Appointments

Appointments is the working screen for a beauty salon (and other services that take bookings). It's a daily grid: columns are specialists, the vertical axis is time. Here you create service appointments, move them and track them by status.

Open: Admin Panel → Appointments (admin.cenaly.ge).

Rooms, equipment and visit planning#

Add specialists as people and rooms or equipment as separate booking resources. Set the resources each service requires. Availability checks combine the specialist's schedule, resource occupancy and service buffers.

Reception can create a multi-service visit or a series of visits from the staff appointment book. These actions are not automatically available in the guest widget. Check the proposed dates and conflicts before confirmation.

The schedule uses the location's time zone. Set it before opening online booking, especially when reception works from another country. A pending status change still needs server confirmation; an error or unconfirmed action must be resolved before treating the visit as updated.

For a clinic, choose the Clinic preset: doctor, room, patient and visit. Patient history here is administrative. Medical records, diagnoses and treatment protocols are outside this module. Doctors' actions are restricted by their role and assigned visits.

For a school, use appointments for trial and individual lessons. Regular group attendance and family balances belong to the dedicated school workflow described in First day.

Daily grid#

At the top is a day panel with today / previous day / next day buttons. Each specialist has their own column with appointments by time; appointments with no assigned specialist go into a separate "Unassigned" column.

The grid with specialist columns is the web book. In the Cenaly Team app for Android, Appointments mode shows the day as a list: a "Next client" card with "Arrived", "No-show" and "Done" marks on top, the day's visits below; the "Mine" / "All" switch picks your own visits or the whole location (a clinic doctor only sees their own appointments in the app). Days are switched with the arrows by the date, and the "Today" button brings you back. Payments, documents and the full client card stay in the web book — a visit opens it with "Open in the web admin". The Team build with Appointments mode is not yet on the download page.

Sound and alerts for new appointments#

The 🔔 / 🔕 icon in the book's header turns on sound and pop-up alerts for new appointments. They only work while this page is open; if the browser has blocked notifications, the button turns amber with a hint to allow them in the site settings.

That is why a banner sits under the header: "While the admin panel is closed you will not hear about new appointments", with a "Connect Telegram alerts" button that opens the setup wizard right there, without sending you off to the app store. When the location's bot is already connected, a quiet hint with a link stays instead: open it from the Telegram account that should receive the alerts. The banner can be dismissed with "Do not show again".

Specialists roster#

The "Specialists" button opens the roster. For each specialist:

• Name;
• Color — used to highlight their appointments in the grid;
• Active — whether they're part of the schedule;
• Services — which services they perform (all or selected);
• Work schedule — working hours per weekday; a day left unchecked counts as a day off;
• Daily breaks — lunch and similar windows, cut out of every working day;
• Leave and sick days — date ranges when the specialist is unavailable, with an optional note.

The schedule, the breaks and the leave apply not only to the book but to self-service booking too: those hours are simply never offered to a guest.

If there are no specialists yet, add the first one — you can't fill the grid without them.

New appointment#

The "New appointment" button opens a form:

• Client and phone;
• Service (from the list) and its duration in minutes;
• Specialist;
• Date and time;
• Comment.

After saving, the appointment appears in the specialist's grid column.

Visit statuses#

Open an appointment to move it through statuses:

Actions (confirm / mark seated / complete / no-show / cancel) switch the status right on the appointment card. The Reschedule button does not change the status: it moves the appointment to another time or specialist (see moving an appointment) and keeps a deposit that was already paid.

Self-service booking#

Clients can book by themselves — service → specialist → free slot → contact details:

• on your storefront;
• on your own website — with the “Appointments” widget, see My Website. The widget appears once your menu has at least one item of type “Service”;
• in Telegram — the booking mini-app inside your bot.

Wherever a booking comes from, it lands in the same appointment book.

Free time is worked out from the specialist's schedule, their breaks and leave, the length of the service and the time already taken. The limits for the whole location are behind the ⚙️ “Booking settings” button in the book, block “Online booking hours”.

The words “You are booked” only appear once the appointment really exists. If the slot got taken during the seconds the guest was filling in their contacts, they get an honest refusal and the grid is rebuilt straight away — the system will not let two guests into the same time with the same specialist. When the guest doesn't pick a specialist themselves, we assign a free one as the appointment is created.

If the confirmation is delayed for some reason, instead of “You are booked” the guest sees “We could not confirm it right away, the venue will call you back”. Such a booking usually still reaches the book — check it and call the guest.

