Booking types
Create booking types with the lengths and ways to meet you offer, in person, by video, by phone or somewhere else, with limits, questions, host confirmation and a waitlist.
Agoo is in early access. This page describes the feature as it ships to early-access organisations; screens are illustrative.
A booking type describes one kind of meeting people can book: how long it can be, how and where it happens, who takes it and what you need to know beforehand. A host might have three: "Quick call", "Account review" and "Site visit". Each booking type has its own booking page.
Find them in Console → Bookings → Booking types. Owners and Admins manage every booking type. Hosts can create and edit their own, for meetings only they take.
One option or a choice
A booking type can offer a single fixed meeting, or let the guest choose:
- Lengths: up to six, such as 15, 30 and 60 minutes. One of them is the default.
- Ways to meet: any of the four below. The first one you tick is the default.
If you offer one length and one way to meet, the booking page skips straight to the calendar.
Where you meet
| Way to meet | What the guest gets | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| In person | The site's name and address, directions and a QR pass. The booking becomes an expected visit there. | The site. |
| Video call | The meeting link, in the confirmation, every reminder and their booking's page. Nothing to install. | Optionally, a link for the booking type. Otherwise the host's own meeting link from Availability is used. |
| Phone call | Who calls whom, and the number if they're calling you. | Whether the host calls the guest (the guest's phone is used) or the guest calls a number you give. |
| Somewhere else | The address, for example a partner's office or a site you're inspecting. | The address. |
Video links. Paste any Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom or other https link. If a booking type has no link and the host hasn't set their own, the host adds one to each booking with Add meeting link in Console → Bookings, and the guest is sent it. Creating a fresh Meet, Teams or Zoom link for each booking automatically is planned.
Meeting at the guest's own address, with the guest entering it on the booking page, is planned too. Until then, use Somewhere else with a fixed address, or Phone call to arrange it.
Create a booking type
Basics
Go to Console → Bookings → Booking types → New booking type. Give it a clear name ("Account review") and a one-line description the guest will read. Choose its page address, the last part of voltabank.agoo.ardent.africa/book/account-review, and who takes it: you, or the people you choose. With several people, the guest sees a time when any of them is free, and each booking goes to a free one in turn (round-robin), so the work is shared fairly.
Lengths and ways to meet
Pick the lengths you offer, and tick the ways to meet, filling in the details from the table above.
Questions
Choose the visitor type whose questions the booking page asks (for example Meeting). Its questions asked of the visitor appear on the booking page; questions for staff only never do. For in-person bookings, the answers fill in the visit, so the guest doesn't repeat themselves at the kiosk. To change the questions, edit that visitor type's form in Forms and fields.
When people can book
| Setting | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum notice | How soon a booking can start. Stops someone booking a time five minutes away. | 4 hours |
| How far ahead | The furthest ahead people can book. | 60 days |
| Gap before / after | Time kept free around each meeting, for travel or notes. | 10 minutes after |
| A day's limit | The most bookings of this type in one day. | 6 a day |
| Start times every | How often start times are offered. | Every 30 minutes |
These work inside each host's own availability (their days and hours), your closed days and public holidays, and the host's other bookings. A time is offered only when everything allows it. Hosts who manage their own booking types set their own notice, gaps and daily limit here.
Confirmation, reminders and the waitlist
- Require host confirmation, and how many hours the host has to answer. See below.
- Reminders: up to three, each from 10 minutes to 7 days before. A day before and an hour before is the default. See Reminders and no-shows.
- Waitlist: let people join a waitlist when a day is full. See below.
Who can see it, and save
| Visibility | Means |
|---|---|
| Public: listed | Anyone can book it, and it's shown on your organisation's /book page. |
| Public: link only | Anyone with its link, QR code or your website can book it, but it isn't listed. |
| Private: staff only | Only your staff can book it, with New booking in the Console. It has no public page. |
Select Save. With Take bookings on, a public booking type's page works straight away. Turn Take bookings off to pause a booking type without deleting it. Deleting a booking type keeps the bookings already made.
Only ask what you need
Booking pages are public, and so are the questions they ask. Don't ask for ID numbers, health details or other sensitive information there. Mark a question staff only if your team fills it in, and collect what you must in person, where your ID masking and retention rules apply.
Share it
Each booking type has a Share panel:
- Copy link copies its page address, on your own domain once you've connected one.
- Download QR code makes a tracked QR code for its page, for posters, leaflets and business cards. It's listed with your other QR codes.
- Put it on your website gives you a snippet to paste into your own site. See Put a booking page on your website.
Bookings that need confirmation
Turn on Require host confirmation when the host should look at each booking before it's fixed, for example for first-time clients or long consultations.
- The guest books as usual. The booking is a request: the guest sees Request sent, with the time the host has to answer by, and gets a message saying so.
- The request holds the time, so nobody else can book it while the host decides.
- The host gets a message with a link. The link opens the request on your Agoo address, with the guest's details and answers, and Confirm and Decline buttons; no sign-in needed. They can also answer in Console → Bookings → Requests.
- When the host confirms, the guest gets the usual confirmation, reminders are scheduled and, for in-person meetings, the expected visit and QR pass are created.
- When the host declines, the time is free again and the guest is told the request wasn't accepted. The host can add a reason for your records, and ticks Tell them why if the guest should see it.
- If the host doesn't answer within the confirmation window (24 hours unless you change it), or before the meeting would start, the request expires: the time is freed and the guest is told it couldn't be confirmed.
The guest can cancel a request from their link while it waits.
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting for the host. The time is held. |
| Confirmed | Fixed. Reminders go out, and in-person meetings get a pass. |
| Declined | The host said no. The time is free again. |
| Expired | Nobody answered in time. The time is free again. |
| Cancelled | The guest or the host called it off. The time is free again. |
Waitlist
Turn on Waitlist for booking types that fill up, such as a doctor's Monday clinic or parents' evening.
- When a day has no free times left, the booking page offers Join the waitlist for that day, with the length and way to meet the guest chose.
- The guest gives their name and phone or email, confirms it with a code, and is told their place in the line.
- When a time on that day frees up (a booking is cancelled, declined, expires or moves to another day), the first person in line gets a message with a link to book it.
- The link works for 2 hours. The time isn't held: whoever books first gets it. If the person doesn't book within the 2 hours, the next in line is sent a link.
- Once the day has passed, everyone still waiting for it is removed.
See and remove waitlist entries in Console → Bookings → Waitlist.
Later additions
Collective bookings (several hosts who must all be free), weighting a team's round-robin, routing forms and calendar sync arrive in P9. Paid bookings with mobile money, and booking rooms, halls, desks and vehicles, arrive in P10.
Booking pages
Give each kind of meeting its own booking page, so customers, parents, patients and partners pick a time without the back-and-forth.
Availability and closed days
Set the hours you take bookings, leave out public holidays and your organisation's closed days, and see every booking, request and waitlist in one place.