Appointment bookings let a customer choose a time to visit a store, collect an order or check in on arrival, instead of waiting in the store's virtual queue. Setting it up takes 4 short procedures in HQ Admin and about 10 minutes: enable appointments in Platform Admin, enable them for each store, check your reason-for-visit list, and decide how you will block out dates and public holidays.

Before you begin

  • An HQ Admin account with the Admin role.
  • Stores added with unique store codes. See Add a store.
  • Correct opening hours for each store, because appointment slots are offered inside those hours. See Update your store's opening hours (Retail Admin).
  • SMS sending approved in AWS and a Platform SMS Sender ID set, because customers confirm and are reminded of appointments by SMS. See Update the platform's SMS sender ID.
  • A Privacy Policy URL saved under Company Settings → Platform Set-up before you launch bookings to the public.

Enable appointments for the platform

  1. In the left navigation, select Platform Admin.
  2. Under Enabled Features, select Queueing / Appointments.
  3. Select the Appointment Settings tab.
  4. Turn on Enable Appointments.

    The APPOINTMENT SETTINGS list shows 1 template, Appointments Template (Default). Leave its settings as they are for now; you can tune them later using the Appointment template settings reference.

Enable appointments for a store

  1. In the left navigation, select Stores / Branches.
  2. Select the store name, then the Enabled Features tab.
  3. Turn on Enable Store Appointments.
  4. In Appointment Template assigned to this Store, choose the template, for example Appointments Template (DEFAULT).
  5. Select Save Changes.
  6. Repeat for each store that takes appointments.

Check your reason-for-visit list

Customers choose a reason for visit when they book, and its Time to Serve sets how long the appointment is expected to take. The same list is used for queueing. Open Platform Admin → Enabled Features → Queueing / Appointments → Shared Settings and check the categories under REASON FOR VISIT. Add a category such as Click & Collect if you want customers to book a collection time. See Add reason-for-visit categories and sub-categories.

Plan calendar blocks and public holidays

Decide which dates and times must not accept bookings. Public-holiday hours and per-day slot counts are set on each store's Store Hours; one-off or recurring block-outs use calendar blocking. See Block out dates and times for appointments.

Verify it worked

In the Stores / Branches list, the store's Enabled Features column shows the appointments calendar icon. When a staff member refreshes the store's Retail Admin site, Queueing & Appointments shows an APPOINTMENTS tab with a month calendar and an Add New Appointment button, and the store can start accepting appointments.

Next step

Set appointment slots per store and per day