How to stop double-booking appointments

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

Management for business

Appointments that clash (double-booking) are among the most common headaches when you run a diary by hand. 4appointments reduces them by offering clients only open times and by holding a time as soon as a request arrives.

The public booking page works out open times from each provider’s weekly schedule, exceptions and blocks, and from the bookings that already exist. A time that’s taken with 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 to take the same time together, only one succeeds and the other sees a message that the slot was just taken. A pending request that nobody confirms is cancelled automatically about an hour after the end of the requested time, which frees the slot, so check your pending list regularly.

In the service settings you can set a pause, labelled “Interval (min)”, which is added after bookings, for example for cleaning or preparation. It 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 overlaps, and also 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 sync with Google Calendar or Outlook. To take yourself off the calendar, add a block or an exception under “Availability”.

Key points

  • ✓Only open 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 try to book at exactly the same moment?+

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 off a time slot myself in the calendar?+

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’s no longer offered to clients. Group sessions with several participants aren’t supported: each booking takes one slot with one provider.

More guides to read

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