Table of Content

• Introduction
• Requirements
• Challenge: Same Appointment Chosen by Two People
• Functionality of Appointment Reservation
• Special Features and Limitations
• Activation
• From the Customer's Perspective

Introduction

In rare cases, two people might attempt to book the same appointment at the same time. This may result in an error message for one of them, as the slot is no longer available. A new feature in the Calenso booking system effectively prevents this issue.

Requirements

The feature is available for all license plans.

Challenge: Same Appointment Chosen by Two People

Example Scenario

1. Person A loads the booking widget and selects an appointment. They begin answering the booking questions but don’t complete the booking fast enough.
2. Person B selects the same slot during that time, answers the questions, and completes the booking successfully.
3. When Person A attempts to complete the booking, they receive an error because the appointment was already booked by Person B.

Functionality of Appointment Reservation

Calenso allows temporary reservation of an appointment once it is selected by a person. This gives the first person enough time to complete the booking without the risk of another person booking the same slot in the meantime.

1. Start Booking
   As soon as an appointment is selected and the user navigates to the summary page, the slot is automatically reserved.
   
   

2. Reservation Duration

   • You can define the duration individually in the general settings.
   • Once the reservation period expires, the appointment becomes available again and is shown in the widget after refreshing.
   • A countdown is displayed to the customer showing the remaining reservation time.
     
     

3. Displaying Reserved Appointments

   • The reserved appointment remains visible for the person who selected it.
   • Other users will not see the reserved slot; the date may appear greyed out.
     
     

4. Releasing Reserved Appointments

   • If the booking is cancelled or the appointment is removed from the “cart,” it becomes available again.

Special Features and Limitations

Network Dependency

The reservation only applies to access from different IP addresses. People from the same network will not see the reservation.

Simultaneous Date and Time Selection
If two people open the date and time selection simultaneously without choosing an appointment, availability is shown to both. The reservation only takes effect when one of them selects a slot and proceeds to the summary.

Activation

Appointment reservation is activated in the general settings:

Just before the Stores section, you’ll find the toggle that activates the function.

Once the function is enabled, you can define how long a selected time slot should remain reserved:

From the Customer's Perspective

Once a time slot is selected during the booking process, a countdown appears in the top right corner: