How online booking works, end to end

Every Bookodile business has a public booking page at bookodile.com/your-shop. A customer opens it, picks what they want, picks a time, and confirms. No account, no app, no password — for them or for you.

This page explains what happens at each step, and more usefully, what has to be true before a time is offered at all. Most "the booking page looks broken" questions are really questions about that.

The five steps a customer takes

1. Choose a service. They see your services grouped by category, each with a price and a duration — and its photo, when you have added one to the service. Tapping the photo opens it larger without choosing the service; tapping the rest of the card chooses it.
2. Choose who does it. If you have more than one person who can do that service, the customer picks — or picks "anyone", and Bookodile decides.
3. Choose a time. The page shows a week at a time. Days with no available times are visibly empty rather than hidden.
4. Enter their details. Name is always required. Email and phone are each independently required or optional, and you control which — but at least one of the two must stay on. A phone number from any country is accepted: the field shows an example with your country's code, a number typed without one is read as your country's, and once the number is complete the page shows it back in international form. A number that does not exist in its country's numbering plan is refused, with the reason under the field.
5. Confirm. The booking is created, the customer gets an email, and it appears in your calendar.

When a link has already chosen the service

A service's own Book button on your Bookodile website — on its card, or on a photo in a gallery category linked to it — names the service. So does the booking link in the review-request email (Book again) and in the win-back email, with the service from the customer's last visit. Such a link skips step 1: the page opens on the step that comes next for that service — how long (for a service booked by the hour), who does it, the extras, or the time — with the service already chosen. One line above the step names it, with its duration, and Change goes back to the list of services.

The emails' link also names the team member from the last visit. If they can still do that service, they are chosen too and the page opens on the time; if they can't any more, or have left, the customer chooses as usual. A link to a service your booking page doesn't list (archived, or offered only as an add-on) opens the list of services instead.

A booking in progress is kept for two hours in the browser tab it was started in. A phone that reloads the page — common when the customer switches apps — brings them back to it with what they had chosen, never further than the time step: the times are checked again there, and one taken in the meantime has to be picked again. The page says it picked up where they left off, with Start over. That holds when the page was opened by a link too, as long as the link is for the same service. A link to a different service starts a new booking.

What has to be true for a time to be offered

This is the part worth understanding properly, because a time is only offered when every condition below holds at once. A slot is the intersection of several separate constraints, not just your opening hours.

That last row catches people out. A 90-minute service will not be offered at 16:30 if you close at 17:00 — the whole appointment has to fit inside working hours, not just its start.

Working hours also support more than one range per day, so a genuine split shift (09:00–12:00 and 15:00–19:00) is expressed directly rather than faked with a block.

How slots are spaced

Slot times come from your slot interval setting, not from the service duration. With a 15-minute interval, a 30-minute service is offered at 09:00, 09:15, 09:30 and so on — not only on the half hour.

A shorter interval means more choice for the customer and a more fragmented day for you. There is no correct answer; 15 minutes is a reasonable default.

What happens the moment they confirm

• The booking is written to your calendar.
• The customer receives a confirmation email.
• The status is either confirmed or pending, depending on your auto-confirm setting. With auto-confirm off, nothing is agreed until you accept it — but the confirmation email does not say so, so tell them in your own confirmation text.
• A reminder is scheduled, if you have reminders on. You can send the day before, two hours before, or both.

What the customer can do afterwards

The confirmation email carries a link to manage the booking. What they can do there depends on your cancellation window — the number of hours before the appointment during which self-service cancellation stops being allowed. Inside that window, they are directed to contact you instead of cancelling unilaterally.

Worked example

A barbershop open 09:00–17:00, one barber, 30-minute haircuts, 15-minute slot interval, 2 hours minimum notice, auto-confirm on.

A customer opens the page at 14:00 on a Tuesday:

• Times before 16:00 are not offered — that is the 2-hour minimum notice.
• 16:00, 16:15 and 16:30 are offered.
• 16:45 is not offered: a 30-minute cut starting then would end at 17:15, past closing.
• They book 16:15. It is confirmed immediately, appears in the calendar, and the confirmation email goes out at once.

Limits and things this does not do

• Bookodile does not take the customer's money. It is booking and scheduling software. The payments add-on records what you were paid; it is not a payment processor, and it does not hold funds or issue refunds.
• A booking cannot be made without a name. Email and phone are configurable; name is not.
• Invoice details are enforced in the booking page, not in the API. If you set invoice details to "required", the booking page will not submit without them — but a booking created directly through the API can still omit them.
• Bookings are not designed to cross midnight, except for services marked as full-day.