What the guest gets right after booking#

The confirmation screen shows the booking number and, depending on your location:

• 🔔 Telegram reminders — the button leads to your bot (shown if a bot is connected);
• Manage booking — a link to the page for moving and cancelling;
• Add to calendar — an event for the phone's or computer's calendar;
• an email — if the guest left an address.

Managing a booking by link#

The “Manage booking” link opens a separate page. The guest needs no account, no password and no app — the link itself is enough; the same link comes in the confirmation email.

On that page the guest can:

• see the service, the specialist, the date and the time;
• move the booking to another free slot;
• cancel the booking;
• switch on Telegram reminders.

Moves and cancellations show up in the book immediately — nothing extra to confirm.

⚠️ The link is the key to the booking: anyone the guest forwards it to can also move or cancel the visit.

The confirmation email#

The booking form has an optional email field. If the guest leaves an address, an email goes out right after confirmation: the service, the date and time (in the venue's time zone), the duration, the venue address, the booking number and a “Manage booking” button. If they don't, we simply send nothing — the booking itself is not affected.

The email is not sent when the appointment was created by a manager in the book, when the system refused the booking, or when the service needs a deposit that hasn't been paid yet. A guest's repeat attempt does not produce a second email.

Emails come in Russian, English, Georgian and Turkish — the language follows the one the guest booked in; for any other language the email is in English.

The venue's time zone#

The guest-facing side works in the venue's time, not the time on the guest's device. A guest in another zone sees the note “venue time (Asia/Tbilisi)” next to the time picker, and the line “Times are given in the venue's time zone” in the email. Emails and reminders go out in the same zone.

The book's grid, however, is drawn in the administrator's device time: an appointment's hours and minutes are printed the way the browser sees them. While you work from your own country there is no difference; if an administrator opens the book from another time zone, double-check the zone — a 14:00 appointment will look like a different time to them.

The zone comes from the location settings — the “Locations” section, time zone field. Check it before you switch self-service booking on: especially if the account was created from outside your country.

Telegram reminders#

If the location has a Telegram bot connected, a guest who booked through it receives:

• a confirmation, plus messages when the appointment is moved or cancelled;
• reminders before the visit with “I'll be there” and “Cancel” buttons — a tap changes the appointment status in the book immediately. By default they arrive 24 hours and 2 hours before; you can change the timing or turn them off in the settings (see below).

The owner and managers get notifications about new bookings and cancellations in their own chat — a separate “Owner notifications” block.

Times in all messages are shown in the location's time zone.

Reminder texts are translated into eight languages — English, Russian, Georgian, Turkish, Albanian, German, Ukrainian and Armenian. If the guest booked in another language, the reminder arrives in English.

Cancelling from a bot button takes the deposit into account: if the guest is within the free-cancellation window, the money is refunded automatically and the bot says so; if the window has passed, the bot says the deposit is kept. A manual refund is only needed when the automatic refund fails — the bot then warns the guest that the venue will contact them.

Set the reminder timing#

1. Open Appointments and click the gear icon Settings in the book header.
2. Find the block 🙋 Guest journey: confirmations and follow-ups.
3. In Ask to confirm, hours before, enter hours separated by commas, e.g. 24, 2 or 48, 3. You can set up to three values from 1 to 168 hours. To send no reminders at all, clear the field.
4. Click Save — “Saved” appears.

Reminders go only via Telegram and only to guests who subscribed to the location's bot (by booking through the bot or with the reminders button on the confirmation screen). At night, from 23:00 to 07:00 location time, a reminder is postponed until morning if the visit is more than two hours away. The earliest reminder starts with “Tomorrow at…” and the last one with “In about 2 hours…”, even if you set other hours — keep this in mind when choosing, say, 72.

Where the bookings came from#

Appointments a guest made through the widget on your site carry a “From website” badge in the book — you can see at a glance whether the channel works.

The “🌐 Website widget” button opens the widget funnel for 7, 30 or 90 days:

Shown separately: “Slot taken while choosing” (bookings lost — a reason to add a specialist or shorten the steps), technical failures and the languages the widget was opened in. These are counters only: they hold no personal data about your guests.

Memberships#

The 🎟️ Memberships button opens plans and issued guest packages; the same window is available from Classes and the guest card. See Memberships and service packages for issuance, POS sales, booking and redemption, freezing and extending the term.

Related sections#

• My Website — the appointment widget for an external site
• Telegram — connecting the bot
• Staff & shifts — tracking staff working time
• Returning guests — client history
• Table reservations — similar booking logic for restaurants

FAQ#

What happens to an appointment with no specialist?#

It goes into the "Unassigned" column — assign a specialist later by opening the appointment.

Where do services in the form come from?#

From your service catalog; each has a duration that's filled into the appointment.

