Set Up a Booking Calendar for Your Client Site

A booking calendar turns “interested visitor” into “scheduled appointment” without anyone on the business side touching a phone. The visitor picks a slot, the calendar holds it, confirmations go out automatically, reminders fire before the appointment. This article covers configuring the calendar so that flow actually works for the way the business operates.

What a calendar represents

A calendar in Captivar is a bookable resource. It might represent a person (one calendar per attorney), a service (one calendar for cleanings, one for consultations), a room (one calendar per treatment chair), or just the business as a whole.

Each site can have multiple calendars. A dental practice might have one calendar per hygienist plus a separate one for the dentist’s consultations. A law firm might have one calendar per partner. A solo consultant might have one calendar total. There is no right answer — design calendars around how the business actually schedules.

The AI receptionist can offer slots from any calendar configured on the site. Same with forms — a form can be linked to a specific calendar so submitting the form books directly. And every calendar gets its own public URL that can be linked to from anywhere.

Where to find the calendar settings

In the sidebar, click Bookings. Then click Calendars (the sub-tab). The page lists every calendar on the current site. If none exist, you’ll see an empty state with a prominent Create calendar button.

Click Create calendar to start.

Naming and basics

1. Give the calendar a name. The name appears to visitors when they’re choosing where to book. “Free consultation with Dr. Patel” or “30-min discovery call with the team” works better than “Calendar 1.”

2. Add a short description. Optional but recommended. Shown above the slot picker. Use it to set expectations: “Bring a list of medications and your insurance card” or “We’ll cover your goals and how we work together — 30 minutes, no commitment.”

3. Set the time zone. Pick the time zone the business operates in. This is the most important setting on the page — the entire schedule, every slot, every confirmation, is interpreted in this time zone. Get it right.

The calendar’s time zone is independent of the site’s time zone. A site can be in Eastern Time but have a calendar configured for Pacific Time — useful when the business has staff in multiple offices. Visitors see slots in their own time zone automatically — the calendar handles the conversion.

Slot duration and buffers

How long is one appointment, and how much time should be left around it?

Slot duration

The slot duration is how long each appointment lasts. Common values:

• 15 minutes — quick check-ins, screening calls, brief consultations
• 30 minutes — discovery calls, standard medical visits, hairstylist appointments
• 45 minutes — therapy sessions, dental cleanings, legal consultations
• 60 minutes — annual physicals, full strategy sessions, complex services
• 90 minutes — extensive treatments, complex consultations

The slot duration also determines the granularity of the slot picker. A 30-minute slot duration means visitors see slots at 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, and so on. A 45-minute duration means 9:00, 9:45, 10:30 — the picker stays aligned to the duration.

Buffer time

Buffer time is dead time the calendar inserts around every booking. Two settings:

• Buffer before. Time blocked off before each appointment. Useful for prep, file review, or transitioning between clients.
• Buffer after. Time blocked off after each appointment. Useful for note-taking, cleaning, or back-to-back-call recovery.

A 30-minute slot with a 5-minute buffer-before and 10-minute buffer-after means each booking actually consumes 45 minutes of calendar space. Two back-to-back appointments at 9:00 and 9:45 would put a hard 15-minute gap between them.

Buffers are invisible to visitors. They never see “blocked for buffer” — they just see the next available actual slot.

Working hours

The working hours panel sets when the calendar is available, day by day.

For each day of the week:

• Mark the day as available or unavailable
• If available, set one or more time windows (e.g., 9:00 AM–12:00 PM and 1:00 PM–5:00 PM to skip lunch)

Multiple windows per day is the common case for businesses with breaks. Don’t try to model breaks with buffer time — use windows.

Some patterns:

• Standard office: Mon–Fri 9–5, weekends off.
• With lunch: Mon–Fri 9–12 and 1–5.
• Includes Saturday morning: Mon–Fri 9–5 plus Sat 9–12.
• Evenings only: Mon–Thu 5–9 PM.
• Specific days only: Tue and Thu 8 AM–6 PM.

Whatever the business actually does, that’s what goes in. The calendar will only ever show slots inside these windows.

Notice and advance windows

Two more settings control how far ahead — and how soon — a visitor can book.

