How appointments work: from setup to a booked slot

Appointments, classes and equipment hire

The booking platform offers three booking types, enabled as checkboxes under Settings → Configuration → Reservation type (or Custom Features → All bookings → Settings), saved per selected location:

• Classes — "You schedule a class and your customers reserve a spot." You publish a fixed time on the calendar; the customer joins it.
• Appointments — "Your customers make an appointment from a range of available times." You do not publish times. You define when a service and its instructors are available, and the customer picks a start time from the generated options.
• Equipment hire — "Your customers rent equipment for a duration they choose." Each hire item is a hidden appointment-style service with no instructor; customers book it on the customer Equipment page (/hire).

Ticking more than one type requires the All bookings custom feature. An appointment service is simply a class that has been opened for appointments on the Appointments page — the same class record can still be scheduled as a normal class when both types are enabled.

What you must set up, and where

Work through these in order. Each one is covered in detail by its own article.

1. Booking type — tick Appointments under Settings → Configuration → Reservation type. The Appointments page appears in the admin menu with the tabs Upcoming · Classes · Instructors · Connect · Addons · Settings · How it works · Log.
2. Service — create the class under Admin → Classes (name, duration, class size, price or pass), then open it from Appointments → Classes and turn on Open for appointments. The Classes tab has no New button; appointment services are created as classes. See Create a new appointment service.
3. Instructors connected — on Appointments → Connect, pick the class and tick the instructors who may provide it. A class that needs no instructor shows a No instructor required banner instead. See Connect classes to appointment services.
4. Working hours, time frame and buffers — in the service editor (Appointment - Settings) set the Time frame (slot interval), Buffer time - Open (preparation before) and Buffer time - Close (clean-up after), each 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes, and the weekly Working Hours. Then open each instructor from Appointments → Instructors and set Open for appointments, their own Time frame, Daily class limit, Daily time limit, Working Hours and Special dates. See Set instructor weekly availability and Block specific time slots.
5. Optional add-ons — on Appointments → Addons create add-on Items, Groups and add-on Classes and link them to the service. See Add-on items, groups and add-on services.
6. Optional equipment — if customers also hire equipment, set up the hire items; they reuse the same Time frame and buffer logic. The equipment articles cover the detail.
7. Booking flow settings — on Appointments → Settings choose which steps (Classes, Instructors, Date) customers see, their order and whether each is required, plus Show when full and the classroom rules. See Configure the appointment booking flow.

The admin AI assistant can create or update appointment services, connect instructors, change working hours, list available slots and book a customer for you — ask it in plain language.

How available times are calculated

When a customer opens a date, the system builds the list of start times like this:

1. Service hours ∩ instructor hours. Only the overlap between the service's Working Hours and the connected instructor's Working Hours (or Special dates for that day) is considered. If the customer has not chosen an instructor, every connected instructor who is open is checked and a time is offered when at least one of them is free.
2. Time frame. The overlap is sliced into candidate start times every Time frame minutes (for example 09:00, 09:15, 09:30 at 15 minutes).
3. Duration and buffers. Each candidate must fit the class duration plus Buffer time - Open before and Buffer time - Close after, and that whole block must stay inside the available window. Chosen duration add-ons lengthen the block.
4. Existing commitments. Times that collide with the instructor's existing appointments, scheduled classes or an equipment hold are removed, as are classroom conflicts in Strict classroom mode and times beyond the instructor's Daily class limit or Daily time limit.
5. Closures and cut-offs. Business closures, Special dates with no hours, dates beyond the booking window and times inside the reservation cut-off are not offered.

Equipment hire runs the same engine: each hire item is a hidden appointment service without an instructor, so only steps 2–5 apply, with the duration coming from the customer's chosen hire length.

What the customer does

On the customer app the customer opens Appointments, then moves through the steps you enabled — by default Service → Instructor → Date — and picks a start time. A short hold is placed on that time while they review the booking summary, which lists the attendee, pass or payment, equipment and add-ons. Add-ons are not a separate step: they are chosen here, before confirming, and a Single (Required) add-on group must be answered first. Confirming creates the reservation (or adds it to checkout when payment is due). For the full walkthrough see How customers book an appointment from start to finish; for equipment, customers use the customer Equipment page (/hire) instead, choosing the equipment and then a date with duration and quantity.

Where bookings appear

A confirmed appointment shows up in several places:

• Appointments → Upcoming — the default tab. Filter by Class, Instructor and Date range; tap a row to open the attendees. Use New to book a customer yourself and Custom for a one-off time outside the generated slots.
• Calendar — the appointment appears on the instructor's day alongside scheduled classes, so it blocks the same time for class scheduling.
• Appointments → Log — the change history for appointments.
• Customer side — under the customer's upcoming bookings, with the same cancellation rules you set on the class.

Related articles

• What's an appointment service and when to use one
• Create a new appointment service
• Connect classes to appointment services
• Set instructor weekly availability and Block specific time slots
• Configure how far ahead customers can book
• Add-on items, groups and add-on services, Add appointment add-ons and Group add-ons together
• Configure the appointment booking flow, Make booking steps required or optional and Reorder the booking steps
• Add-on selection during booking and How customers book an appointment from start to finish
• Per-location Appointment settings