How Bookings Work
Booking types, your hours and calendars, putting a booking page on your website, reminders and no-shows, end to end.
- How It Works Guide
- Plans: Every plan
- Updated 27 October 2026
- 27 min read
This guide explains how it all fits together. For one job at a time, the short articles in this topic have the exact steps.
Booking Pages
Give each kind of meeting its own booking page, so customers, parents, patients and partners pick a time without the back-and-forth.
A booking page is a public web page where people book time with you. They choose how long and how to meet (at your office, by video, by phone or somewhere else), pick a free time, confirm their phone or email with a code, and get a confirmation by SMS, WhatsApp or email. In-person bookings become expected visits, so reception knows who is coming at 10:30 am and the guest arrives with a QR pass.
Booking pages are on every plan, Free included. So are host confirmation, Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes for in-person bookings, the waitlist, reminders, a QR code for each page and putting a page on your own website. Plans differ in how many bookings you can take a month, in whether your pages can be on your own domain (Starter and above), and in the booking features that are planned, listed under Planned for later.
Where Your Booking Pages Live
Each booking type has its own page on your organisation's Agoo address, at a short name you choose:
| Page | Example address | Shows |
|---|---|---|
| One booking type | voltabank.agoohq.com/book/account-review | That booking type: its lengths, ways to meet and free times |
| All your listed bookings | voltabank.agoohq.com/book | A card for each public booking type you've chosen to list |
Give a booking type to one host ("Kwame Mensah: 30-minute account review"), to a department ("HR consultation") or to a site ("Tema branch appointment"); its name and description say which. Your pages use your branding as your plan allows. On paid plans, your pages can live on your own domain instead, such as visit.voltabank.example/book/account-review. See Branding.
If nobody can book online, for example because every booking type is switched off, the page says your organisation isn't taking bookings online and asks people to contact you instead.
What the Person Booking Does
- Opens your link: from your website, an email signature, a WhatsApp status or a QR code on a poster.
- Chooses an option, when the booking type offers more than one: how long (for example 15, 30 or 60 minutes) and how to meet. A booking type with one length and one way to meet skips this step.
- Picks a day on a month calendar, then a time. Only genuinely free times are shown, in their own time zone, with a switch to see them in yours. If a day is full and the booking type has a waitlist, they can join it.
- Enters their name and phone, email or both, their company if they like, and answers your questions. They accept your privacy notice if you have one, and choose how to get reminders: SMS, WhatsApp or email.
- Confirms their phone number or email address with a six-digit code Agoo sends to it. This stops anyone filling your diary with fake bookings, or booking in someone else's name.
- Sees the result: confirmed, or, if the host confirms each booking, Request sent, with the time the host has to answer by. Either way they can add it to their calendar and get a link to manage their booking.
No account and no app are needed. If they're interrupted, what they typed is kept on their phone for up to 24 hours (see Unsaved work).
Phone numbers are entered with your organisation's country code, so a phone code goes only to numbers in your country. Guests from elsewhere confirm by email.
What Happens Next
- The booking appears in Console → Bookings and the host is told. Hosts see their own bookings for the day on Home, and on Hosting in the Workspace app on their iPhone, iPad or Android phone or tablet.
- If the booking type requires confirmation, the booking is a request that holds the time until the host confirms or declines it, from the link in their message, from Requests in the Console or in the Workspace app. Only then is the guest told it's confirmed. See Bookings that need confirmation.
- Reminders go out at the times the booking type sets. The guest can move or cancel from their link.
- For in-person meetings, Agoo creates an expected visit at the site. The guest scans their pass at the kiosk, and the host is told they've arrived.
- If the host has connected their calendar (from Starter), the confirmed booking appears in it, and busy times in it are never offered on their booking pages. A video booking can get its own Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom link, made for it.
Set Up Your First Booking Page
Set your hours
Go to Console → Bookings → Availability (or Availability in your profile, or Your hours in the Workspace app) and set the days and hours you take bookings. See Availability and closed days.
