Let customers schedule themselves

How does self-scheduling work in stipt?

stipt is software for customer management and planning. Jobs and requests live in the system as records, each with an address, products and a status.

Self-scheduling works through a booking link. You, or an automatic rule, send the customer a link. That page shows five suggested times, computed from the appointment duration, your employees' skills and work areas, their working hours and the travel time between jobs. The customer picks one and confirms.

The customer picks an arrival window, not an exact time. For example between 9:00 and 11:00. Internally the appointment sits at a fixed time, so the schedule stays accurate. When booking, stipt checks the slot again against working hours and overlap, so double bookings cannot happen.

How do you set up an appointment type?

You manage appointment types under Settings, in the Agenda section. An appointment type is a kind of appointment, for example an intake or an installation. Per type you set the name and the default duration. If one employee needs more time for this work than another, you set a duration per member.

Then switch on Auto-plan this type. That makes the type bookable through a link. You set the booking horizon (how far ahead the customer can book), the minimum notice (the minimum number of hours between booking and the appointment) and the width of the arrival window the customer sees. The minimum notice rounds up to the morning of the next full day, so the customer never gets a half first day with only late times.

Optionally you set a travel preference: a maximum amount of travel time per week, so trips get clustered. It is a preference, not a hard limit: if it would leave no options, it is dropped. You can also adjust the colour and the texts of the booking page here.

How do skills and work areas work?

Skills work through product categories. For each team member you record which categories they master, under Settings, Members. On the appointment type you switch on Required skills and pick which categories count as a skill. If the job contains a product from such a category, stipt only suggests employees who have that skill.

The work area is also set per team member: the postcode areas someone serves, by the first two digits. Switch on Postcode work area on the appointment type. Only employees whose work area covers the job's postcode then qualify.

Availability counts too. Every team member has a default working week and can block time for holidays or absence, or open up extra time outside their normal hours, for example a Saturday. Outside working hours and blocked time stipt suggests no options; extra opened time does count.

How do you send the booking link?

There are two routes. Manual: open the customer's record and choose Let the customer self-schedule. Pick the appointment type and the link is ready. You can copy it and share it yourself, or have it emailed automatically.

Automatic: on the appointment type, pick a status under Send invite at status. As soon as a record reaches that status, for example after a quote is accepted, stipt creates the invitation.

The message itself is a rule in Studio, the place for automation rules. Create a rule with the Smart plan invite trigger and a Send email or Send WhatsApp action. The {plan_link} variable inserts the booking link. You build the rule yourself or let dot, the built-in assistant, propose it; you confirm.

If stipt finds no suitable time at all, no empty link goes out. Your team gets an internal notification to schedule manually.

What does the customer see?

The customer opens a simple page with your company name, your own colour and a short intro you can edit. No login or account is needed.

The page shows five times, each with a date and an arrival window, for example between 9:00 and 11:00. The options are recomputed every time the page opens, so they are always current. Two options can get a label: Greenest for the time with the least travel, and Soonest when an early gap opens up in the schedule.

Can the customer only make it after a certain date? Then they filter with a date picker. The page is available in Dutch and English through a language toggle.

After choosing, the customer confirms with one button. If the time was just taken, the page asks for a new choice.

What happens after booking?

The appointment lands straight in the chosen employee's agenda, internally at the optimised time within the window. The record moves to the status you configured on the appointment type, and the same automations fire as for a manually planned appointment.

The customer sees a confirmation screen right away and can add the appointment to their own calendar with one button. For a confirmation email, attach an email template to the booking of this appointment type; you do that under the template's triggers in Studio. A reminder works the same way: a template with a time, for example one day ahead. How templates and triggers work is covered in the guide on email templates.

A work order can be ready as well. In stipt a work order is a form the employee fills in on site. Switch on Auto-create form on booking on the appointment type; the form then appears as a task for the employee who gets the appointment. You can read more in the guide on work orders.

How do you plan follow-up appointments in the same link?

Some jobs take several visits, for example a survey first and the installation after. For that you link appointment types together.

On the follow-up type you set which type it follows and the minimum number of days in between. The earliest bookable day then shifts along with the first appointment. You can also set a same-employee preference: no preference, prefer with fallback to colleagues, or only that person.

With Continue in the same booking link the customer plans both appointments in one go. As soon as the first appointment is booked, the same screen immediately shows the times for the follow-up. If the follow-up is already scheduled, stipt skips that step.

How do you reschedule or cancel an appointment?

Rescheduling happens in the planner: drag the appointment to a new slot, or open it and change the date and time. Reminders that still have to go out are automatically rescheduled to the new time. A prepared work order also moves along to the employee who takes over the appointment.

Cancelling goes through Cancel appointment inside the appointment. You choose whether the customer gets an email, or you cancel without an email, for example for a booking the customer never saw. A short reason is required, so you can later see why the appointment did not go ahead.

The customer cannot reschedule through the booking link; after booking it only shows the confirmation. If the customer wants another time, they contact you and you move the appointment.

Frequently asked questions