Online booking gives each location a public page where clients pick a service and a time without calling. It uses the same services and hours as everything else in FrontDesk.
Turn it on
- Open Online Booking → Booking Settings.
- Flip the switch in the header card. The status then shows Live and says patients can book right now. Switched off, it says visitors see "not accepting online bookings" and that your settings are kept.
- The booking link is shown at the top; Share gives you the link, embed code and a QR code, and the Preview button opens the page.
Scheduling
- Booking mode: Request mode (the default) sends bookings to Online Booking → Requests for your team to confirm; Instant booking places them on the calendar at once. See Handle booking requests.
- Minimum notice: how soon the next bookable slot can be (1 hour to 1 week; default 24 hours).
- Maximum advance: how far ahead people can book (1 week to 1 year; default 60 days). A service's own Booking window under Settings → Services narrows both for that service, never widens them.
- Times patients pick: 1, 2 or 3 time options per request (default 2; the page says "Tap two that work").
- Slot interval: the gap between offered times (15, 30 or 45 minutes, or 1 hour). Online booking books one visit at a time; book a repeating series from the calendar.
- Limit online booking hours: off, slots follow your location's business hours (the card says so, with an Edit in Locations link); on, set hours per day.
- After booking: the Title and Message visitors see when they finish.
Services, branding and the form
- Services tab: what can be booked. Import services brings in your practice's service list; add, edit or delete entries here, and switch one off to hide it from the page. Show prices on the booking page displays the prices set under Settings → Services. See Manage appointment types.
- Branding tab: Logo (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP or SVG, up to 5 MB), Location photo for the multi-location picker, Display name, Welcome title, Welcome message and Brand color. Uploading the account logo on the Organization tab of Settings → Account fills it in on every location's booking page that has no logo of its own; a page with its own logo keeps it.
- Form tab: set Date of birth, Gender, Insurance and Reason for visit to hidden, optional or required (the client's answers show on the request), add your own custom fields, and choose the SMS text-message opt-in checkbox (on by default) and a Policy acknowledgement checkbox (off by default). While the text-message box is on, your web chat asks a visitor the same thing once before it books, and a yes counts like a ticked box. The chat also asks each custom field you made required, and the answers go with the booking as the page's form sends them. With the Policy acknowledgement checkbox on and required, the chat shows your wording and asks the visitor to agree before it books, and books only after a yes, as the page sends nothing until the box is ticked; off or optional, the chat doesn't ask. Clients booking from the client portal see the same wording with a box to tick, and FrontDesk refuses any booking that needs the tick and comes without it.
Click Save Settings after changes on any tab.
What visitors see
Choose a service, tap the times that work, enter their name, phone number and the other details your form asks for, and Send request (or book, in instant mode). The page shows Request sent and a text saying the request came in follows when the number can be texted. In request mode your team confirms or declines the request from Online Booking → Requests, and that answer goes by email when they gave an address and your email sender is verified, otherwise by text if they ticked the text box. The page says which (the email field reads Email (optional, for the office's reply)), or, when neither can go, that the office will contact them to confirm the time: you're told to call them.
In instant mode the time is checked again as they book, against your hours, closed days, minimum notice, the service's own booking window and the visits already booked. If it is no longer open, nothing is booked and the page asks them to pick another of the times it shows. Sending the same booking twice keeps one appointment.
On your own website
Keeping your website on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress? Online Booking → Your own site gives you two pieces of live FrontDesk to paste onto it. Open times shows your next bookable times for one service or any service, worked out from your booking page's own rules, and each time opens your booking page on that service and time. Reviews shows the reviews you approved in Settings → Website, and updates on its own. Pick the widget, a service, how many to show and a colour, then copy the code and paste it wherever your site builder takes HTML: an Embed or Custom code element in Wix, a Code block in Squarespace, a Custom HTML block in WordPress. The widgets are drawn in your visitors' browsers and carry no review markup for Google stars: search engines don't give stars for reviews a business shows about itself, and marking them up can get a site penalised.
Several locations
Each location has its own page and link. The practice-wide page on the Organization tab, with its own Custom slug, shows a location picker first; see Set up the master booking page.
If a visitor could not book, see Caller couldn't book an appointment.