# How online booking works, end to end

> What happens between a customer opening your booking page and the appointment landing in your calendar — and what has to be true for a time to be offered at all.

_Last verified: 2026-09-05. Source: https://bookodile.com/docs/how-booking-works_

Every Bookodile business has a public booking page at `bookodile.com/book/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.
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.
5. **Confirm.** The booking is created, the customer gets an email, and it
   appears in your calendar.

## 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.

| Constraint | Where you set it |
|---|---|
| The business is open that day | Settings → Working hours |
| The team member is working that day | The team member's own hours |
| Nothing else is booked in that space | Your calendar |
| No time off or calendar block covers it | Calendar |
| It is far enough in the future | Booking settings → minimum notice |
| It is not too far in the future | Booking settings → maximum advance days |
| The whole service fits before closing | Automatic |

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 — the customer is told so.
- 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.