Set Up Appointments

Appointments lets your clients book a service with a person on your team, from a link you control: your website, your Google profile, Instagram or a QR code at the counter. Every appointment lands on your calendar and, when the client is a member, on their loyalty card. It is made for salons, barbers, clinics, studios and anyone who sells time. It is not a marketplace: clients see your name and your colours, nobody else's.

See what it looks like for your clients: Appointments.

Switch appointments on

1. Open Appointments in the sidebar and click Set up appointments.
2. If you have several shops, pick the shop. Each shop has its own team, services and link.
3. Open Team and add the people who take appointments (see below).
4. Open Services and add what clients can book.
5. Open How clients book and check the rules.
6. Click Switch on.

Where you start depends on your business. A salon, clinic or studio sees Appointments in the sidebar from the start, and its first screen offers Set up appointments. If your sidebar is called Bookings instead, the first screen asks "How do customers book with you?": pick the Appointments tile, then click Set up appointments. If your business was set up as a restaurant, the first screen is the restaurant one; next to its button you'll find "Taking appointments instead?" and Set up appointments: click that.

You can come back to Settings at any time to change anything. The page then opens on Today, with Today, Settings and Share as the three tabs. The switch at the top of Settings reads Taking appointments: turn it off to stop new appointments, and the ones you already have stay.

Your team

Under Team, click Add person. A person is a name on your calendar, not a login: they don't need an account, and they can't see anything in Passtastic unless you invite them as a team member.

• Working week: for each person and each shop, set the days they work, their hours and their breaks (Add break).
• Days off: Add a day off for holidays and sick days. Days off apply at every shop.
• A person can work at more than one shop. Add them to the other shop from the list of people who work at your other shops.

Online hours next to another booking tool

Do you fill some hours through another booking tool, by phone or with walk-ins? Then don't open every working hour to clients. Under Team, set Open online for the person:

• All working hours: clients can book any free time.
• Only some hours: you add one or more ranges, for example 10:00 to 14:00. Clients can only book inside them. The rest of the day stays on your calendar for the other tool, and the calendar marks it as "not online".

For a one-off, use Block time instead: it takes a person's time off the calendar for a lunch or a Booked elsewhere. Open it from Add appointment in Today. A block can be removed again with Remove block.

Services

Under Services, click Add service. For each one set:

• Name and Length.
• Price (optional). Tick Show as "from" if the final price depends on the work.
• Who does it: pick the people. Clients only see people who do the service.
• Extra time after: time you need to clean up or reset. It blocks the person's calendar, and clients don't see it.
• Come back after: the number of days or weeks after which clients are reminded to book again (see below). Leave it empty for no reminder.

How clients book

Under How clients book:

• When someone books: Confirm instantly sends the client a confirmation straight away. I confirm each request turns every booking into a request that waits for your answer, with Confirm and Decline buttons.
• Times clients can pick: every 15 or every 30 minutes.
• Earliest booking and Furthest booking: how far ahead clients can book, in hours and days.
• Clients can change or cancel until: the hours before the appointment after which only you can change it.
• What to ask clients: name and email are always asked. We never ask for medical details.

Run the day

Today is your calendar for the day, with one column per person. Requests waiting for an answer sit on top. Tap an appointment to open it:

• Done closes the appointment. For a member, it counts as a visit on their card.
• No-show marks a client who didn't come. Undo puts the appointment back.
• Change moves it to another service, person or time, and the client is told. Cancel cancels it and tells the client.
• If appointments from yesterday were never closed, a banner at the top asks you to mark them Done or No-show.

On a phone the calendar shows one person at a time, with All to see everyone.

Staff can still scan the client's card at the counter. The visit is counted once, whether it comes from Done or from the scan, never twice. Points on a point card still come from the scan.

Add an appointment or block time

Click Add appointment for a phone call or a walk-in: pick the service, the person, the day and a time, then find the customer or add a first name. If the time is outside the person's hours or over another appointment, you are warned and can still add it. The menu next to it has Block time.

What clients see

On your booking page clients go through four steps: "What would you like?", "With whom?", "When?" and "Your details". They can pick Anyone and any free person can take it. Only the times you left open online are offered. Members who already hold your card are recognised when they book, and the appointment is linked to it. Everyone else can book too and is offered your card afterwards.

Reminders before the visit

Every client gets an email the day before. Clients who have your card in their Wallet also get a notification on the card the day before and a few hours before. If you switch on Text clients a reminder, they also get a text message (SMS) the day before, which uses SMS credits.

The come-back reminder

When you set Come back after on a service and mark the appointment Done, the client is reminded when it's time to book again:

• A Wallet notification on their phone. The lock screen never names the service, so nobody reading over their shoulder learns what they had done.
• An email, only to clients who agreed to emails.
• If the client books again first, the reminder is cancelled.

This needs a client who holds your card: the notification goes to their card, the email only if they agreed to emails, and a client without a card gets nothing. It goes out at 10:00 in the shop's time on the day it's due, and never by SMS.

Next to Come back after you see a preview of both messages, as the client gets them.

Share your link

Open the Share tab for your Booking link, ready to copy. Put it where clients already look:

• Google: add it as the booking link on your Google profile, and a Book button appears on your listing.
• Instagram: put it in the link field of your profile.
• Your website, WhatsApp, your email signature and your Facebook page.
• The QR poster: print it for the counter, the mirror or the door. Clients scan it and land on your booking page.

Who can do what

Owners and admins set appointments up and change Settings. Editors run the day: they confirm requests, add appointments, block time and mark Done or No-show. Viewers can look, not change anything. See team roles and permissions.