Create a booking type
Go to Console → Bookings → Booking types and select New booking type. Give it a name ("30-minute account review"), a page address, the lengths you offer and the ways to meet. See Booking types.
Check your page
Open the page from the booking type's link and book a test meeting with your own phone number or email. Cancel it from the link in the confirmation.
Share it
From the booking type, select Copy link or Download QR code, or copy the snippet under Put it on your website. Put the link in your email signature, the page on your website, and a QR code on a poster at reception so walk-ins can book a later time. See Put a booking page on your website.
Bookings On Each Plan
| Plan | Bookings a month |
|---|---|
| Free | 50 |
| Starter | 500 |
| Growth | 5,000 |
| Pro | Unlimited |
| Enterprise | Unlimited |
Each attendee counts once, so a group session for 30 people is 30 bookings. Staff booking a room for themselves don't count, and nor do queue tickets (a ticket that becomes a visit counts as a visitor). When you reach your plan's limit, booking pages tell people your organisation can't take more bookings this month. See Plans and limits.
Reminders and confirmations by SMS and WhatsApp draw on your plan's messages, then your wallet, like any other message. On Free they go by SMS and email, since Free doesn't send on WhatsApp.
Booking Types
Create booking types with the lengths and ways to meet you offer, in person, by video, by phone or somewhere else, with limits, questions, host confirmation and a waitlist.
A booking type describes one kind of meeting people can book: how long it can be, how and where it happens, who takes it and what you need to know beforehand. A host might have three: "Quick call", "Account review" and "Site visit". Each booking type has its own booking page.
Find them in Console → Bookings → Booking types. Owners and Admins manage every booking type. Hosts can create and edit their own, for meetings only they take.
One Option or a Choice
A booking type can offer a single fixed meeting, or let the guest choose:
- Lengths: up to six, such as 15, 30 and 60 minutes. One of them is the default.
- Ways to meet: any of the four below. The first one you tick is the default.
If you offer one length and one way to meet, the booking page skips straight to the calendar.
Where You Meet
| Way to meet | What the guest gets | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| In person | The site's name and address, directions and a QR pass. The booking becomes an expected visit there. | The site. |
| Video call | The meeting link, in the confirmation, every reminder and their booking's page. Nothing to install. | Optionally, a link for the booking type. Otherwise the host's own meeting link from Availability is used. |
| Phone call | Who calls whom, and the number if they're calling you. | Whether the host calls the guest (the guest's phone is used) or the guest calls a number you give. |
| Somewhere else | The address, for example a partner's office or a site you're inspecting. | The address. |
Video links. Choose How the video meeting is made. On every plan, A link: paste any Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom or other https link on the booking type, or leave it empty to use each host's own link. If there's no link at all, the host adds one to each booking with Add meeting link in Console → Bookings, and the guest is sent it. From Starter, choose Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom instead, and Agoo makes a new meeting for each booking from the host's own connected account: see Meet, Teams and Zoom links.
Meeting at the guest's own address, with the guest entering it on the booking page, is planned too. Until then, use Somewhere else with a fixed address, or Phone call to arrange it.
Create a Booking Type
Basics
Go to Console → Bookings → Booking types → New booking type. Give it a clear name ("Account review") and a one-line description the guest will read. Choose its page address, the last part of
voltabank.agoohq.com/book/account-review, and who takes it: you, or the people you choose. With several people, the guest sees a time when any of them is free, and each booking goes to a free one in turn (round-robin), so the work is shared fairly.Lengths and ways to meet
Pick the lengths you offer, and tick the ways to meet, filling in the details from the table above.
Questions
Choose the visitor type whose questions the booking page asks (for example Meeting). Its questions asked of the visitor appear on the booking page; questions for staff only never do. For in-person bookings, the answers fill in the visit, so the guest doesn't repeat themselves at the kiosk. To change the questions, edit that visitor type's form in Forms and fields.
