Manually accept or decline appointment requests

Set up your scheduler to have clients book appointment requests you can manually confirm or cancel.

Acuity is designed to make online scheduling as hands-off as possible by tracking when you’re available so clients can only schedule at those times. 

If it’s important for your business to manually confirm each appointment time, you can customize your scheduler to have clients submit their booking as a request, and communicate with them before and after approval.

Also available: Offer an appointment waitlist

Create appointment types and customized emails for appointment requests

To manually accept or decline appointments, use two appointment types—one clients can select on your scheduler to request appointments, and another private appointment type to track confirmed appointments.

To create a system for appointment requests:

1. Create two appointment types: a public appointment type labeled as a request and a private appointment type labeled as a confirmation. For example, you might create Request: Pet Instagram Photo Shoot and Confirmed: Pet Instagram Photo Shoot. Both appointment types should be the same duration.
2. Customize the email templates for each appointment type’s Booking Confirmation email. In the Request appointment type’s email template, include a message to let the client know their request has been received, and leave the Confirmed appointment type’s email template as a confirmation.
3. Disable all other automated emails for the Request appointment type.
4. Optionally, update your scheduling instructions to tell clients that they’re requesting an appointment time that needs a separate confirmation. To edit your scheduling instructions, click Scheduling Page, then Settings.

Accept or cancel appointment requests

Clients go through your public scheduler to book one of your request-type appointments. The client automatically receives the email stating their request has been received, and the appointment appears on your Acuity calendar. If you have internal notifications enabled, you’ll also receive a copy of the client’s request email.

To accept or decline the appointment, click the appointment to open the appointment details. 

• To decline it, cancel the appointment. The client automatically receives an email notification that the appointment is canceled.
• To accept it, edit the appointment and use the Appointment Type dropdown menu to select the confirmed appointment type instead, and save your changes. Click in the top-right corner of the appointment details, then click Resend Confirmation Email. Because you’ve edited the appointment type, the client gets the confirmation email, rather than the request received email.