standing appointment every three weeks. You don't have to book them one by one. Book a series instead: set the rule, review the dates and save them all at once.
Each appointment of a series is an ordinary appointment. It has its own reminder, and the customer changes or cancels it through the link in their email, by your rules. You move or cancel it like any other appointment. Changing one appointment leaves the others as they are.
A new series
In New appointment, choose the services, the staff member, the date of the first appointment and the time, then turn on Repeat:
- Repeats: every week, or every 2 to 12 weeks;
- Days: one or more days of the week, all at the same time;
- Ends: after a number of appointments or on a date. At most 52 appointments are written at once, at most a year ahead.
Rooms and equipment are picked automatically, for each date. Click Review dates.
Reviewing the dates
Nothing has been saved yet. You see every date and what would happen to it:
- free dates are ticked;
- taken and no free room: the date can't be written;
- not working then (outside working hours, time off or a closed day): the date isn't ticked, and if you tick it, it's written anyway;
- already has an appointment that day: the customer already has an appointment that day, so the date isn't ticked, in case it's a mistake;
- public holiday is only a warning.
With Send an email with the list of appointments, the customer gets one email with all the appointments written. Then click Write N appointments. Everything is checked again as it saves: a date someone took in the meantime is skipped, and the others are written.
After saving you see Not written: the dates that didn't make it into the series, and why. Each has Book at another time: an ordinary appointment in the same series, on that day, at a time you choose. The series doesn't add new dates on its own to replace skipped ones.
Repeating an existing appointment
Is the customer booking their next appointments on the way out? On the appointment's page, click Repeat. That appointment becomes the first of the series, and the number of appointments includes it: "10 appointments" means this one and nine more. The customer, their contact and the language of their emails come from that appointment, and so does a duration you set by hand. A price set by hand carries over if you may change prices.
Repeat isn't offered for a cancelled appointment, a group session, a part of a visit with several staff members, or an appointment already in a series.
Extending a series
Every appointment of a series has a Series block on its page: the rule, which appointment of the series this one is, and all of the series' appointments. Extend series adds new appointments from the day after the last one, on the same days, at the same time and in the same rhythm. You choose how many new appointments, or until which day.
Cancelling
You cancel an appointment of a series like any other, and only that one is cancelled. If the customer stops coming, turn on Also cancel all later appointments of this series when cancelling: every confirmed appointment of the series after it is cancelled too. If you also choose to notify, the customer gets one email listing the cancelled appointments.
Emails and the customer's calendar
The email with the list of appointments carries no calendar invitation, because calendars reliably accept only one invitation per message. The customer adds each appointment to their calendar on its own My appointment page, with Add to calendar. A later change to that appointment then shows in their calendar too. A reminder comes for each appointment.
When you cancel several appointments at once, the cancellation invitation is only for the appointment you cancelled from. The email reminds the customer to remove the other dates from their calendar themselves, if they added them.
Who may
The owner and the front desk book series for every staff member. A staff member books series only for themselves, so a physiotherapist arranges treatments with their own patients. Also cancel all later appointments is offered only if you may cancel each of those appointments.