This guide covers creating a booking on a staff calendar, linking it to a client and case, checking availability, and choosing whether to send confirmation and reminder messages.
It does not cover moving, cancelling or recording attendance after saving. See How to reschedule, cancel or delete an appointment and How to manage appointment statuses.
Open a new booking
In the Case Management sidebar, select Calendar.
Select New booking. You can instead select an empty half-hour space in Week or Day to fill in its date and start time.
In Staff member, choose the person whose diary the appointment belongs on. The signed-in person is selected by default.
In Client (optional), search for and choose the client.
If you chose a client, use Case to select the case. The active case is selected automatically, or you can choose No case. The booking is filed to this case on the client record.
Only clients and cases you are allowed to see can be booked. If one is no longer available, the form explains this and does not save the booking.
Describe the appointment
Enter Title (optional) and Service (optional).
Choose Location (optional), or leave No location selected.
Choose the Date and enter the length in Minutes.
Choose a time under Start.
Add Notes (optional) if needed.
There is no category field on a client booking. Categories such as Meeting, Travel and Holiday belong to non-client entries instead.
Check the time
The start-time picker shows the chosen staff member's working hours. Busy times are crossed through and cannot be selected.
If you need an out-of-hours time, tick Show all times (outside working hours). Times already booked stay unavailable.
The form checks availability whenever the staff member, date or duration changes. While it does this, it says Checking availability… and keeps Create booking unavailable.
If that check fails, the form says Could not check availability: … Saving is held back until the diary can be checked. Select Try again. Joy fails closed: it does not let the booking through without checking the diary.
If another booking takes the slot before you save, Joy shows the clash. Change the time or staff member, or use Book anyway only when the double booking is intentional.
Add a confirmation and reminders
Under Booking confirmation, select Add if the client should hear as soon as the booking is saved.
Choose Text message, Email or, if your organisation has it switched on, WhatsApp. For a phone channel, choose one of the client's numbers.
Choose a Template (optional), type different wording, or leave the message blank to use the Standard message shown in the form.
Under Booking reminders, select Add reminder for each reminder the client should receive.
Choose When, Channel, destination and Template (optional). Available presets run from 3 hours before to 7 days before, where they still fall before the appointment; Custom time... lets you choose Send at.
Confirmations and reminders are sent to the linked client, using the channel and destination you choose. They cannot be added until a client is linked. WhatsApp only appears when it is enabled for your organisation.
Save the booking
Select Create booking.
Joy confirms with Booking created, closes the dialog and places the booking on the chosen staff member's calendar. A client booking is also filed to the selected case on the client record.
If the booking saves but a confirmation or reminder does not, Joy says Booking created, but some messages failed. The appointment still exists; open it and use its Confirmation or Reminders tab to try that message again.
If saving the booking itself fails, Joy does not pretend it was created. For example, Joy could not be reached, so nothing was saved means nothing has been stored and retrying will not duplicate the booking.
Block out time without a client
There is no separate guide for non-client entries.
Select Entry at the top of the calendar.
In New entry, choose the Staff member.
Leave Type as Other. Choosing Client Appointment switches to New booking.
Choose a Category, enter the Title, and optionally add Description (optional) and Location (optional).
Set All day, or enter Date, Start and End.
Under Repeats, choose Does not repeat, Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly or Yearly. Repeating entries also need an Until date.
Select Create entry.
Joy confirms with Entry created, or Entry created (3 occurrences) for a repeating series, and the slate-grey entry appears on the calendar.