Appointments

Overview

Appointments are the core records of the booking system. When a visitor selects a time slot on a public booking page and submits their details, GritCMS creates an appointment. You manage all appointments from the Booking > Appointments section in the admin dashboard, where you can view upcoming sessions, cancel or reschedule bookings, and mark appointments as completed.

How Clients Book Appointments

The booking flow from the visitor's perspective works as follows:

1. The visitor opens the public booking page for an event type at /api/book/{event-type-slug}.
2. They select a date and the system returns available time slots based on the calendar's availability, existing bookings, and buffer times.
3. The visitor picks a slot and submits their name, email, and optional notes.
4. GritCMS creates the appointment with a confirmed status and returns the booking details.

If the visitor's email address is not already in your contacts, GritCMS automatically creates a new contact record with the source set to booking. If the email already exists, the appointment is linked to the existing contact.

Appointment Statuses

Every appointment has a status that reflects where it is in its lifecycle:

Appointments start as confirmed and move through the lifecycle based on admin actions.

Managing Appointments in Admin

The Booking > Appointments list shows all appointments with their event type, contact, scheduled time, and status. You can filter the list by:

• Status -- Show only confirmed, cancelled, or completed appointments.
• Event Type -- Filter by a specific event type to see only those bookings.
• Upcoming -- Show only appointments scheduled in the future.

Viewing Appointment Details

Click on an appointment to see the full details including:

• The event type name, duration, and calendar.
• The contact's name and email.
• The scheduled start and end times.
• Any notes the visitor provided during booking.
• The meeting URL, if one has been set.

Cancelling an Appointment

To cancel an appointment:

1. Open the appointment from the list.
2. Click Cancel Appointment.
3. The status changes to cancelled.

When an appointment is cancelled, GritCMS emits a booking.cancelled event. You can use this event in workflow automations to send a cancellation notification email to the client.

The cancelled appointment's time slot becomes available again for new bookings.

Rescheduling an Appointment

To reschedule an appointment to a different time:

1. Open the appointment from the list.
2. Click Reschedule.
3. Provide the new start time in ISO 8601 / RFC 3339 format (e.g., 2025-03-15T14:00:00Z).
4. GritCMS automatically calculates the new end time based on the event type's duration and sets the status back to confirmed.

A booking.rescheduled event is emitted, which you can use to notify the client about the time change.

Completing an Appointment

After a session has taken place:

1. Open the appointment from the list.
2. Click Complete.
3. The status changes to completed.

Marking appointments as completed helps you track which sessions have occurred and keeps your appointment list clean.

Booking Confirmation Emails

When a visitor books an appointment, GritCMS emits a booking.confirmed event containing the appointment ID, contact ID, and event type name. You can set up a workflow automation to listen for this event and send a confirmation email to the client.

A typical confirmation email includes:

• The session name and description.
• The date and time of the appointment.
• A meeting URL or location details.
• Instructions for how to cancel or reschedule.

See the Workflow Automation documentation for how to create email automations triggered by booking events.

Appointment Reminders

GritCMS does not send appointment reminders by default, but you can set them up using workflow automations. Create a workflow that triggers on the booking.confirmed event and schedules a delayed email to be sent a set amount of time before the appointment (for example, 24 hours or 1 hour before the session). This gives clients a timely reminder without requiring manual follow-up.

Appointment Data

Each appointment record contains the following fields:

Next Steps

With calendars, event types, and appointments configured, your booking system is fully operational. Visitors can self-serve their bookings, and you can manage everything from the admin dashboard. Combine booking events with Workflow Automation to create a hands-off scheduling experience with automatic confirmations and reminders.