Create your Appointment Types

In this guide:

• General Setup of Appointment Types
• Categories
• Appointment Descriptions and Messages
• Video Tutorial

General Setup of Appointment Types in Acuity⚓

Appointment Types are services that clients can schedule with you. This is the first thing clients select when scheduling their appointment.

You can create unlimited appointment types in Acuity. To create an appointment type:

1. Head to Business Settings > Appointment Types
2. Select New Type of Service or New Type of Group Class to create a new appointment type.      
   • New Type of Service = a regular appointment that runs based on your Availability and is typically a one-on-one service.
   • New Type of Group Class = a group event that you have to create individual offerings for within each of that appointment type's settings. Classes are offered at specific times that are independent of your overall Availability settings.
     • You can also offer classes, workshops, or other group events at specific times that a larger number of people can sign up for. Check out help on offering classes/group events for more information!
3. Add a longer description or message after booking to your appointment types.
4. The Duration + Padding is how much time will be blocked off on your schedule when clients book an appointment. Padding is added to the beginning and/or end of the appointment, and included in the total duration.
5. Set the Price for the appointment type. If you set the price to $0 or leave the box blank, the appointment will be free.
6. Assign the Appointment Type to a Category, if needed.
7. Set access to Public to let clients book this appointment type, or Private so only you as a logged-in admin (and clients that you share the direct link with) can schedule it.
   • For example, if you want anyone to book a "Free Intro Session" mark that as Public. Then if you wanted only approved clients to book a "Follow-up Session", mark that one as Private and share the direct link with those clients.

Some other helpful info:

• Want to change the details (such as name, duration or cost) of an existing appointment type? Head to Business Settings > Appointment Types and click the Edit button next to the appointment type you want to change. Make the changes you want, then click the Update Appointment button.
  Note: Changes to the name or duration of an appointment type will affect all appointments on your calendar, past and future. Changes to the price of an appointment type will only affect appointments that are booked after the change is made. Upcoming appointments that had already been booked when the change was made will have the old price, plus a note indicating that the price of the appointment type has changed.
• Appointment Types can be deleted by editing the type, then clicking "Delete Appointment Type" at the bottom. Deleting an appointment type will not remove any appointments that are already scheduled; it will only prevent future appointments from being booked as that appointment type.
• You can find or copy a Direct Scheduling Link to any individual appointment type or category on your main appointment types list page.
• Drag-and-drop any of the appointment types to re-order them, on the main appointment types page (within each category).

Categories ⚓

Have lots of appointment types? Categories are a great way to visually organize your client's scheduling page by grouping appointments together by category. You can also link directly to different categories so clients can only view the appointments within a single appointment type category. Categories are shown in alphabetical order on your main appointment types listing page, and on your Client's Scheduling Page.

To add or change the category of an appointment type, edit that appointment type, then choose a category from the drop-down or select "Create a new Category..."

The category option will only appear if you have more than one Appointment Type created.

Want to change the name of an existing category?  Head over to your Business Settings > Appointment Types page and click on the Category name.  Edit the name of the category in the field and click on the save button when you're finished.