Appointment Scheduling A to Z Glossary

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A comprehensive guide to appointment scheduling software terms

If you stumbled upon this page while searching for appointment scheduling software, we have something that can help.

With so many online scheduling software in the market, we understand how confusing it can be to compare them all and get acquainted with different terms. By the end of this article, you'll be well-versed with all the available scheduling app terms.

Before you purchase your business's first booking software, we want you to be familiar with the appointment scheduling features and terms out there.

By the way, we have our very own scheduling app to offer. Booking appointments with your customers is now easy with Zoho Bookings. Essential features, efficient automation, and endless integrations make it the best appointment scheduling software that your business and customers will love using.

Let's make things simple, shall we? Here are 70+ appointment scheduling terms.

A

Appointment scheduling mobile app

Also called: mobile app, iOS app, andriod app

The ability to manage your appointments with customers on your mobile phone, through an Android or iOS version of the app.

If you're someone who is on the go and needs to manage your appointments from your phone, this feature ensures that you do it effortlessly.

Appointment summary

You can view the summary of a booked customer appointment before meeting with them. Important details like their names, their reason for the meeting, and the place and time of the meeting will be displayed.

Assign the nearest staff to at-home services

This feature of booking software lets you assign area codes or particular locations to staff. Then, when customers book an appointment, the staff closest to the location gets booked.

This is ideal for a service-based business that lets staff reach the customer's place right on time for the scheduled appointment.

B

Book multiple services in one session

This is when an appointment scheduling software allows customers to schedule multiple services in one go.

For example, if you run a hair salon, your customers can book a haircut, manicure, nail care, and pedicure at the same time.

By booking multiple appointments together, your customers save time by reducing their number of visits.

Booking by approval

Your customer can select the date and time for the appointment, but it only gets booked after you approve it from your side.

This is particularly helpful when you are unsure about your schedule for a particular day or week. Approving the appointments will help you avoid clashes with any other activities that you may have planned.

Booking confirmation page

Once your customer schedules an appointment with you through your booking page, the booking software will display the confirmation of the appointment and its details.

Here, the customer can see all the booking information, like the staff name, time, place of the meeting, and more. They can also sync the meeting to their calendar.

Booking form

This lets you learn more about your customer and their requirements for the appointment or meeting by asking them mandatory questions on your booking page. It allows you to prepare for the meeting by doing some homework based on the customer responses before you meet with them.

Booking page

Also called: scheduling page, appointment page

The webpage through which your customers schedule an appointment with you or your team for a specific service (individual, group, or resource) that you have listed.

Your booking page is like a doorway that your customers access to schedule appointments or meetings with you easily.

Booking page customization

A feature of the scheduling app that allows you to personalize your booking page for your customers. You can change font colors, add images, add your logo, change titles and descriptions.

Booking parameters for emails

Also called: email customization, email personalization

While customizing your email notifications for your customers, scheduling apps provide you with merge tags and variables to be included, that automatically retrieves the customer booking information and makes it easier to send the emails.

It makes it easier to include a lot of different information that can be handy to the customer like invoice number, videoconferencing details, sync to calendar option, and more.

Buffer time

You can set a 'break time' or 'buffer' between two appointments. This gives you the necessary time to prepare for the next appointment.

For example, if you set the buffer time as five minutes for a 15-minute discovery call, your customer will see the available times as 9:00 am, 9:20 am, 9:40 am, and so on.

Business work hours

Also called: timings, working hours

The general working hours of your business. It can be Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm, or whatever your business hours are.

Buy add-ons

Along with booking an appointment, you can let your customers add a value-added service to the appointment while booking.

For example, if you have listed services for "haircut," you can offer "condition hair treatment" as an add-on option customers can choose before they finish scheduling.

C

Calendar dashboard

Also called: calendar view

A feature of appointment scheduling software that has a calendar view in your account, where you can view booked and upcoming appointments for the month/week/day and make new appointments by clicking on a date.

Canceling and rescheduling

Your customers can cancel or reschedule after booking an appointment with you.

