The Repeating Appointments module may seem less intuitive; we suggest reviewing this article for guidance.
Activate Repeating Appointments through Online Booking Settings.
The Repeating Appointment entity (menu) provides a mechanism for creating bookings for upcoming weeks automatically.
We differ from traditional calendar apps, resulting in behavior distinct from typical weekly calendar events.
Given the involvement of purchases, payments, and revenues tied to bookings, our approach avoids the creation of hundreds of bookings simultaneously.
This feature is applicable for pay-per-session bookings (including claiming payments from customers) and package bookings.
How to activate Repeating Appointments?
Find the "Enable repeating appointments" checkbox under the online booking settings. It can't be disabled once you enable it.
New menu items with the activation
Once you activate, you will see two new menu items
Repeating Appointments
Gives you the ability to create and cancel repeating appointment series.
Pending Payments
Ability to charge customers' cards one day before/after session when it is set as online payment.
Repeating appointments
Pending payments
How to Create a Repeating Appointment?
Creation is intuitive and looks a lot like creating a booking.
Choose the customer
Choose the service variant
Decide if to override the default price and choose the payment method
Choose the staff, schedule, and frequency (multiple days a week or biweekly)
Here is a video to show live:
Can I update repeating appointments?
Currently, to change the staff member, service variant, or other configuration, you need to cancel the repeating appointment and create a fresh new one with accurate details.
Bulk updating future events creates some complexities which we are trying to solve.
How do I cancel the repeating appointment?
It is very important to create the repeating appointment from its menu.
Cancelling a repeating appointment will cancel all future bookings. Captured payments won't be refunded automatically.
Can I update individual bookings associated with a repeating appointment?
Most definitely yes. Bookings created via repeating appointments behave just like regular bookings, and you can update, and cancel individual bookings.
You can find the booking for a particular date either from the customer page, or under the booking list on the repeating appointment page. Daily worker doesn't re-create your updated/canceled booking.
How does it work with the packages?
If repeating appointments are not created from a package (pay per session) then they will be created indefinitely unless you cancel the repeating appointment.
When you try to redeem bookings from a package, you can choose to create a repeating appointment. Here is a video to show the use case:
Important note: The repeating appointment record might not show all the bookings of that package. Some of the bookings may have been created as ad-hoc and not part of the series.
Only the bookings for the next 4 weeks will be created. If the package doesn't cover 4 weeks, then the total number of bookings allowed by the package will be created.
Pending Payments: When to use?
Pending payments give you the ability to capture payments from your regular clients.
If a customer paid online one time, their payment method is recorded in your Stripe account.
When you choose that card as the payment method, we are listing all the bookings dated before tomorrow, so you can charge them one day in advance, or right after the service.
We don't auto-charge your clients or allow bulk charging. Sometimes you will forget to update some records, and automatic charging can lead to chargebacks and eventually losing your payment account and credibility.
That's why if you have regular clients, who pay per session, and you need to charge their cards, you can click the "Claim Payment" button.
If the customer's card is rejected for a permanent reason, then we recommend going to the associated purchase record, marking it as "Fail" and canceling the repeating appointment. You can then later re-create as cash on delivery, or you can create it with an alternative card if you were able to capture a new card.
Can I delete repeating appointments or associated bookings?
To keep a proper trail, we don't allow deleting bookings and repeating appointment records. Canceled bookings do create some residue, but the default date sorting should make them disappear from your views.
How do I know if a customer has an active repeating appointment?
On the customer view page, you will see the link that says "Has active repeating appointment". That link will take you to the record itself. Screenshot:
How do I know if a particular booking is created via repeating appointments?
On the booking view page, you will see the link that says "Created via repeating appointment". That link will take you to the record itself. Screenshot:
I don't see future events on my calendar (or Google Calendar) why?
We are creating only up to 4 weeks of events in advance, on a rolling basis. Since we are creating bookings and customer purchases for these bookings, we won't fill your account with hundreds of bookings.
What emails do customers receive for bookings created via repeating appointments?
Customers don't receive booking confirmation emails unless you manually trigger each one.
They receive the reminder emails as you configured them.