Recurring bookings: the same appointment, repeated

Some clients always come on the same day at the same time: the touch-up every three weeks, the weekly massage, the ten sessions of the package they already paid for. Entering that one appointment at a time costs twenty minutes at the counter and, sooner or later, a week somebody forgot to book.

A recurring booking (a series) does it in one go: you set the rule — “every Friday at 3pm, for ten weeks” — you look at the full list of dates, and only then is anything created.

The three screens

1. The rule. What, with whom, which day, what time, how often and how many times.
2. The conflict report. Every date the rule produces, one by one, with a reason for each one that cannot be booked. Nothing has been created yet.
3. The series. Once created: the appointments that were booked, the ones that were skipped, and why.

Writing nothing before step 2 is the most important design decision here. Software that books ten appointments and silently “skips” the ones that clash is software that loses you a client without telling you.

Creating a series

Two ways in:

• From a package, to book the client’s remaining sessions in one go. The button shows on the package’s page when your business has both modules on, packages and recurring bookings. The form arrives with that person already chosen and the services the package covers, and the number of appointments is capped at the sessions the package has left for the chosen service.
• On its own, for a standing appointment with no package involved. You pick the client as you would on any booking (and create them there if they’re new).

Then you fill in the rule:

And one tick box worth understanding: “Tell the client with a single message”. A series does not send a confirmation per appointment — ten emails in a row end up marked as spam. It sends one, for the first appointment, and the client sees everything that was booked. It comes ticked. Untick it and no booking notice goes out, so you tell them yourself; each appointment’s reminder still goes out, each on its own day.

When it’s ready, hit See the dates.

The conflict report

Every date shows up here as either Free or Clash, with a count of each at the top.

These are the possible reasons, and they are all of them:

For each clash you choose what to do:

• Skip (what happens by default if you touch nothing): that date isn’t booked, and the reason is recorded on the series. Nothing is dropped in silence.
• Move to…: give that one appointment another date and time. It is still “appointment number 6” of the series.
• Book anyway: offered when the series has a chosen professional and what stops the date is their schedule (another booking, a time block, a closed day), or when the date falls beyond the year. The report shows what is in that slot, and when you confirm, the appointment is booked over it, just like on the single-booking form, and noted in its log. If the schedule changed after you read the report, that appointment is not booked and goes to “skipped” with the reason. With any professional it is not offered: there is nobody to book over.

When you confirm, Citauno recalculates the dates before writing: if somebody took a slot while you were reading the report, that appointment falls out on its own instead of booking over them.

What you end up with

Ordinary bookings. Each appointment in the series:

• Shows on the calendar and in the professional’s agenda.
• Sends its reminder like any other.
• Is charged, rescheduled and cancelled like any other.
• If the series came from a package, it takes one session under the usual rules (see Packages).

The series screen shows what was created, what was skipped and why, how many are still to come, and the state (Active, Finished, Cancelled).

Extending a series

When a series has 2 appointments or fewer left, its screen tells you. Extend the series adds more dates with the same rule: the same day, time, rhythm, service and professional. The link is also in the list of recurring bookings, next to View.

1. How far. Pick one of two: a number of extra appointments (for example, 8) or until a day (for example, December 20). The screen shows what the next date would be before you choose.
2. The conflict report, the same as when you create a series, for the new dates only. Nothing is booked yet.
3. Add. The new appointments join the same series and carry on its numbering (“Appointment 9”, “Appointment 10”…). The client gets a single notice, for the first new appointment, if you leave the box ticked.

Worth knowing:

• The rhythm is kept. A series “every 2 weeks” carries on every 2 weeks from its last date, not from today.
• A series that has finished can be extended too. If the client stopped coming for a while, the new dates start at the next date of the rhythm that hasn’t passed yet: nothing is ever booked in the past.
• Up to 52 appointments can be added at a time, and never more than a year ahead of today.
• From a package, you can’t add more appointments than the sessions the package has left.
• A cancelled series can’t be extended: create a new one.
• To change the day, time or professional, extending won’t do it: cancel what’s left and create a new series.

Changing one appointment without touching the rest

This is the question everyone asks, so here it is as a table:

There is no “edit all”: a series isn’t a live rule being re-evaluated, it is real appointments already sitting in somebody’s diary. Rewriting the rule backwards would move bookings the client has already confirmed.

When you cancel several appointments at once the client gets one message, not one per appointment. And if the appointments came from a package, the sessions go back to the package exactly as they would on any cancellation.

Daylight saving

If your business is in a country that changes its clocks, “Fridays at 3pm” means 3pm on your clock, always, before and after the change. The appointment does not drift by an hour.

The only odd case is the day the clock jumps forward and that hour doesn’t exist: that date shows in the report with exactly that reason, and you move it to another time.

Limits

• Up to 52 appointments at a time (when you create the series or extend it) and one year ahead.
• Every 1 to 8 weeks. There is no “every day” and no “first Tuesday of the month”.
• One service per series.
• It is an internal tool: clients cannot build a series from your public page.
• An admin creates it (one submit here commits up to 52 slots of the diary). See Roles and permissions matrix.

Common mistakes

Good habits

1. Read the conflict report properly. It is the only moment when deciding is cheap.
2. Don’t pin a professional unless it matters. With Whoever is free, far more dates get booked.
3. Start with 8 or 10 appointments, not 52. Extending the series later takes a minute; unpicking a year does not.
4. If the series comes from a package, check the expiry first: dates falling after it arrive flagged, but extending the package beats skipping four appointments.
5. Send one message and follow up on WhatsApp. Ten automatic emails are the fastest way to have your mail treated as spam.