When people can book
Setting What it does Example Notice How soon a booking can start. Stops someone booking a time five minutes away. 4 hours How far ahead The furthest ahead people can book. 60 days Gap before / after Time kept free around each meeting, for travel or notes. 10 minutes after A day's limit The most bookings of this type in one day. 6 a day Start times every How often start times are offered. Every 30 minutes These work inside each host's own availability (their days and hours), your closed days and public holidays, and the host's other bookings. A time is offered only when everything allows it. Hosts who manage their own booking types set their own notice, gaps and daily limit here.
Confirmation, reminders and the waitlist
- The host confirms each booking, and the Time to answer. See below.
- Reminders: up to three, each from 10 minutes to 7 days before. A day before and an hour before is the default. See Reminders and no-shows.
- Waitlist: let people join a waitlist when a day is full. See below.
Who can see it, and save
Visibility Means Public: listed Anyone can book it, and it's shown on your organisation's /bookpage.Public: link only Anyone with its link, QR code or your website can book it, but it isn't listed. Private: staff only Only your staff can book it, with New booking in the Console. It has no public page. Select Save. With Take bookings on, a public booking type's page works straight away. Turn Take bookings off to pause a booking type without deleting it. Deleting a booking type keeps the bookings already made.
Share It
Each booking type has a Share panel:
- Copy link copies its page address, on your own domain once you've connected one.
- Download QR code makes a tracked QR code for its page, for posters, leaflets and business cards. It's listed with your other QR codes.
- Put it on your website gives you a snippet to paste into your own site. See Put a booking page on your website.
In the Workspace app, Booking pages on Hosting lists the booking types you take, with Share and Copy for each link and, if your role can see QR codes, its tracked QR code full screen for someone to scan. See The Agoo Workspace app.
Bookings That Need Confirmation
Turn on The host confirms each booking when the host should look at each booking before it's fixed, for example for first-time clients or long consultations.
- The guest books as usual. The booking is a request: the guest sees Request sent, with the time the host has to answer by, and gets a message saying so.
- The request holds the time, so nobody else can book it while the host decides.
- The host gets a message with a link. The link opens the request on your Agoo address, with the guest's details and answers, and Confirm and Decline buttons; no sign-in needed. They can also answer in Console → Bookings → Requests, or under Requests on Hosting in the Workspace app, where a number on the tab shows how many are waiting.
- When the host confirms, the guest gets the usual confirmation, reminders are scheduled and, for in-person meetings, the expected visit and QR pass are created.
- When the host declines, the time is free again and the guest is told the request wasn't accepted. The host can add a reason for your records, and ticks Tell them why if the guest should see it.
- If the host doesn't answer within the confirmation window (24 hours unless you change it), or before the meeting would start, the request expires: the time is freed and the guest is told it couldn't be confirmed.
The guest can cancel a request from their link while it waits.
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting for the host. The time is held. |
| Confirmed | Fixed. Reminders go out, and in-person meetings get a pass. |
| Declined | The host said no. The time is free again. |
| Expired | Nobody answered in time. The time is free again. |
| Cancelled | The guest or the host called it off. The time is free again. |
Waitlist
Turn on Waitlist for booking types that fill up, such as a doctor's Monday clinic or parents' evening.
- When a day has no free times left, the booking page offers Join the waitlist for that day, with the length and way to meet the guest chose.
- The guest gives their name and phone or email, confirms it with a code, and is told their place in the line.
- When a time on that day frees up (a booking is cancelled, declined, expires or moves to another day), the first person in line gets a message with a link to book it.
- The link works for 2 hours. The time isn't held: whoever books first gets it. If the person doesn't book within the 2 hours, the next in line is sent a link.
- Once the day has passed, everyone still waiting for it is removed.
See and remove waitlist entries in Console → Bookings → Waitlist.
Later Additions
Calendar sync, with Meet, Teams and Zoom links, is included from Starter.
- Availability and closed days: When people can book you.
- Reminders and no-shows: Confirmations, reminders and changes.
- Forms and fields: The visitor type questions booking pages ask.
Availability and Closed Days
Set the hours you take bookings, leave out public holidays and your organisation's closed days, connect your calendar, and see every booking, request and waitlist in one place.
