A booking type is one service people can book: a 30 minute consultation, a guided tour, a room for the day. It sets how long an appointment lasts, which start times are offered, how many people fit, who hosts it and what it costs.
You need at least one booking type before anyone can book. The appointment booking overview shows where it fits with the other pieces.
Create a booking type
- Go to HappenBoard → Bookings → Booking types.
- Click Add booking type. The Bookings screen has the same shortcut, called New booking type.
- Optionally, pick a setup under Start from a template.
- Type a Name. It is the only required field. Visitors see it on the booking page and in the subject of the booking emails.
- Optionally, write a Description. It shows under the name in the Booking Types block, described in the booking blocks.
- Fill in the Scheduling, Hosts & assignment and Location panels, explained below.
- Click Create booking type.
The booking type is published straight away. Only a published booking type offers times: a draft or a trashed one shows nothing on the booking page.
Start from a template
The Start from a template card offers six setups: Tutoring session, Salon appointment, Online consultation, Guided tour or activity, Equipment rental and Room or venue hire. Each one fills the settings with realistic values (length, step, notice, cutoff, approval) that you then adjust.
Applying a template replaces every setting on the screen but keeps a name you already typed. It also clears the hosts, so add yours after choosing it.
Scheduling settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Duration (min) | How long one appointment lasts. The label follows the unit: Duration (hours), Duration (days). | 30 |
| Duration unit | Minutes, Hours or Days. It changes how the number is read, it does not convert it: 3 with Days is a three day booking. With Days, visitors pick a start date, not a time. | Minutes |
| First slot at | Optional clock time the day’s start times line up on, such as 09:15. Empty, they start when each opening starts. Hidden with Days. | Empty |
| Slot step (min) | How often a start time is offered. Minimum 5. Hidden with Days. | 30 |
| Length | Fixed (one duration) or The customer chooses how many. With the second, set At least and At most: visitors get a How long list. | Fixed |
| Every day of the stay must be open | Only with Days. On, a stay cannot run over a day you are closed. Off, only the first day must be open. | Off |
| Bookings can start on | The weekdays a booking may start on. Untick a day to stop bookings starting on it without closing it. | Every day |
| Capacity (1 = one-to-one) | Seats per start time. Above 1, several people can book the same time. | 1 |
| Price | Amount shown to visitors, per seat, in your site currency (the label shows it, such as Price (EUR)). 0 shows no price. | 0 |
| Buffer before (min), Buffer after (min) | Free time kept before and after each booking. | 0 |
| Min notice | How soon the first bookable time can be, in minutes, hours or days. 0 counts as 60 minutes. | 60 minutes |
| Max advance (days) | How far ahead visitors can book. | 60 |
| Most bookings per host per day | Once a host has this many bookings on a day, this booking type is no longer offered with them that day. 0 means no limit. | 0 |
| Time no rule mentions | Closed: only the hours opened on the Availability screen can be booked. Open: bookable around the clock unless a day off or a rule closes it, which suits rentals. | Closed |
| Require approval | Bookings arrive as requests that you approve or decline. | Off |
| Customer change cutoff | How close to the start customers can still cancel or move their booking themselves. 0 means up to the start. | 0 |
The duration field accepts 5 or more with Minutes, and 1 or more with Hours and Days.
Duration and slot step
Duration is how long the appointment takes. Slot step is how often a start time appears. A 60 minute duration with a 30 minute step offers 09:00, 09:30, 10:00 and so on, and each booking still lasts an hour. Set the step equal to the duration for back to back appointments.
First slot at moves those start times onto a clock time. With a 30 minute step and 09:15, times fall on :15 and :45, also after a lunch break.
Buffers and double bookings
A buffer keeps a gap around each appointment, for travel, cleaning or a break. A time is only offered when its buffers do not overlap another booking of the same host, and that booking’s own buffers count too.
A host is never booked twice at the same time, even across different booking types. The rules are detailed in setting your availability.
Group bookings
With Capacity above 1, a start time stays on offer until its seats run out. Each visitor books one seat. To book several seats at once for a customer, use New booking on the Bookings screen. If one person must reserve many places, an event with an RSVP form fits better.
Price and payment
The free plugin shows the price and you collect it yourself, on the day or by invoice. The booking emails and the Bookings screen say it is due on site. The price is per seat and does not change with the length a customer picks. Each booking keeps the price it was made at.
Taking payment online, deposits, prices per person and pricing rules come with HappenBoard Pro. They add a Deposit field and the People and Pricing rules cards to this screen. See booking payments, deposits and pricing rules.
Hosts and assignment
In Hosts & assignment, the Hosts field suggests every user who can edit posts. On a standard site, that means authors, editors and administrators (see roles and permissions). Add at least one host. A booking type with no host offers no times at all.
Each host needs their own weekly hours on the Availability screen.
Assignment decides who gets a booking when several hosts are free:
- Round-robin (the default): the free host with the fewest upcoming bookings, to share the work across a team.
- Fixed: the customer picks. With more than one host, the booking page shows a With list. Anyone available gives the booking to the first free host in your Hosts field.
Location and color
Location mode says how the appointment takes place: In person (the default), Virtual, Phone or Custom. Visitors read “In person”, “Online” or “By phone” next to the duration. Custom shows nothing there.
Accent color colors this booking type on the bookings layer of the admin Calendar. Visitors never see it.
Multilingual sites
Booking types cannot be translated with WPML or Polylang: one booking type serves every language, with the name you typed. The booking page’s buttons and messages follow the language of the page, and the booking emails are sent in it. See multilingual sites.
Edit a booking type later
Click a booking type’s name in the list to open it again, then click Save. New settings apply to the times offered from then on. Bookings already made keep their time and their price. View (opens in a new tab) in the list opens the booking type’s own page.
Next steps
- Setting your availability: give each host the weekly hours this booking type needs.
- Publishing the booking page: put the service in front of visitors.
- Approving booking requests: answer the requests of a booking type that needs approval.
- Shared resources for bookings: link rooms and equipment to a booking type with Pro.