Appointments

A public booking page where customers choose a service, a staff member and a free time.

Appointments publishes a booking page for Personal or a team at an address of its own. Customers book without a Magpie account and get a confirmation email with a link to reschedule or cancel. The page offers only times that the staff member's hours, Calendar and the booking rules you set leave free.

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How a customer books

The booking page opens with its name and description, then the list of services. A page with one service goes straight to it.

  1. Choose a service

    Each service shows its description, length and price. Its location is shown once the customer chooses it.

  2. Choose who with

    When more than one person provides the service, the customer chooses one of them or Anyone available. Anyone available shows each start time once, and Magpie assigns the first eligible staff member who is free.

  3. Choose a day and a time

    Days run from today to the end of the booking range you set, and the times are shown in the booking page's time zone.

  4. Enter a name and email address

    A phone number is optional, and no Magpie account is needed. Magpie checks the time again as the customer books; if someone else has just taken it, the page asks them to choose another.

The confirmation email and the customer's link

Magpie emails the customer a confirmation from the booking page's name, with the service, the staff member, the time and the location. Its View or change appointment button opens a page for that one appointment, which needs no password.

Reschedule
The customer chooses another open time with the same staff member. Magpie checks the staff member's Calendar and any room or equipment the service needs again, moves the appointment and emails the new time.
Cancel appointment
Cancelling frees the staff member's time and any reserved room or equipment, and Magpie emails the customer that the appointment was cancelled.
After the notice begins
Once the cancellation or rescheduling notice you set has begun, the page asks the customer to contact you instead.

Booking rules

Appointments Settings holds the rules every booking follows, whether a customer books or you add the appointment yourself. Type lengths as you would say them, such as 90 min, 2 hours or 1 day.

Minimum notice
How soon before a start time it can still be booked.
Maximum range
How far ahead customers can book.
Start times
How often a start time is offered within the weekly hours, such as every 15 minutes.
Cancellation and Rescheduling
How long before the start a customer can still cancel, or choose another time, from the link in their confirmation email.

The page's name, address and time zone

The Booking Page settings hold what customers see. The name is the page's heading and the sender name on confirmation emails, and the description appears under it, before the services. Setup names the page after the team, or after you in Personal.

The address is the part after /book/. When you change it, the old address will keep working and lead to the new one. Weekly hours and appointment times are in the page's time zone.

Share booking page starts a Social Media draft with the page's name and address. A team member with edit access who opens the booking page while signed in sees Edit in Magpie, which opens the page's settings.

Preview and publish

Until the booking page is published, its address answers that the page was not found. Preview opens it as a customer will see it, without saving a booking.

Publishing needs at least one service available to book, and each service available to book needs a staff member with weekly hours. You can add appointments yourself before the page is published.

Team members with edit access set up, change and publish the booking page; members with view access can see it.

Publish your booking page.

Create a Magpie account, open Appointments, choose your business type and publish the page.

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