How do you fix overlapping appointments?
Find where the overlap came from, move one booking and keep every booking in a single place.
Everyday problems
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 coming back.
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 team member, 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. Call the customer yourself, because 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 them.
Move the booking in the calendar by dragging it to a free slot or editing 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 customer the management link if they should pick a new time themselves.
Look for the cause. Did you add a day off or a block over bookings that already existed? Was a calendar subscribed through ICS refreshed late, since busy blocks update about every 15 minutes? To prevent repeats, enter every phone or in-person booking in the bookings section, where availability is checked for you, and subscribe to the ICS link of any other calendar you use.
What to remember
- ✓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
- ✓Warn the customer by phone yourself, as the tool sends no change notices
Common questions
How can 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 get alerted when an overlap happens?+
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.
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