Take a group booking and see who is in the group

A group booking lets one person book for themselves and for other people in a single visit to the booking page: a couple, a bride and her friends, a parent and a child. Each person gets their own appointment, with their own service and, if they like, their own staff member. All the appointments are linked together as one group, so you can see at a glance who else is in it.

A group is always at one location and on one day. The people in it do not have to start at the same time. Each person is given the next available time for their service on that day, so if two staff members are free at different times, the group simply spreads out.

Groups are created by your clients on the booking page. You do not create a group yourself from the appointment book. What you do see in the appointment book is which appointments belong together.

1. Your booking page needs to be live, with services and staff set up, like any other online booking.
2. Group bookings do not collect deposits yet. When a client adds people, the booking page tells them so, and the group is confirmed without a deposit even if one of the services normally asks for it.
3. Everyone in the group has to be at the same location, so every service in the group must be offered there.

See a group in the appointment book

1. Open Book (the appointment book) and choose your location.
2. In the Day view, an appointment that belongs to a group shows a chip reading Part of a group of followed by the number of people.
3. In the Week view the appointment shows a small dot instead, because the blocks are too small for text. Switch to Day to see the full chip.
4. Click the appointment to open it. The chip is there too, and under Also in this group booking you see every other person in the group with their service and the status of their appointment.
5. Press View next to a person to open their appointment without closing the one you are on.

Cancel one person

1. Open that person's appointment and cancel it as you would any appointment. Your usual cancellation rules, fees and client messages apply to that one appointment.
2. The rest of the group stays booked and nothing about their appointments changes. There is no "cancel the whole group" button: to cancel everyone, cancel each appointment.

On the booking page, after choosing a service and a time as usual, your client can press + Add another person under Add people to this booking. For each person they enter:

• Name (required).
• Service, chosen from the list.
• Staff member, either a specific person or Any available.
• Phone (optional). Only the person making the booking has to give a phone number.

As soon as a person has a service, the page shows Finding the next available time... and then the time and staff member that person will get. If nothing is free that day for that service, the page says there is no availability for it on the selected day, and the group cannot be confirmed until the person is changed or removed. Remove takes a person out of the list.

When the client confirms, either every appointment in the group is created or none is. If one person's time has just been taken, nothing is booked and the page tells the client which person ("Person 2", for example) had the problem. On success one confirmation, headed Your group of a number is booked!, lists every person with their service, time and staff member, and offers the link to manage the booking.

If your client later opens the page to manage their booking, they see Also in this booking with the other people in the group. A cancelled person is marked as cancelled there.

• Looking for a way to create a group from the appointment book. Groups are only created from the booking page. In the book you can only see them and open each member.
• Expecting the group to start at one time. Each person gets their own next available time, so start times can differ. Tell clients that want to sit together to check the times shown before confirming.
• Expecting a deposit. Group bookings are confirmed without collecting one yet.
• Cancelling one person and expecting the group to disappear. Only that appointment is cancelled. Cancel each person you need to remove.
• Trying to mix locations or days. A group is one location and one day. Clients who need another day book again.

The appointment book, new appointments and availability rules are covered in the related articles.