This gives them the flexibility to alter their schedule and the booking software takes care of the process, leaving you to focus on other important works. So no more back-to-back calls for rescheduling as well—it's all automated.

Change default send email address

You can choose from which email address the email notifications and reminders should go to. It can be a business domain, your staff email id, or your email id.

Chrome plug-in

Using a Chrome extension for online booking software, you can more easily share your meeting links and availability with your customers, add a customer appointment through the extension without having to switch tabs, and paste the meeting link inside the Gmail compose box.

Classes - series

Create a group booking service that recurs in a specific interval and is more suited for classes or courses. Your customers can book several classes together at the same time.

For example, if you run a digital marketing course and have 12 classes spanned across 12 days at a particular time, your customers can book of all the classes at once.

Client portal

The scheduling app provides a separate portal for customers when they sign up to create an appointment with you. They can access their appointments and manage their profile through the portal.

Client report

This makes it easy to generate graphical/numerical reports on customer appointments or revenue.

It helps you track customer schedules and revenue through their appointments, as well as collate individual data on your services/staff/work locations to create new action plans for growth.

Compliances

Bookings software collects customers' data. To protect their privacy and ensure security, the apps must be compliant with regulatory boards, like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, that provide a legal framework and guidelines for collecting data.

Good appointment scheduling software should ensure that they comply with the regulatory boards to protect the customer's privacy.

Create and manage resources

Apart from services and classes, your booking software lets you list resources and manage the details (pricing, images, and descriptions, etc) of it for your customers.

Customize emails

A booking software may come with pre-defined email templates, and this feature allows you to customize the emails based on the tone of your organization and make them personalized for your customers.

D

Dependent service

You can assign one service to be dependent on another service if the customer wants to schedule them both together.

For example, you can choose the 'face spa' service only if you have chosen the 'face cleaning' service first.

Domain mapping

Also called: customize URL

By default, online scheduling software will give you a pre-defined URL as a domain for your booking page that you share with customers. The domain mapping feature enables you to add your domain to the URL to make it personalized.

For example, if the booking page URL by default is bookings.zohobookings.com, you can customize it with your domain like bookings.xyz.com

E

Embed code

Also called: embed widget

The ability to integrate your booking page onto your website easily or other digital platforms, and your customers can book an appointment with you directly without having to access your booking page URL.

F

Forms

Booking forms This lets you learn more about your customer and their requirements for the appointment or meeting by asking them mandatory questions on your booking page. It allows you to prepare for the meeting by doing some homework based on the customer responses before you meet with them.

G

Gift cards and discounts

This feature allows you to create gift cards or discount codes, and lets customers purchase them and use them for their appointments or share them with others. Offering a discount for certain subscriptions or packages is another option you can provide for your customers.

Group booking by a leader

Your customer books appointments in bulk for others as well, through your booking page at one stretch.

For example, if a passport or visa office has scheduling software in place, then customers can book an appointment for themselves and their families at once.

Group scheduling (One-to-many)

Also called: class booking, bulk booking

You can schedule with multiple customers for a specific time slot for an online class, webinar, workshop, etc.

For example, if you run an online class about digital marketing, you can set how many people can join the class, the time and length of the class, and other meeting information that will then be displayed on the scheduling page for your customers.

Instead of spending time coordinating with all the customers manually through calls or emails, this feature saves you a lot of time by automating bookings.

H

Host log in

Also called: staff log in

Your team members can log in to the scheduling app with their credentials once you've assigned them to a particular service. This lets your staff have individual accounts and makes it easier for them to manage and customize their availability for appointments.

I

Integrations

If appointment scheduling software, with its features, can do so much for your business, how good would it be when it's connected with other software? Brilliant, right?

The possibilities of connecting with other apps and scaling your business are sky-high.

