HappenBoard has a second flow alongside events: appointments. Instead of you publishing a date and visitors signing up for it, the visitor picks a free time from your calendar and books it. This guide maps the moving parts and the order to set them up in.
The four pieces
- Booking types are the services people can book: a 30 minute consultation, a studio session, a tasting. Each one carries its own length, capacity and rules. They live under HappenBoard → Bookings → Booking types.
- Availability is the weekly hours of each host, under HappenBoard → Bookings → Availability. Without hours there is nothing to offer.
- The Booking Page block is what the visitor uses. You place it on any page or post.
- Bookings is the list of everything that has come in, under HappenBoard → Bookings.
A host is a plain WordPress user. There is no separate staff directory to maintain: anyone on your site who can edit posts can be picked as a host.
How this differs from RSVPs
An RSVP form belongs to an event you have already scheduled, on a date you chose. A booking works the other way round: you publish your open hours, and the visitor chooses the moment.
A booking is not an event. It does not create an event post, it does not appear on the admin Calendar screen, and it is not included in the iCal feed. It is a row in its own list.
What a visitor does
- Opens the page holding the Booking Page block.
- Sees a month calendar. Only days that still have free times can be clicked.
- Picks a day, then a time from the list beside the calendar.
- Fills in Your name and Email.
- Clicks Confirm booking. A confirmation panel replaces the calendar.
Times are shown in the visitor’s own timezone, detected from their browser, and the timezone name is printed under the list of times so there is no ambiguity.
What you get
Each booking becomes a row on the Bookings screen with the customer name and email, the booking type, the host, the date and time, the status and the number of seats. Tabs across the top filter the list: All bookings, Requests, Confirmed, Completed, Cancelled and No-show.
Every action works on a single row or on a selection:
- Approve request and Decline request: the answer to a booking that came in on a type set to require your approval. Approving confirms the slot and sends the confirmation email; declining releases it.
- Cancel booking: frees the slot again, so the time comes back on offer.
- Notes: a private note on the booking, for your team only.
- Export selected: downloads the chosen bookings as CSV.
The Requests tab is empty until you switch Requires approval on for a booking type. Until then every booking is confirmed the moment it is made, which is covered in creating a booking type.
What the customer receives
- A confirmation email as soon as the booking is recorded, with a calendar invite attached so they can add it to their own calendar in one click.
- Reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before the appointment. These rely on WordPress scheduled tasks, so a site with no traffic at all can fire them late.
- A cancellation email if the booking is cancelled.
Dates in those emails are written in the customer’s timezone. Replies go to the host’s own email address, unless you set a reply-to address in the email settings. The emails reuse your email branding, so booking mail matches everything else your site sends.
Who can manage bookings
Administrators and editors both get Bookings, Booking types and Availability. Settings and Integrations stay with administrators. See roles and permissions for the full picture.
Set up in this order
- Create a booking type and assign at least one host to it.
- Set that host’s weekly hours on the Availability screen.
- Publish a page carrying the Booking Page block, pointed at your booking type.
Skipping any of the three leaves the booking page showing No times available.