Business tool builder

A booking system that knows who is free
and how long each service takes.

Describe your services, your staff and the hours they work, and Netiva’s AI builds a web app with a public booking page, confirmation emails and a day sheet for the front desk.

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Starter prompt

Build an appointment booking web app for a practice with five staff at two locations. Each service has a duration, a buffer after it, a price and the staff who can deliver it. Staff have weekly working hours per location and blocked dates for vacation and admin time. Visitors pick a service, then a named staff member or the first available one, then a time in the next 60 days. Open times come from working hours minus booked appointments, buffers, blocked dates and four hours’ minimum notice. Email a confirmation with a reschedule link, and give the front desk a day sheet with booked, completed and no-show statuses.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this booking system is for

Most service businesses outgrow the shared diary at about the third staff member. Clients call to ask who has a Thursday slot, the desk reads back a time someone already promised in person and a 90-minute session lands on top of a 20-minute one. A booking system built with Netiva keeps services, staff hours and appointments in one place, so the times on your public page come from the hours each person actually works — minus what is already booked, the buffer after it and the days they are away.

Key features

What your booking system can do

  • Open times from real hours

    Slots are worked out from each staff member’s weekly hours at each location, minus the appointments already booked, the buffer held after each one and any day they have blocked off.

    • Weekly hours per staff member, per location
    • Duration and after-buffer set on each service
    • Minimum notice and how far ahead the calendar opens
    • Vacation, training and admin blocks that close times

  • A booking page on your own domain

    The public side renders from your collections: a service list, a page for each staff member and a booking flow that ends on a confirmed time. Clients book without creating an account.

    • Service and staff pages built from the collections
    • Book with a named person or the first available
    • A short form: a name and an email address
    • Your own domain, with SSL handled for you

  • Confirmations, reminders and reschedules

    The app emails a confirmation as soon as a time is taken and a reminder the day before. Each email carries a private link the client uses to move or cancel inside your notice window.

    • Confirmation sent the moment a booking is saved
    • Reminder scheduled for the day before
    • Reschedule or cancel from the link, without a phone call
    • Freed times go straight back on the booking page

  • A day sheet the front desk runs on

    Staff sign in to see the day by person and location, add phone and walk-in bookings themselves and mark each appointment completed, canceled or a no-show as the day goes.

    • Today by staff member, with the gaps visible
    • Phone and walk-in bookings added by the desk
    • Statuses saved on the appointment record
    • Filters and sorts saved in the appointments grid, by location or practitioner
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Services

What clients can book, how long each one takes and who is allowed to deliver it.

  • Name (required) Text
  • Duration minutes (required) Time the client is booked for, such as 20, 50 or 90 Number
  • Buffer minutes Cleanup and notes time held after the appointment Number
  • Price Shown on the booking page; taken in person unless you sell it up front Number
  • Delivered by (required) Only these people appear as options for this service Relation to Staff
  • Locations Which sites offer it, or Online Text
  • Minimum notice hours Overrides the house rule for this service Number
  • Description Paragraph

Staff

The people clients book with, and where each of them works.

  • Name (required) Text
  • Role Practitioner, therapist, consultant, technician Text
  • Photo Image
  • Locations Sites this person works at; Online counts as one Text
  • Books ahead days How far ahead clients may book with this person Number
  • Email (required) Where the next-day list and new booking alerts go Text
  • Bio Paragraph

Availability

One row per working day and one per block of time off, for each staff member.

  • Staff (required) Relation to Staff
  • Kind (required) Working hours or Time off Text
  • Day Monday to Sunday, on working-hours rows Text
  • Starts 24-hour time on that day, such as 09:00 Text
  • Ends Such as 17:30; split the row around a lunch break Text
  • Location Where that day is worked, or Online; spell each site the same way on Services and Staff Text
  • From Opens a time-off block; on a working-hours row it starts a seasonal pattern Date & time
  • Until Closes the block, or ends the season; blank on both means the standing week Date & time

Appointments

Every booked time, however it was taken, with the client it belongs to.

  • Service (required) Relation to Services
  • Staff (required) Relation to Staff
  • Starts at (required) The end comes from the service duration, and the buffer is held after that Date & time
  • Location Site this appointment is at, or Online; copied from the working-hours row when booked Text
  • Client name (required) Text
  • Client email Where the confirmation and the reminder go; a walk-in can be booked without one Text
  • Status (required) Booked, Completed, Canceled or No-show Text
  • Reference (required) Random code saved with the booking; the reschedule link only opens with it Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Book an appointment

    Pick a service, then a named staff member or the first available one, then an open time; the form asks for a name and an email address.

    Public

  • Staff member

    Who the client will see, the services that person delivers and their next open times at each location.

    Public

  • Reschedule or cancel

    Opened from the confirmation email: the link carries the appointment’s random reference, and only that code opens the page to move the time or cancel inside your notice window.