Your availability decides which times appear on your booking pages. Agoo starts from the hours you set, leaves out Ghana's public holidays and your organisation's closed days, and takes away anything you're already booked for. Each booking type then narrows it further, with its notice, gaps and limits.
Set Your Hours
Open your availability
Go to Console → Bookings → Availability, or Availability in your profile. Owners and Admins can choose anyone and set their hours for them.
On your iPhone, iPad or Android phone or tablet, Your hours on Hosting in the Workspace app sets the same things for you: each day's hours (on iPhone and iPad, swipe a range to remove it; on Android, tap Remove these hours), dates that differ, your meeting link and time zone. Tap Save, and your booking pages show the new times at once.
Set your weekly hours
For each day, set the hours you take bookings. You can have more than one range in a day, for example 9:00 to 12:30 and 14:00 to 16:30, leaving lunch and your own work free. Leave a day empty if you don't take bookings then.
Add date changes
For days that differ from the usual week, add a date: a day of leave or training (unavailable all day), or a Saturday you'll work or a shorter Friday (different hours). A date's hours replace your weekly hours for that day.
Check your time zone and meeting link
Your hours are in your own time zone, Africa/Accra unless you change it. Add your own meeting link if you hold video calls (see below), and select Save.
Your meeting link
If you have a personal video meeting room (a Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom link you always use), add it under Availability. Video bookings of a booking type that has no link of its own use yours, and guests get it in their confirmation and reminders. Yours is also used when a booking type makes Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom links and you haven't connected that account (Meet, Teams and Zoom links).
Public Holidays and Closed Days
Ghana's public holidays are built in. On those days, booking pages offer no times, without anyone doing anything. Agoo keeps the list up to date each year, including the Eid holidays once the government announces their dates, and days observed when a holiday falls at the weekend. If you do work on a public holiday, add a date change with your hours for that day.
Closed days are your organisation's own: an end-of-year shutdown, a staff retreat, a day the office moves. Owners, Admins and Site admins add them in Console → Bookings → Availability → Closed days, with a name for each. Nobody can be booked on a closed day.
On the same page the Owner and Admins can switch Ghana's public holidays off, if your organisation works on them (a hospital, say). It's an organisation setting, so Site admins see the switch but can't change it.
Time Zones
Booking pages show times in the guest's own time zone, with a switch to see them in the booking type's. A partner booking from Lagos or London sees their own clock, and their confirmation says which time zone the time is in.
See Every Booking In One Place
Console → Bookings has four tabs:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| Upcoming | Confirmed bookings still to come. Switch to a week calendar if you prefer. |
| Requests | Bookings waiting for their host to confirm, with how many are waiting. |
| Past | Bookings that have happened, been cancelled, declined or expired, or no-shows. |
| Waitlist | People waiting for a time on a full day. Remove an entry if you need to. |
Filter by booking type, host and status, or search by the guest's name, phone or email. Hosts see their own bookings; people whose role manages bookings see everyone's. Select a booking to see its details and the guest's answers, and to Confirm or Decline a request, cancel or move it, Add meeting link, or Mark no-show after it started.
Select New booking to book someone yourself, for example a caller who rang the front desk. It books a free time like the booking page does, and the guest gets the same confirmation and reminders.
Hosts also see Today's bookings on Home.
In the Workspace app
On Hosting in the Workspace app, hosts see their Requests, upcoming bookings by day and Past bookings. A booking's page has Confirm and Decline for a request, Move to another free time of the same booking type, Add meeting link, Mark no-show after it started and Cancel booking, and buttons to call, WhatsApp or email the guest. Answering a booking needs a connection.
Connect Google Calendar, Microsoft 365 or iCloud
From Starter, connect your calendar and Agoo works with it both ways:
| Direction | What happens |
|---|---|
| Your calendar → Agoo | Busy times in the calendars you choose are kept off your booking pages, so nobody books you during the board meeting. |
| Agoo → your calendar | Every confirmed booking is added to the calendar you choose, and moved or removed if it's moved or cancelled in Agoo. |
Agoo keeps only the start and end of your busy times, never what the meeting is. Video bookings can also get their own Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom link.
