Getting a booking link ready, and what to check when no times appear
How to publish your open times and take bookings, and what to check when not a single time appears.
- Help category
- Scheduling
Create a booking type, set the hours you accept, and hand the URL to the person you want to meet. A booking link for yourself needs a public handle saved before the URL can be shared at all.
There are two booking links
The sidebar section "Scheduling methods" holds both of them: "Booking link", which covers your own time, and "Group booking link", which covers several hosts at once.
| Item | Booking link | Group booking link |
|---|---|---|
| Public URL | /p/{public handle}/{slug} | /p/group/{slug} |
| Public handle | Required | Not used |
| Hosts | You, and nobody else | One to twenty, set to either "All hosts attend" or "One host attends". Availability is worked out from every host calendar, while the calendar entry and the meeting URL created after confirmation belong to one host only |
| Meeting format | Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, nCha, face to face and hybrid. The list shows the tools you have connected, plus face to face and hybrid | The same list without Webex, so six |
What to set up before publishing
- A booking link needs a public handle saved. Until one is there the screen reads "Set a public handle to share your booking URL".
- Connect the meeting tool you intend to use, under "Integrations". See Connecting your calendar and meeting tool for the connection itself.
- Open "Create new" and decide the "Name", the "Public URL slug", the "Duration (minutes)", the "Meeting format" and the "Time zone".
- Fill in "Available hours by day of the week". A day left empty is treated as closed.
- Set the range of dates the visitor may pick, under "Booking window / minimum notice".
- Take the URL out with "Copy URL".
A public handle also publishes a list of your booking pages
Saving one publishes a personal page at /p/u/{public handle} as well, listing the booking types that are public at the time. Saving the field empty withdraws that page again.
Deciding what you will accept
"Buffer before (minutes)" and "Buffer after (minutes)" in the edit screen keep a gap either side of the meeting. The "Booking window / minimum notice" field carries three further settings that narrow the slots down.
- Excluded dates. Particular days taken out of the acceptance period, and they take priority over the weekly hours.
- A minimum notice in minutes. Slots that start within that many minutes of now are not offered. Zero means no limit.
- A daily maximum. The number of bookings accepted in one day; left blank, there is no limit.
How the open slots are worked out
"Available hours by day of the week" is cut into pieces the length of the meeting plus the buffers either side. Two things are then subtracted: confirmed events the host is running, and events on the calendars marked "Use for availability".
When no slots appear at all
For a booking link, open the preview with "Preview the booking page" in the list. A group booking link has no preview, so check the integrations of each host in turn.
| What the preview says | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Host notice: Availability cannot be shown because the calendar connection needs to be reconnected. ..." | Reconnect the same account. |
| "Host notice: Availability cannot be shown because a calendar connection used for availability is not available. ..." | Look again at which calendars are marked "Use for availability". |
| No notice at all, but not a single slot is listed | Look again at the reception hours, the acceptance period, the excluded dates, the minimum notice and the daily maximum. |
Handing out and sharing belong to the booking link alone
- "One-time link". A disposable URL that stops working as soon as it has been booked. The expiry runs from one hour to 30 days.
- "QR code". Saves the URL of the public booking page as a QR code.
- "Share (co-administrator)". Pick up to 20 members of your organisation and hand them editing and listing of that booking type.
- "Duplicate". Makes a second booking type carrying the same settings. This one appears on the group booking link list as well.
What happens once a booking arrives
The visitor books in three steps: "Choose a time", "Your details", "Done". What follows is set out in What happens automatically once a time is confirmed.
A booking type set to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Webex does not even send the confirmation while the connection is broken. See When a confirmation or reminder does not arrive to narrow that down.
A booking that came in through a booking link counts towards the schedules you created that month. The number of hosts and co-administrators you may pick does not change with the plan. For the condition on how many members your organisation may hold, see How pricing works.
Cancelling a booking, or moving it
The person who booked has no way to cancel or to move the time. The host opens the event from "Events" and runs "Cancel event". Cancelling cannot be undone, and no email goes out to tell the other side, so a new time is something you arrange yourself.
Taking a booking link out of service
To stop it for a while, choose "Pause" from the action menu. Opening the URL of a stopped booking type gives "Booking page not found".