How do you fix overlapping appointments?
Find where the overlap came from, move one booking and keep every booking in a single place.
Fixing common issues
The public booking page only offers free times, so it doesn’t create overlaps by itself. When two appointments clash, the usual cause is a booking agreed outside the tool, an imported file or a schedule change made after the booking existed. Here’s how to fix the clash and keep it from returning.
Find the clash. Open the day or week view for the provider concerned and look for two bookings sharing the same time. Check how each one was created: through the public page, by a member of the team, from an imported .ics file, or agreed by phone and entered later.
Decide which booking moves, usually the newer one or the one entered by hand. Ring the client yourself, as 4appointments sends no automatic message about changes, and offer the nearest free time. The sooner you call, the easier it is to find an alternative that suits.
Move the booking in the calendar: drag it to a free slot or edit its time. Moving a booking checks the provider’s availability and overlaps, so the tool won’t let you swap one clash for another. If you created the booking, send the client the management link if they’d like to pick a new time themselves.
Look for the cause and prevent repeats. Did you add a day off or a block over bookings that already existed? Was a subscribed ICS calendar refreshed late, as busy blocks update about every 15 minutes? The pause between bookings applies to the public page but not to bookings created by staff. Enter every phone or in-person booking in the Bookings section, where availability is checked for you.
The essentials
- ✓The public page offers only free times, so most clashes come from bookings made elsewhere
- ✓Creating or moving a booking in the panel checks availability and overlaps
- ✓Ring the client yourself, as the tool sends no change notices
Common questions
How did overlaps happen if I use an online system?+
Most often a booking was agreed by phone or message and never entered, an .ics file was imported over existing items, or a schedule change was made after the booking already existed.
Is there a way to be alerted when two appointments overlap?+
There’s no separate alert. Instead, the booking page hides taken times and creating or moving a booking in the panel checks overlaps, so look at the day and week views regularly if you suspect a clash.
More guides you may find useful
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