Online meeting platforms, like Zoho Meetings, Zoom, and GoToMeetings. The booking software automatically creates and sends the meeting information to the customer.
CRM software, like Zoho CRM, Salesforce, and more. Your CRM will be updated automatically with the customer information and you can access your bookings from your CRM.
Email marketing, like MailChimp for automatic email campaigns.
Website builders, to integrate the booking page onto your website.
Google Analytics, to measure website traffic, SEO, search results, etc.
Facebook pixel, to measure your advertisement effectiveness and track engagement.
APIs for custom workflow or interface between the scheduling software and a different app.
Zapier acts as a third-party app and helps to connect your booking software with multiple apps out there in the market. It automates many different tasks into simple workflows.

J

Join by domain

Also called: restrict by domain

This means that you can only receive customer appointments only from a particular domain.

For example, if you run Company XYZ, only people with the domain xyz.com will be able to schedule appointments.

This is particularly helpful for businesses that have many employees and only want to use the scheduling software for internal meetings.

K

Keep a service open only if a resource is available

A service will only be available to book when the assigned resource is listed as available.

For example, let's look at a surfing institute. The option to book a personal trainer (service) will only be open for scheduling when a surfboard (the resource) is available.

L

Limit appointments per staff

This allows you to limit the number of appointments that you or your staff can get in a day or a week. Once the limit is reached, that particular date will be unavailable for the customers to schedule or the appointment will be scheduled with another staff. This helps to prevent overbooking and prevents you or your staff from being overworked and getting burned out.

Limit number of appointments per day or week

Also called: booking limit, appointment limit

This refers to a feature of scheduling software that allows you to limit the total number of appointments that your customers can book with you in any given day or a week. Once the fixed appointment quota is reached, that particular date will be unavailable for future customers to schedule.

List view

Also called: calendar list view

You can view and access a consolidated list of all the appointments on a single page for a month/week/day. It makes it easy to navigate between different appointments quickly and take action.

M

Members-only

Only customers who have signed up with their email or mobile number on the booking software will be able to schedule appointments with you. Sometimes booking software may refer to customers who have paid a subscription for the appointments as members, as well.

Multi-location

Also called: workspaces, work locations, locations

The ability to map real-world business locations or teams in your scheduling software. You can share a separate booking page (with a unique URL), without having to combine it with services from another location.

For example, if you run a salon in the US and the UK, you can have two different scheduling pages, with the different services offered in both locations.

Multi-org

The ability to create scheduling pages for multiple businesses under a single booking software.

For example, let's assume that you run a hair salon and an educational consultancy. You can create two different scheduling pages and book with customers, while using a single booking software.

You can handle all of your customer appointments for your businesses under one roof, without having to jump between multiple accounts.

Multiple appointments

Your customer can book a series of one-on-one appointments with you or your staff in a fixed interval through your online booking page in one go.

N

Notifications and reminders

When a customer books an appointment through the scheduling software with you, it automatically sends out an email or SMS notification. It also sends reminders to the customers about the appointment.

Not only does the customer receive all the information about the meeting, but the reminders will also be sent to attend the meeting and not miss it.

Number of appointments per month

Also called: bookings, scheduling

The total number of appointments that can be booked by your customers in a month through the online scheduling software. For example, Zoho Bookings allows you to have unlimited appointments, whereas Appointy allows 2,000 appointments per day.

If you're certain that the number of appointments that will get booked in a month will be less, then choosing software that gives you a fixed number of appointments per month would be ideal. However, if this is a money-saving approach, there are multiple apps that provide unlimited appointments at a lesser price.

Number of customers

Also called: clients

The total number of customers that can access and book an appointment with you through an appointment scheduler.

Number of services

Also called: consultations, meeting type

The total number of services or appointment types that you can create on the booking page for customers to book with you for a specific service.

For example, if you are in the mental health profession, you can list your different services, like individual therapy, couple therapy, grief counseling, family therapy, and more.

Most of the online schedulers allow you to list an unlimited number of services. If you're in a service-based industry, you can now offer more services to your customers through your booking page.