    Public

  • Day sheet

    Today by staff member and location, with gaps, each client’s email and one tap for completed, canceled or no-show.

    Your team

  • Hours and time off

    Where weekly hours are set for each person and vacation, training or admin blocks are added, closing those times on the booking page.

    Your team

  • Attendance report

    No-shows, late cancellations and rebooked appointments by staff member, service and month.

    Your team
How it works

From prompt to a live booking system

  1. Describe how you book

    Tell Netiva what you offer, how long each service takes, how many staff you have and which locations they work at. The agent drafts collections for services, staff, availability and appointments, then builds the first screens.

  2. Enter services and hours

    Fill the services and availability grids yourself, or describe a normal week and let the collection assistant draft the rows for review. Mark the first blocks of time off while you are in there.

  3. Test-book in the preview

    Book a time in the live preview the way a client would, check the confirmation wording and see what happens when a slot has just gone. Annotate the preview and the agent adjusts the rules.

  4. Publish and hand over the desk

    Publish in one click on your domain, invite the front desk into the workspace and switch the reminders on. Every later change is checkpointed, so a rule you regret is easy to roll back.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a booking system with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Availability rules Hours, buffers, notice and time off kept per staff member and location, and the open times follow them One set of opening hours in a booking widget, or a call to the desk to find out who is actually free on Thursday
Reschedules and no-shows Clients move their own time from the confirmation email, and every status stays on the appointment for the report Phone tag, then a crossed-out line in the paper diary that nobody adds up at the end of the month
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • A four-practitioner clinic across two sites

    Each practitioner splits the week between two sites. A client who picks the first available option only sees times that person is genuinely at that site, and each site’s day sheet shows only its own bookings.

  • An independent consultant with three session types

    A 20-minute intro call, a 60-minute working session and a half-day review, each with its own buffer and notice rule. Same-day bookings are closed, and the confirmation email carries a calendar file the client can add to their own calendar.

  • A tax practice in filing season

    Extra evening hours go in as working-hours rows dated to the eight weeks of filing season, so they stop applying on their own and the booked past stays as it was. The attendance report shows which appointment type is missed most often, so next season’s reminders go a day earlier.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Reminders go by email

    Netiva apps send email and run scheduled jobs, so confirmations, reminders and the next-day staff list all arrive by email. There is no SMS or push message, so say at the booking step that everything comes by email, and leave anything urgent to a call the desk makes itself.

  • Your own calendar stays separate

    The schedule lives in the app. Syncing it into a staff member’s own calendar account means that provider’s authorization step, not a key you paste. The short route is a calendar file in the standard iCalendar format, carried by the confirmation email for staff and clients to add.

  • Charging for a booking

    Netiva’s hosted checkout is built for products and orders, so a deposit or a prepaid package is sold as an item and followed in the order pipeline. The booking step itself doesn’t take a card, and the desk still records what was paid on arrival.

  • Keep the booking form short

    Ask for a name, an email address and a time — nothing more. Where the reason for the visit is personal, as it is in a clinic, take it in person or on the phone rather than through a public form, and tell clients what happens to what they do enter.

FAQ

Questions about building a booking system

What stops two clients booking the same staff member at once?

Open times are built from that person’s working hours with every saved appointment, its buffer and any time off taken out. The app checks again when the form is submitted, so a client who was slow filling it in is shown the next free times instead of a clash. Phone and walk-in bookings the desk adds close a slot in exactly the same way.

Can clients choose their practitioner, or only the next free time?

Both. Each service lists the staff who deliver it, so the booking page can offer a named person or a first available option that pools everyone qualified. A regular who always sees the same consultant books straight from that person’s page, while somebody new takes whichever time comes first and still lands with someone who does that service.

How do I block a vacation week or an admin afternoon?

Add a time-off row for that staff member with a start and an end. Those hours drop off the booking page as soon as the row is saved, and any appointment already inside the block shows on the day sheet so the desk can call and move it. A standing block, such as paperwork every Friday afternoon, is better set as shorter working hours.

Can I run two locations and online appointments from one booking system?

Yes. Each working-hours row names the site that person is at that day, and Online counts as a site of its own, so a client booking an online session never sees times from a clinic day. The site is copied onto the appointment when the time is taken, so the confirmation email and the day sheet both name it. For clients in other time zones, ask the agent to show each visitor their own local time next to yours.

Can the front desk still book by phone once the page is live?

Yes, and most practices need both. Staff sign in and add the appointment straight onto the day sheet, which holds the slot like any other booking. Enter an email address and the client gets the same confirmation and reminder; leave it blank for a walk-in and the time is simply held under the name the desk types.

Can I change the booking rules later without a developer?

Yes. Describe the change — a longer buffer on one service, a new location, a tighter notice rule — and the agent edits the app while you watch the live preview. No coding is required, every change is checkpointed so you can roll back a rule the desk dislikes, and the code stays yours to read or export. Publishing on your own domain needs the Starter plan or higher.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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