How to Enable Customer Self-Service Booking

4 min read
Feature: Booking

The Online Booking Portal allows customers to schedule appointments directly from your website. Setting up portal rules ensures bookings align with technician schedules and availability.

Business Outcome
Self-service booking options generate jobs around the clock, reduce office phone calls, and automatically route appointments to dispatch queues.

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1

Open Portal Settings

From the administration menu, navigate to Settings -> Customer Portal and select the Online Booking tab.

2

Define Booking Options

Select the services available for online booking, assign standard durations, and set default pricing.

3

Configure Calendar Constraints

Set available booking hours, lead time requirements (e.g. 'no bookings within 12 hours'), and slot limits.

Field Requirement Purpose / Details
Minimum Lead Time Required Prevent last-minute bookings. Select hours (e.g. 12h).
Max Booking Slots Required Limit the number of self-bookings allowed per hour.
4

Map Technician Capacity

Select which technicians, crews, or regions are available for online booking routes.

Field Requirement Purpose / Details
Capacity Metric Required Limit bookings by total crew availability or regions.
5

Publish Portal Widget

Copy the provided booking portal link or copy the embed code to add the booking widget directly to your website.

Validation Rules

To keep operations reliable, Service Opus enforces the following rules for this workflow:

  • Operating Hour Limits: Availability settings must fall within your defined company operating hours.
  • Service Match: Online booking services must be mapped to at least one active billing code.
Important Rule
Online bookings are saved as 'Pending Approvals' in the dispatch queue. Technicians are not assigned until the schedule is published by dispatch.

What's Next?

Once you finish this task, continue with these related workflows:

Ready to try this workflow?

Use the walkthrough to evaluate the workflow, then test it in Service Opus with real scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and customer data.