Number of users/staff/calendars

Also called: staff login, providers

The number of people or calendars (for a location or a service) that can use and access the online scheduler to book appointments with customers. It can either be one user or multiple users, based on the nature of your business and the pricing plan of the booking software.

Whether you're a solopreneur or have a team, the number of users that can use the booking software will become a deciding factor in purchasing. Pricing plans are usually based on per-user usage or a predetermined number of users. So, based on your requirements, you can opt for the best appointment scheduling software in the market.

If you haven't purchased the software yet, check out this comparison on the best pricing plans among popular scheduling tools.

O

One-on-one scheduling

Also called: direct booking, individual booking

A feature of scheduling software that allows a customer to book a single appointment with you or your staff. A maximum of two people would be in the meeting.

It's an important feature of scheduling software that directly connects you with your customers, without having to go back and forth to set a meeting time.

Open a service only if a resource is available

A service will only be available to book when the assigned resource is listed as available.

For example, let's look at a surfing institute. The option to book a personal trainer (service) will only be open for scheduling when a surfboard (the resource) is available.

P

Panel meeting

A feature of the booking tool that allows you to schedule multiple staff members with a single customer, or schedule appointments within the organization.

For example, interviewing a candidate with two or more people from the organization, or having a sales team meeting with board members.

Payment gateway

Also called: payment apps

For online booking software to collect payments on your behalf from customers while booking, it needs to connect with different payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, etc) which act as an intermediary to complete the payment process.

You can collect a full or partial payment when your customer schedules an appointment.

Personalized booking URLs

A scheduling software by default will come up with a URL for the booking page. You can customize the URL to make it personalized to your business.

For example, the booking page URL for a discovery call by default would look like, bookings.zohobookings.com/#/0908634/bookings / discovery/call
it can be personalized to
bookings.zohobookings.com/#/customer/discoverycall.

Priority-based assignment

You can set a priority for particular staff to a specific service. Then, when a customer books an appointment for that service, that particular staff member is given the highest priority and gets booked based on availability.

For example, let's say that Mark and Jim are assigned to a demo call. You can assign Mark to have priority for the appointment, since he's more experienced than Jim. That way, when a customer schedules a demo call, Mark will be booked for the scheduled time if he's available, and if not, Jim will be assigned to the call.

Private booking URLs

Only those who have the booking URL will be able to access and schedule an appointment with you.

Q

Qualified Booking

Also called: booking by approval

Your customer can select the date and time for the appointment, but it only gets booked after you approve it from your side.

R

Rebooking reminders

Once your scheduled appointment is completed with your customer, the booking software will automatically send a rebooking reminder at a fixed interval for the next appointment.

For example, once you finish a scheduled appointment with a dentist, you will receive a reminder to book another appointment for the next month

It's essentially a follow-up reminder for the customers to book an appointment with you.

Recurring group

A feature of booking software that allows you to create a group booking service that recurs in a specific interval. It's more suited for workshops or courses that get repeated. Your customers can schedule the service any time during the recurring slots.

For example, if you run an English grammar course, it can be capped at 15 members, the time can be from 9 am - 12 pm, and the classes repeat at the same time every Saturday.

You can save valuable time by setting up classes once and letting customers book their preferred classes by themselves.

Remove vendor branding

You can remove the vendor brand from the booking page to make it more personalized to your brand.

Resource scheduling

Also called: resource booking, equipment booking

Apart from scheduling meetings and appointments, you can let your customers book a resource or an amenity. For example, if you run a hair salon, you can list out hair grooming kits, manicure kits, makeup essential kits, and more.

Based on the resources available it's also possible to book a corresponding service along with it as well. For example, if a conference hall is available in the resource section, you can go ahead and schedule a conference meeting with your team or customers.

Restrict by domain

This means that you can only receive customer appointments only from a particular domain.

For example, if you run Company XYZ, only people with the domain xyz.com will be able to schedule appointments.

This is particularly helpful for businesses that have many employees and only want to use the scheduling software for internal meetings.

Revenue report

This allows you to create reports showing the revenue made through customer appointments. You can also create reports for pending payments and see which service(s) have yielded more revenue.

