How to avoid double-booking appointments

Only free times are offered, and a request holds its time from the moment it’s sent.

Running your business

Overlapping appointments are among the most common headaches of a schedule kept by hand. 4appointments reduces them by offering clients only free times and by holding a time as soon as a request arrives.

The public booking page works out free times from each provider’s weekly schedule, exceptions and blocks, and from the bookings that already exist. A time already taken by the same provider isn’t offered, though different providers can of course be booked at the same time. A booking request holds its time even while it’s pending, so a second client can’t take the same slot while you’re still deciding. If two people try for the same time together, only one succeeds and the other sees a message that the slot was just taken.

In the service settings you can set a pause, labelled “Interval (min)”, which is added after bookings, for example for tidying up or preparation. It’s taken from the service being booked now and applies to the public page, not to bookings entered by your team.

When your team creates a booking in the panel, the system checks the provider’s availability and any overlaps, as well as the busy blocks imported from external calendars. Those blocks come from calendar links in ICS format that you subscribe to, refreshed about every 15 minutes. There’s no two-way synchronisation.

To take yourself off the calendar, add a block or an exception under “Availability”. A pending request nobody confirms or rejects is cancelled automatically about an hour after the end of the requested time, which frees the slot again, so it pays to check your pending list regularly.

What to remember

  • ✓Only free times are shown to clients on the public page
  • ✓A pending request holds its time until it’s confirmed, rejected or expires
  • ✓Busy blocks can be imported from an external calendar by ICS link

Common questions

What if two clients book at exactly the same instant?+

Only one request gets the slot. The other client sees a message that the slot was just taken and can choose another time.

Can I block out a time manually?+

Yes. Under “Availability” you can mark a provider as blocked for a period, such as a break, a holiday or an internal meeting, and it will no longer be offered to clients.

More guides to read

Having clashes in your current schedule?

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