On every plan, your private calendar link shows your bookings, the visitors you're expecting and your approved leave in Apple, Google or Outlook calendar. It doesn't stop people booking you when you're busy: block those times with date changes in your availability, or connect your calendar.
Every confirmation also lets the guest add the meeting to their own calendar (a calendar file that works with Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar), and Agoo always prevents double booking across your Agoo bookings.
- Connect your calendar: Google, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, iCloud and Zoom, from Starter.
- Booking types: Notice, gaps, daily limits and the waitlist.
- Reminders and no-shows: What guests receive before the meeting.
- Booking pages: What guests see, and how to share your pages.
Put a Booking Page On Your Website
Paste one snippet to show a booking page inside your own website, on every plan, and print its QR code for posters.
People are more likely to book where they already are: your website. Put it on your website gives you a short snippet that shows a booking page inside any page of your site, so people pick a time without leaving it. It works on every plan, Free included, and needs no developer, API key or plugin.
Add It to Your Site
Copy the snippet
Go to Console → Bookings → Booking types, open the booking type, and under Put it on your website select the copy button. Use a booking type that's public (listed or link only) and has Take bookings on; private booking types have no public page to show.
Once your own domain is active (Starter and above), the snippet uses it. A snippet you pasted before keeps working; copy it again to show your domain.
Paste it into your page
Paste the snippet, unchanged, wherever your website lets you add HTML:
Website built with Where to paste WordPress A Custom HTML block, on the page where people should book Wix, Squarespace, Webflow Their embed or custom code element ("Embed HTML", "Code block") Your own HTML Wherever on the page the booking page should appear Test it
Publish your page, open it on a phone and a computer, and make a test booking with your own phone number or email. Cancel it from the link in the confirmation.
What Your Visitors See
The booking page appears inside your page, without Agoo's header and footer, in your organisation's branding as your plan allows. It grows and shrinks to fit as people move through the steps, so don't give its container a fixed height. Everything else works exactly as on the booking page itself: the choice of length and way to meet, free times in the visitor's time zone, the code that confirms their phone or email, the waitlist, the confirmation and reminders.
What people type goes straight to Agoo, never through your website's own code, and their details are handled as your privacy settings say.
If It Doesn't Show
- Your site has a Content Security Policy. If your web team set one, it must allow frames from your organisation's Agoo address, for example
frame-src https://voltabank.agoohq.com, and from your own domain if you've connected one. - The booking type isn't public, or Take bookings is off. Check both on the booking type: private booking types have no public page.
- The snippet was changed. Some website builders tidy pasted code. Paste it again into an HTML or code block rather than a text block.
Only booking pages can be shown inside another website. Your other visitor pages, such as passes and approval links, can't be, which keeps them safe from being dressed up by someone else's site.
QR Codes for Posters
Every booking type also has Download QR code in its Share panel. It makes a tracked QR code that opens the booking page: put it on a poster at reception so walk-ins can book a later time, on leaflets, or on business cards. Because it's tracked, you can see how often it's scanned, and it's listed in QR codes with your other codes.
For Developers
For more control than a snippet gives (choosing the day to open on, filling in details you already know, listening for a completed booking in your own analytics), Agoo plans an embed script, React components and a WordPress plugin. They will show the same booking pages, on every plan that has them. The snippet keeps working when they arrive.
- Booking pages: What people see and do when they book.
- Booking types: Visibility, lengths, ways to meet and the Share panel.
- QR codes: Tracked codes, scans and printing.
Reminders and No-Shows
Send confirmations and reminders by SMS, WhatsApp or email, let guests move or cancel from their booking's page, and track no-shows. In-person bookings become expected visits.
Most missed meetings are forgotten meetings. Agoo reminds guests on the channel they actually read, makes it easy to move a meeting instead of skipping it, and records who didn't turn up.