Minimum notice

Minimum notice is how soon from “now” a visitor is allowed to book. Examples:

• 2 hours. Reasonable for in-office visits where staff needs time to prepare.
• 24 hours. Standard for most service businesses. Prevents same-day overload.
• 48 hours. Common for higher-prep appointments (legal consults, longer medical visits).
• 0 hours. Allow truly same-time bookings. Risky — visitors may book a slot that starts in the next 5 minutes.

A visitor trying to book inside the notice window sees the slot as unavailable. They have to pick something further out.

Maximum advance

Maximum advance is how far into the future a visitor can book.

• 14 days. Tight window. Forces recent bookings.
• 30 days. Default. Comfortable for most businesses.
• 60 days. Generous. Good for businesses with longer planning cycles.
• 90 days. Quarterly planning windows.

Visitors trying to book past the advance window see “No availability after [date].” They can come back later.

The right values depend on the business. Most calendars work well with 24 hours minimum notice, 30 days maximum advance.

Date-specific overrides

Working hours describe the normal week. Overrides handle exceptions — holidays, closures, special hours.

To add an override:

1. Scroll to the Overrides section. Below working hours on the calendar configuration page.

2. Click “Add override.” A row appears with a date picker and a type selector.

3. Set the date. Single date only. For multi-day closures, add one override per day.

4. Choose the override type. Closed blocks all bookings that day. Custom hours replaces the normal schedule with whatever windows you set.

5. Save. The override goes into effect immediately.

Common uses:

• Federal holidays (Closed)
• Continuing education days (Closed)
• Extended hours during a busy season (Custom hours: 8 AM–8 PM)
• Reduced hours on a slow day (Custom hours: 10 AM–2 PM)

Existing bookings on the date are not cancelled automatically when an override is added. If the business is closing on a date that already has appointments, the agency or business needs to reach out to those visitors directly.

Confirmations, reminders, and the manage link

When a visitor books a slot, four things happen automatically:

1. Confirmation email to the visitor. Includes the appointment details, an .ics calendar attachment (so they can add it to their own calendar with one click), and a manage link.
2. Notification email to the business. Sent to the calendar’s notification email (configured in the calendar settings, defaults to the site’s notify email). Includes the visitor’s details and notes.
3. Reminders. A 24-hour-before reminder, then a 1-hour-before reminder, sent to the visitor.
4. Zoom meeting (if enabled). For virtual calendars, a Zoom link is generated and embedded in the confirmation and reminder emails.

The manage link in the confirmation lets the visitor cancel or reschedule without logging into anything. It’s a unique URL tied to that one booking. Visitors do not need a Captivar account.

Public booking URL

Each calendar has a public URL the business can link to from anywhere:

https://app.captivar.com/book/CALENDAR_ID

The calendar ID is at the top of the calendar configuration page. This URL works as a standalone booking page — no need to embed.

Common uses:

• Email signatures. “Book a free consultation: [link]”
• Social profiles. Link in bio, Instagram link sticker, LinkedIn featured.
• QR codes. Printed in the office, at events, on business cards.
• Buttons on the website. Standard CTA pattern: “Book your visit” button linking to the calendar URL.

The page is fully responsive, styled with Captivar’s neutral design — or your custom branding, if you’ve configured it.

Connecting the calendar to the AI receptionist

If the AI receptionist has the “Book appointment” tool enabled (covered in Configure Your AI Receptionist), it automatically uses the site’s calendars to offer slots during conversations.

If multiple calendars exist on the site, the receptionist picks the one that matches the visitor’s stated need. A visitor asking for “a consultation with Dr. Patel” gets slots from Dr. Patel’s calendar. A visitor asking for “a cleaning” gets the hygienist’s calendar. The receptionist uses calendar names + descriptions to make the match.

For this to work well, name calendars clearly and write descriptions that include the relevant keywords. “Calendar 2” tells the receptionist nothing. “Annual cleaning with Sara, our hygienist” is unambiguous.

What happens next

The calendar is configured, the booking URL is live, and the AI receptionist can offer slots automatically. Appointments are flowing into the dashboard’s Bookings page where you and the business can see what’s coming up.

The three foundational conversion channels — chat, forms, bookings — are now in place. From here, the documentation moves into the operational stuff: reading the analytics dashboard, working the lead pipeline, sending the weekly Catch Report, and applying custom branding so the whole experience looks like your agency. Each has its own section in the sidebar.