How do I show my openings and let clients pick a time?
Openings are the times clients can pick with you. Set them once and each service on your page shows its next openings. When a client picks one, it arrives in your inbox as a request with their first message, and you confirm it, move it or decline it in the conversation. Nothing gets booked on its own unless you switch on Instant booking.
The first time, Openings walks you through setup in five steps. Your settings show on the Openings page once you press Finish. If you leave midway, Continue setup takes you back, with what you already saved filled in.
Your hours alone are enough to get started. Connecting a calendar is optional: it removes the times you are already busy and puts confirmed bookings in your calendar. Google Calendar and Outlook (Outlook.com and Microsoft 365) both work.
1. Weekly hours
Open Openings in the editor, under Logistics. Pick your time zone, switch on the days you work, and set a start and end time for each. Add hours gives a day a second range, like 09:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00. Copy to applies one day's hours to other days.
Save, and your page shows openings.
2. Dates that differ
For holidays, conferences, or an extra Saturday. Add the date and either mark it closed or give it its own hours. Your weekly hours are replaced for that date only.
3. Slot rules
These cut your hours into times clients can pick. The defaults work for most practices.
- Start times every: 30 minutes by default. A 09:00 to 17:00 day with 50-minute sessions offers 09:00, 09:30, and so on up to 16:00.
- Free time before and after a session: a gap kept around anything busy in your calendar.
- Earliest a client can pick: 24 hours ahead by default.
- Latest a client can pick: 60 days ahead by default.
Each service uses its own duration, so a 15-minute consultation and a 60-minute session get different times from the same hours.
4. Google Calendar or Outlook
The Calendars card lists both. Press Connect next to Google Calendar or Outlook, sign in, and accept every permission. Promptd only reads whether you are free or busy, never what an event is. It writes only to one calendar of its own, described below.
A connected calendar is also what earns your page the booking points of your discovery score. Hours without a calendar earn none, and a calendar that needs reconnecting stops earning them until you press Reconnect.
Once connected, the row shows the account and how many of its calendars count as busy. Press Manage to tick the calendars that should block openings under Calendars that count as busy, then Done. Changes in your calendar reach your page within a few minutes.
You can connect both. Busy times from both are taken out; confirmed bookings are added to one of them, marked Receives bookings. To move that, open the other account's Manage dialog and choose Add confirmed bookings to this account. Bookings already in the first calendar stay there.
If a provider stops sharing your calendar, the row tells you and its busy times are not taken out until you press Reconnect. Disconnect, at the bottom of the Manage dialog, removes Promptd's access; your hours stay.
Outlook and Microsoft 365
Outlook.com accounts connect like Google. A work or school account in Microsoft 365 may show Your organization has to approve Promptd first instead of connecting: your organization only lets an administrator allow new apps. Ask your IT admin to approve Promptd for calendars; once they have, Connect works from the same card. Nothing else is needed on your side.
Bookings in your calendar
With a calendar connected, every confirmed booking is added to a calendar named Promptd · your name in the connected account, for example "Promptd · Brigitte Naggar". Promptd creates it the first time you connect. In a clinic, one account can be connected on several practitioners' pages and each page gets its own calendar, which you can share with that practitioner from Google Calendar or Outlook. The event carries the service, the client's name, the time, the location for in-person sessions and a link to the conversation. Moving a booking moves the event; cancelling it removes the event. Promptd never adds, changes or removes events in any other calendar.
That calendar is yours to colour, hide, share or show like any other. It is never used as a busy calendar, since Promptd already knows those bookings. If your calendar refuses an update, the Manage dialog tells you the date; your bookings are not affected and the next confirmation tries again.
5. Instant booking
Off by default. Every picked time is then a request you confirm, decline or move from the conversation.
Switch on Book instantly and clients book a picked time directly, without your confirmation. The time is held for them while they write their first message and booked when they send it. You get the booking in your inbox and in your calendar. You can still cancel it or move it from the conversation.
Instant booking needs a connected calendar, so your busy times are respected. If the connection breaks, it pauses and picked times are requests again until you reconnect.
6. Bookable services
Every service starts bookable. Switch one off in Bookable services and it stays on your page with its price, but shows no times and clients can't pick it when they write to you. Use it for services clients should ask you about first. A service on the waitlist or not accepting new clients shows no times anyway; its switch is locked. Hover or tap its tag and use Change availability to open the Services page.
7. Preview
Preview openings, at the bottom of the page, shows the times clients see, from your saved settings. Save first to see a change. Services clients don't see are listed above the others.
What clients see
Each service that accepts new clients shows its next three openings and a More times button for the full week. Times appear in the client's own time zone. Waitlist services show nothing. While openings are showing, the link in your Booking calendar field is hidden.
A client who picks a time lands in the message form with the service and time filled in. Their message arrives in your inbox with the request pinned at the top of the conversation, and the notification email shows it too. The client has already picked the format and, for in person, the location. Confirm books it in one click, Change time offers another time (and can change the format or location) and Decline frees the slot. They sit above the message box while the request waits for you, and in the Details panel. Details also shows the client's answers from their first message and your past bookings with them. The same buttons are on each request in your Bookings page. You have two business days to answer (Saturdays and Sundays don't count), and never later than the appointment itself. The conversation shows Answer by with the exact deadline. A request you don't answer by then expires and the time opens up again. Replying to the notification email sends a message to the client, but it doesn't answer the request: open the conversation to confirm, change or decline. Two clients can request the same slot; you decide. With Instant booking on, the time is booked when the client sends and the conversation opens on the confirmed booking.
FAQ
Do I need to connect a calendar?
No. Weekly hours are enough. Google Calendar and Outlook are supported; Apple Calendar and others are not yet.
Can Promptd see my appointments?
No, only whether you are free or busy. Remove the access anytime with Disconnect, or at myaccount.google.com/permissions for Google and account.live.com/consent/Manage for a personal Microsoft account (myapps.microsoft.com for a work account).
Why is a time not offered?
It is busy in a ticked calendar, inside a buffer, sooner than your notice, or on a closed date.
My page shows no openings
You need at least one weekly range and one bookable service that accepts new clients.
Does picking a time book it?
Only with Instant booking on. Otherwise you confirm in the conversation, and nothing is booked until you do.
Where do confirmed bookings go?
Into the conversation, your Bookings page and, with a calendar connected, the Promptd calendar in your Google or Outlook account (the one named after you).
The Promptd calendar does not show on my iPhone or iPad
Apple's Calendar app only syncs a Google account's main calendars by default. Open calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect on the device, tick the Promptd calendar and save.
I work in a clinic
Anyone with editor access can set hours and connect a calendar on a practitioner's page. Connect that practitioner's own Google or Microsoft account. On Microsoft 365, the clinic's IT admin may have to approve Promptd once for everyone.