Confirmations
As soon as a booking is made (or confirmed by the host, for booking types that require confirmation), the guest gets a confirmation on the channel they chose: SMS, WhatsApp or email. It includes:
- the date, time, host and how you're meeting,
- for in person: the site, directions and QR pass; for video: the meeting link, named for Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom when Agoo makes it (or that it's on its way, or that the host will send one); for phone: who calls whom; for somewhere else: the address,
- a way to add it to their calendar,
- a link to their booking's page, to move or cancel it.
The host is told of every new booking and every change, on the channels they chose for their alerts, and sees it in Console → Bookings.
For booking types that require confirmation, the guest gets a message at each step instead of a single confirmation:
| When | The guest is told |
|---|---|
| They book | Their request was received and the host will confirm it |
| The host confirms | The confirmation above, with the pass for in-person meetings |
| The host declines | The request wasn't accepted, with the host's reason only if the host shares it |
| Nobody answers within the confirmation window | The request couldn't be confirmed |
Reminders start only once a booking is confirmed.
Reminders
Set reminders per booking type, in Console → Bookings → Booking types → (type) → Reminders: up to three, each from 10 minutes to 7 days before the meeting. New booking types start with two:
| When | Channel | Says |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day before | The guest's chosen channel | The time and place, with the link to their booking |
| 1 hour before | The guest's chosen channel | "See you at 10:30 am", with directions or the video link |
Each reminder goes on the channel the guest chose when they booked.
Reminders count towards your messaging allowance: each SMS uses one SMS credit and each WhatsApp message one WhatsApp message, then your wallet. Email and push are included. On Free, reminders go by SMS and email only, since Free doesn't send on WhatsApp. See Plans and limits.
Your Booking's Page
Every confirmation and reminder carries one secure link, unique to that booking. It opens the booking's own page on your organisation's Agoo address, such as voltabank.agoohq.com, or on your own domain, with no account needed. The guest sees who they're meeting, when and where, or that their request is waiting for confirmation, and can:
- See the meeting link or phone details, and add it to their calendar.
- Cancel the booking, or a request still waiting for confirmation, with a note for the host if they like. The time is freed and the host is told, and if the booking type has a waitlist, the first person waiting for that day is offered it.
- Choose another time, for a confirmed booking of a public booking type: the page shows the free times with the same host, on the site's clock. The host is told, the meeting moves in their calendar, and the guest gets a fresh link; the old one stops working.
Changes follow the booking type's Notice: if a booking type needs 4 hours' notice, the page stops offering changes inside those 4 hours. Bookings of private booking types can be cancelled from the page but not moved; the guest asks the host instead.
Hosts and staff who manage bookings can move or cancel a booking from Console → Bookings; the guest is told automatically.
Bookings Become Expected Visits
For in-person bookings, Agoo creates an expected visit at the site as soon as the booking is confirmed:
- The guest's confirmation includes a QR pass and directions. They can add the pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, on every plan.
- The visit appears in Console → Visitors → Expected for the day, so reception knows who's coming.
- The guest scans the pass at the kiosk or gate. Their booking answers have already filled in the visitor form.
- The host is told the guest has arrived.
If the booking is rescheduled, the visit and pass move with it, and a Wallet pass updates itself; if it's cancelled, so is the visit, and its pass stops working.
No-Shows
- In person: the booking follows its visit. When the visit is marked a no-show because the guest never arrived, so is the booking.
- Video, phone and somewhere else: Agoo can't tell whether the meeting happened, so the host marks it with Mark no-show in Console → Bookings or on the booking in the Workspace app, once the meeting has started.
No-shows stay on the booking under Past. If a booking type is often missed, add a reminder closer to the time, or turn on The host confirms each booking for it.
- Booking types: Notice, confirmation and waitlists.
- Invitations and passes: The pass guests use when they arrive.
- Notifications: Channels, fallback and quiet hours.
Was this helpful?
Still Stuck?
Ask in your own words. If it needs a person, we'll bring one in.