How do I mark a no-show?#

On the appointment card, choose the "No-show" action — the status is recorded as a no-show.

Can two guests book the same time with the same specialist?#

No. The slot is tied to the appointment the moment it is created: the second guest gets a refusal and sees a refreshed grid with the times that are still free.

How do I close a day, or part of a day, for a specialist?#

Lunch and similar windows — "Daily breaks" on the specialist's card; whole days — "Leave and sick days". To close hours for the whole location, change "Online booking hours" in the booking settings.

The guest booked but no email arrived#

Check whether they left an email at all: the field is optional. No emails go out for appointments a manager created in the book, or for unpaid deposits. If an address was given — ask the guest to look in their Spam folder.

The guest is in another time zone — which time are they picking?#

The venue's time. The widget labels the time zone next to the time picker, so "14:00" means exactly 14:00 at your place, not at theirs.

Create an appointment and check the result#

1. Open Appointments, select the location and day. You need permission to book clients at that location.
2. Click New appointment and enter the client, phone, service, specialist, date, time and duration. For services requiring resources, check the proposed room and equipment.
3. Save and wait for confirmation. If the slot is occupied or outside working hours, choose another slot; clicking again cannot free an occupied time.
4. Find the appointment in the specialist's column and open it. Check the client, service and time, then confirm the agreed time with the client using the location's time zone.

Move an appointment as a staff member#

Appointments cannot be dragged across the grid — you move them from the card. You need the edit right for the Appointments section; a completed or cancelled appointment cannot be moved.

1. Click the appointment in the grid and choose Reschedule on the card.
2. In the Reschedule appointment window, set the Date, Time (30-minute steps) and, if needed, another Specialist (the word follows your business type's terminology). The 🔎 Nearest free time button fills in the nearest free slot within 14 days.
3. If the location has rooms or devices, check the Room and equipment block: the system suggests free ones, and you can pick one yourself.
4. The duration cannot be changed in this window — the line “Duration stays the same: N min” reminds you. If a deposit was paid, the window shows “💳 The paid deposit stays valid”.
5. Click Move.

If the specialist or room is already busy at that time (the server checks every location of the account), the appointment returns to its old place with “The server rejected the change…”, and the reschedule window reopens with your data: “The form is kept — choose another time.” If there is no answer, the appointment shows ⚠️ “The server has not confirmed this change yet” and a Send again button — use it instead of creating a second appointment.

A guest subscribed to the location's Telegram bot gets a message about the move if the time changed. The reschedule e-mail goes out when the “Booking autopilot” extension is on. If only the specialist changed and the time stayed the same, the guest gets no message — let them know yourself.

For an appointment that is part of a series or course, Reschedule moves only this one; the card has a separate button for moving the following ones.

Add a device or room for booking#

A device (ultrasound, laser, solarium) or a room is a booking resource: while it is busy, the system will not accept a second appointment for it. Only the owner or a manager can add and edit resources.

1. Open Appointments → gear icon Settings → the 🚪 Rooms and equipment block, and click Rooms and equipment.
2. In the window, click ＋ Device (or ＋ Room, ＋ Couch, ＋ Hall).
3. In the New resource form, enter the Name (up to 80 characters) and, under Services, tick the services that need it (none ticked — any service).
4. Optionally turn on own working hours (otherwise the resource is available during the location's online-booking hours), set the cleanup minutes after each appointment, daily closures and maintenance dates.
5. Click Save.
6. Link the resource to a service: Menu → the service card → the Room and equipment block → Add room or device. In What is needed choose “Device”, in Which ones pick specific devices (nothing selected — any free one), and in Requirement choose “Required — no booking without it” or “If available”. For a procedure without a specialist, tick “No specialist needed (procedure on the device only)”. Save the menu.

A resource cannot be deleted — you can hide it from booking (past appointments keep the link) and bring it back later. A device is not tied to a room and can serve any room of the location.

Cancellation and no-show report#

1. Open Appointments and click 📊 Reports (on a phone it is behind More).
2. On the Booking reports page, choose the period From month and To month (1 to 24 months). Narrow the report if needed: Location (if you have several), Specialty, Specialist, Room / device.
3. In the summary at the top, look at Cancelled and No-show next to “Visits”, “Completed” and the other figures. The Specialists and Locations tabs break the same cancellations down by person and location.
4. To keep the figures, click ⬇ Export CSV — a “;”-separated file without client personal data.

A cancellation is counted in the month the appointment was for, not the month it was cancelled. A cancellation because the deposit was not paid in time also counts as “Cancelled”. A specialist sees only their own figures in the report. The report does not show cancellation reasons or a list of individual cancelled appointments — only counts.