Book an appointment on an order

When you have an order that requires a visit, you can book an appointment to schedule a resource (operative) to attend the property at a specific date and time. The Book Appointment screen helps you find available appointment slots, select customer contact preferences, and confirm the booking.

You can access the Book Appointment screen from:

• Orders > Order Entry / Appointments: select an order, then select Book Appointment.

• Orders > Order Management: select an order, then select Book Appointment or Book New Appointment.

Before you start

• Ensure the order has at least one job code added. Job codes determine the skill requirement and planned duration for the visit.

• Ensure a Booking Type is configured that matches the skill requirement of the order.

• Ensure the order is not on hold. You cannot book an appointment for an order that is on hold.

• Ensure the order is not financially complete. You cannot book an appointment for a financially complete order.

• If the order has a Pending status, you cannot book an appointment until it is changed to a non-pending status.

Understand the Book Appointment screen

When you open the Book Appointment screen, the order reference, property address, and primary contact are displayed along the top. The screen is divided into several sections.

Appointment Slots

The appointment slots grid displays the available time slots for the current week. Each row represents a planning window (also called a planning mask), and each column represents a day of the week. A slot is shown as available when a candidate resource has capacity in that time window.

The system determines availability by checking each candidate resource for each slot and displays the best available travel time where capacity exists.

Customer Details

The Customer Details section displays the contact information for the order. You can:

• Select a different contact using the Select Contact search.

• Edit the Mobile Phone, Home Phone, and Home Email fields.

• Select Send Letter to trigger the letter message template when the appointment is booked. The resulting document is automatically saved to the Order's Documents tab. See Documents tab on an order.
  This provides a clear record of all correspondence linked to an Order without the need to check audit logs or external filing systems. To configure which Message Template is used when sending a letter, navigate to Configuration > Organisation > Contracts > select a contract and open the SMS and Email Communication tab. See Contract SMS and Email Communication.

• Select Confirm contact details checked to record that the contact details have been verified with the customer.

• Set the messaging preference:

  • Message: send an SMS or email confirmation for this appointment.

  • Don't Message: do not send a message for this appointment only.

  • Never Message: do not send messages for any appointments on this order.

• Enter or update Visit Instructions for the operative.

• Select Allow self service if the customer should be able to rearrange the appointment through the self-service portal.

• Select Two To Attend if two operatives are required for the visit.

Warnings and Alerts

If configured, the screen displays a Warning(s) section showing any warnings associated with the customer or property (for example, access issues or safety concerns). An Alert(s) section shows any Order Alerts configured for the order. Hovering over an alert icon displays a tooltip with the alert content.

Actions

The Actions panel provides the following options:

• Week Starting: use the left and right arrows to navigate between weeks, or select the date to choose a specific week.

• Book Appointment: books the appointment for the selected slot.

• Shelved Appointment: adds the appointment to a shelved list to be scheduled later.

• Manual Allocation: forces an appointment onto the schedule for a specific resource and time, bypassing normal availability rules.

• Book and Release Now: books the appointment and immediately releases the visit to the operative's mobile device.

• Save Order Details: saves any changes to the customer details or visit instructions without booking an appointment.

• Video Call: starts a remote assist video call with the customer (if Remote Assist is configured and the user has permission).

Advanced options

The Advanced section allows you to control how the system selects candidate resources and available slots. These options default based on the Booking Type configuration but can be adjusted if you have the appropriate security profile permissions.

• Booking type: the booking type determines the rules applied to find candidate resources, including skill matching and zone restrictions.

• Applicable zone: the zone determined from the property's postcode.

• Limit resource selection by preferred: filter candidate resources by:

  • Zones: only include resources assigned to the applicable zone.

  • Skills: only include resources whose skills match the job code skill requirements.

  • Attributes: only include resources with matching scheduling attributes.

  • Equipment: only include resources with the required equipment.

• Priority % Load: when enabled, factors the order priority into the resource's load calculation.

• Limit appointments by: further restrict the displayed slots:

  • Best Slots: show only the best slots based on travel time.

  • Lookahead Days: limit the number of days shown ahead.

  • Max Travel: exclude slots where travel exceeds the maximum configured travel time.

  • Travel Differential: exclude slots where the travel differential exceeds the configured threshold.

• Limit day selection by: Valid Zone Days restricts the available days to those where the resource is assigned to the applicable zone.

• Target date: the order's target completion date. Select Override to book an appointment beyond the target date (requires permission). If your system is configured to capture override reasons, you must select a reason from the dropdown before proceeding. The same reason list applies whether you are overriding via Appointment Booking or Manual Allocation.

• Candidate resource: by default, set to Automatic, meaning the system selects the best resource. You can select a specific resource instead.

• Planned duration: the planned time (in minutes) for the visit. This is automatically calculated from the job codes on the order, or defaults from the Booking Type if no job codes exist. You can manually adjust this value.

Set Planning Window / Multi Day

Use this section to configure multi-day appointments or to set a specific planning window for the visit:

• Start Time and End Time: define the time window for the visit.

• Fill planning window: when selected, the visit duration fills the entire planning window rather than using the planned duration.

• Repeat booking (days): creates a visit for the resource for the specified number of consecutive working days. This is used for multi-day jobs.

Visits For This Order

The bottom of the screen displays a grid of visits. Use the tabs to view:

• All Open Visits For Customer: all open visits across all orders for this customer.

• All Visits For Customer: all visits (open and completed) for this customer.

• Visits For This Order: visits associated with the current order only.

• Shelved Visits For Customer: visits that have been shelved for later scheduling.

Book an appointment

1. Go to Orders > Order Entry / Appointments.

2. Select the order you want to book an appointment for. The Book Appointment screen opens.

3. Review the Customer Details. Update the contact information and messaging preferences if required.

4. In the Appointment Slots grid, select an available slot for the day and time window you want.

5. Select Book Appointment in the Actions panel.

The visit is created and appears in the Visits For This Order grid at the bottom of the screen.

Book and release an appointment immediately

If you want the appointment to be sent to the operative's mobile device immediately after booking:

1. Follow steps 1–4 above to select an appointment slot.

2. Select Book and Release Now in the Actions panel.

The visit is created and released to the operative's device without waiting for dynamic scheduling.

Shelve an appointment for later

If you are not ready to book a specific slot but want to record that the order needs scheduling:

1. Open the Book Appointment screen for the order.

2. Review and update the customer details if required.

3. Select Shelved Appointment in the Actions panel.

The appointment is added to the shelved list and can be booked at a later time. Shelved visits appear under the Shelved Visits For Customer tab.

Manually allocate an appointment

If you need to force an appointment onto a specific resource's schedule regardless of standard availability rules:

1. Open the Book Appointment screen for the order.

2. Select Manual Allocation in the Actions panel.

3. Select the resource, date, and time for the allocation.

4. Confirm the allocation.

The visit is placed directly onto the resource's schedule.

Book a multi-day appointment

For jobs that span multiple days:

1. Open the Book Appointment screen for the order.

2. In the Set Planning Window / Multi Day section, select Fill planning window.

3. Set Repeat booking (days) to the number of consecutive working days required.

4. Select an available appointment slot in the grid for the first day.

5. Select Book Appointment.

The system creates a visit for the resource for each working day within the specified number of days.

Delete a visit from the booking screen

You can delete a visit from the Visits For This Order grid. When you delete a visit, you are prompted to provide a deletion reason. This reason is recorded in the order history. The deletion reason prompt appears regardless of how you access the delete function, from the booking screen, Order Entry, Appointment Booking, or via a shortcode URL.