Roles and permissions

Also called: user access, staff access

This feature allows you to assign different account-level roles, like admin or manager, to your staff. Assigning those different roles can give them the permission to access and change some settings of the scheduling app.

Round-robin allotment

This means that when multiple staff members are assigned to a service, the appointment scheduling software will assign incoming appointments to the staff in repeated sequence without any priority.

For example, Mark, Jim, and Jane are a part of your team. Mark gets allotted the first appointment, the second goes to Jim, and the third goes to Jane. This sequence gets repeated, until you add a new member to the service.

It ensures that everyone in the team gets appointments regularly scheduled, without skipping anyone.

S

Scheduling interval

The time that you set for how your appointment availabilities are split. If you set the interval as 30 minutes, your scheduling page will display 9:00 am, 9:30 am, 10:00 am, and so on as your availability to customers.

Scheduling window

The ability to set how far in advance a customer can pre-book an appointment with you. You can also set the limit for last-minute bookings to be days, hours, or just minutes before the appointment time.

This gives you the flexibility to handle pre-bookings and also eliminates last-minute bookings.

Send emails from your domain

A feature of booking software that allows you to send email notifications or reminders from your domain. It makes the emails look more professional and authentic when the customers receive them from your domain.

Service-based availability

Also called: service hours, service timings

This means that the listed services on your booking page will show available timings for customer bookings, based on the times that you've set individually for each service.

For example, if you have a service listed for "lawn mowing" between 9-11 am, customers can only schedule for that time slot when they want to book a lawn mowing appointment.

Staff log in

Staff management

Also called: user management, team management

You can add and manage your staff across the different workplaces and services that you have listed. The assigned staff members will then be able to take customer appointments directly.

Staff performance

This lets you create reports to track the performance of your staff by generating data for completed appointments, canceled appointments, rescheduled appointments, no-shows, and the revenue brought in with each service.

Staff-based availability

Also called: working hours, booking time

On your booking page, the listed services will show available times for customer bookings based on the work hours that you've set for yourself or your staff.

If customers want to schedule with a specific staff member directly for a service, booking software like Zoho Bookings allows customers to do that as well.

Sync calendars

The ability to connect different team members' calendars and sync new customer appointments to their calendars automatically.

T

Time zone

The ability to select the time zone your business is based on and set your working hours based on it.

For example, if your business is based out of the USA, then you can set EDT as your business time zone.

Time zone conversion

An automatic feature of booking software that converts your working hours to the time zone your customer is booking from.

For example, if your time zone is set to IST, a customer from the US will be able to view the time as PDT, i.e 11 am for you will show them 11:30 pm in PDT for booking.

Your customers from another geographic location will find it easier to book with you now because this eliminates confusion.

Two-way calendar sync

Also called: calendar sync, calendar integration

When a customer books an appointment with you, the scheduling software automatically syncs the meeting details to your calendar. It also checks your calendar for other appointments or events to avoid double booking or unavailability. In short, a personal e-receptionist.

For example, if you already have a meeting/task planned from 9-10 am in your calendar, the scheduling app will make you unavailable for customers booking on your scheduling page.

Automatic calendar sync helps you to keep track of your schedules and enables you to optimize your time efficiently. Popular calendar integrations are Google, O365, iCloud, and Exchange.

U

URL for booking page

Also called: personalized booking page URLs

A scheduling software by default will come up with a URL for the booking page. You can customize the URL to make it personalized to your business.

For example, the booking page URL for a discovery call by default would look like, bookings.zohobookings.com/#/0908634/bookings/discovery/call
and it can be personalized to
bookings.zohobookings.com/#/customer/discoverycall.

V

Vault credit card

A feature of booking software that authenticates customer's credit cards and saves them to charge automatically in the event that a customer fails to pay (or cancels an appointment after the cutoff point).

W

Work hours

Also called: timings, working hours

The general working hours of your business. It can be Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm, or whatever your business hours are.

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