Bookings with approval — Review a calendar's bookings before confirming them

Some spaces shouldn't be booked without someone checking first: a function room for a birthday party, a school assembly hall, a court lent to outside teams… With bookings with approval, the administrator decides which calendars need their sign-off. On those calendars every booking stays pending until someone with permission approves it, and the person who asked gets a notice with the answer.

It is switched on per calendar: the community's other calendars keep working as usual, with instant booking.

How it works, step by step

1. The user requests the booking

When they pick a free time on a calendar with approval, Apoing shows “This calendar needs approval” and the button becomes Request booking. The booking is created as pending approval: it appears in My bookings with that label, but it is not confirmed yet.

2. The slot shows as “Requested · Not confirmed”

While it is pending, other users see the slot with a dashed amber border and the text Requested · Not confirmed. They can't book it directly, but they can ask for it too with the Ask for this slot too button: they join a queue in order of arrival and see their position (“you are number 2 in the queue”); in the calendar, their slot shows In queue (#2).

3. The managers are notified

The community's administrators and anyone with the Manage bookings role get a notification (in the app, by email and in the browser) for each new request. Requests also show up under Needs your attention, both on the website's Home page and in the app.

4. Approve or decline

The Bookings to approve page (on the website, the To approve entry in the left-hand menu, with the number pending; in the app, More › Manage communities › Bookings to approve) lists requests by date, showing who asked first and who else is in the queue. For each one:

• Approve: the booking is confirmed like any other and the user gets a “Booking approved” notice.
• Decline: you can add an optional reason (“there's maintenance that day”), which is included in the notice. If more people were in the queue, the next request becomes pending automatically and that person is told they are now first in line.

On the website you can also approve or decline straight from the slot on the Book screen. And in Management panel › Booking list there is an Awaiting approval filter.

5. If the user withdraws the request

Whoever asked for the slot can withdraw their request at any time by tapping it. As with a decline, the slot moves to the next person in the queue, or becomes free if nobody else is waiting.

Settings for administrators

Go to Management panel › Manage calendars, edit the calendar and tick Bookings need approval in the Booking approval section. In the app it is under More › Manage communities › Calendars, inside each calendar.

Who can approve?

• The community's administrators.
• Anyone whose role has the Manage bookings permission (for example a caretaker or front desk). There is no need to give them full administrator access.

Bookings made by a manager are confirmed straight away, without approval.

Turning approval off with pending requests

If you turn approval off on a calendar that has pending requests, Apoing asks what to do with them:

• Approve them: they all become confirmed bookings and each user is notified.
• Delete them: they are removed and each user is told they were not approved.

Either way, people waiting in the queue for those slots lose their request and get a notice.

While a booking is pending

• It does not open the door or switch on the lights (access control).
• It does not appear in subscribed calendars (Google Calendar, Outlook…) and sends no reminder.
• You can't create a match on it until it is approved, or move it to another time.
• If the time arrives and nobody has approved it, the request expires and the user is notified.

Frequently asked questions

• Can I combine it with the waiting list? Yes. On a calendar with approval, the queue of requests for a pending slot works as its waiting list, even if the waiting list is not switched on for that calendar. See also the waiting list.
• Does the user know their position? Yes, when they ask for the slot they are told their position in the queue, and they can also see it on the slot itself.
• Does it count towards booking limits? Yes, a pending request counts like a booking towards the calendar's limits, so nobody can hog slots by requesting many at once.