Bookings

Bookings let customers book appointments, tables, classes or full days straight from your site. You confirm or manage them in the console, and everyone gets emails.

Plans

Every plan includes online booking. The plan decides how many calendars you can have, where a calendar is one person, room or resource that takes bookings.

Plan	Calendars
Starter	1
Basic, Pro	5
Max	Unlimited

If you move to a plan with fewer calendars, the ones you have keep working.

Set up booking

Press Set up booking on the dashboard's Take bookings online card, or in Settings → Bookings, or Turn on bookings in the sidebar. Set up online booking asks two questions.

What do people book with you?

Choice	For
Appointments	One customer at a set time
Reservations	A table or a spot for a party
Classes	Several people share one session
Full days	Rentals, tours and whole-day stays

Who or what takes the bookings? Add a name for each person, room or resource. For reservations and classes, also say How many at the same time?

Press Turn on booking. Webmarlin creates your calendars and starter services, and you can change everything afterwards. The first screen says We set up booking for you, please review: check the opening hours and time zone, and confirming the time zone finishes the review. Sites created by the AI builder for an appointment-based business can arrive set up the same way.

Add the booking section

In the editor, open Add section and choose Booking. If booking is off, the setup dialog opens first and the section is added once you finish.
In the section's settings, tick the Services to offer (leave all unchecked to offer every active service) and optionally one Calendar.
The other fields change the wording, such as the Book button, Request button and Booked message.
Publish the page.

Visitors choose a service, then who they want or Anyone available if you offer a choice, pick a date and a time, and enter their details. Times show in the visitor's own time zone.

Booking settings

Booking settings in the sidebar is written as sentences. Change a sentence and it saves by itself; a Live preview shows the booking form beside them.

Calendars set the Calendar name, Time zone, Opening hours (one or more ranges per day), Bookings at a time and Email for new booking alerts.

Two switches change what visitors see on the booking calendar:

Switch	What it does
Show date status	Colors each day as available, partly booked, booked or closed, with a legend. Visitors see the status only, never who booked
Show pending requests	Days held only by requests you have not approved yet show as pending. Turn it off to show them as booked

Services set the Service name, How long it takes, Price (empty means Free) and Who offers this. Under Advanced:

Setting	Sentence
Confirmation	Bookings are confirmed instantly or confirmed by you
Minimum notice	Customers book at least … ahead
Days ahead	Customers can book up to … days ahead
Start time spacing	Offer start times every …
Free time after a booking	Keep … free after each booking
Cancellation cut-off	Customers can cancel up to … before it starts
Reminder time	Send reminders … before, or off

Calendar status and Service status switch between Taking bookings and Hidden from customers. Remove deletes a calendar or service; one with past bookings is hidden instead, and one with upcoming bookings has to have them canceled or moved first.

Other tools on this screen:

Setup check lists what stops customers from booking, such as a calendar with no opening hours or a service nobody offers, each with a link that fixes it. Everything looks ready for bookings. means you are done.
Send test booking emails you the customer and owner emails of a made-up booking. Nothing is booked. It is limited to a few per hour.
Subscribe in Google/Apple/Outlook gives each calendar a private link that shows your bookings in your calendar app. Copy link copies it. Reset link makes a new one; anyone who subscribed with the old link stops getting updates until they subscribe again.

The Bookings page

Bookings in the sidebar shows your bookings by Day, Week or List. Today returns to the current date, and the sidebar shows a count of requests waiting. Times are shown in each calendar's time zone. The list view filters by status.

Status	Meaning
Pending	Waiting for you to approve it
Confirmed	On the calendar
Declined	You, or the time limit, turned the request down
Canceled	Canceled by you or the customer
Completed	Finished; set automatically about an hour after the end
No-show	You marked that the customer did not come

Click a booking to open it. What you can do depends on its status: Approve, Decline, Reschedule, Cancel booking or Mark as no-show. When you approve, decline or cancel, the customer gets an email.

Requests you do not answer. You get a reminder email after about 12 hours. A pending booking is declined automatically after 72 hours, or earlier if its minimum notice has passed.

Reschedule requests. A customer can ask for a new time on a service that needs your confirmation. It shows as Reschedule request, with the new time on the calendar. Approving moves the booking; declining keeps it where it was.

Add a booking or block time

+ Booking adds one yourself, for example one that came in by phone. Choose Calendar, Service, date and time, and enter the customer's name and email. Email the customer a confirmation is your choice. If the time is full or falls during time off, Webmarlin asks first and offers Book anyway, which shows the booking as Overbooked.
Block time stops customers from booking a period, on one calendar or All calendars, for part of a day or All day, with an optional Reason. Existing bookings stay as they are. Click the blocked time to choose Remove time off.

What customers can do

The customer's emails carry a link to their booking and a calendar file. From that page they can cancel, or choose a new time, until the service's Cancellation cut-off. They also get a reminder before the booking if the service's reminder is on.

Turn booking off

Turn off Accept online bookings in Settings → Bookings. It first tells you how many bookings you have in the next 60 days. They stay booked and customers can still cancel, but nobody can book online until you turn it back on. Remove or unpublish the booking section as well; the Setup check reminds you if your site still shows one.

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