The booking system lets prospective families pick a time to visit your school — in person, by video call, or by phone — directly from your public profile. You set the availability rules; families book a slot; you confirm or reschedule. This article covers the configuration, the day-to-day flow, and the operational decisions that determine whether your tour calendar runs smoothly or becomes a mess.
Bookings are a Premium feature. Schools on Pro can show their profile and receive inquiries but can't accept self-service bookings.
What families can book
You configure a single calendar that supports three meeting types:
- In-person visit — the classic campus tour. Family comes to you.
- Video call — for families who can't travel (mid-year international prospects, second-conversation follow-ups). Either you paste a permanent meeting link once (Zoom PMI, Google Meet room) or the system can auto-create a unique link per booking if you've connected a meeting provider.
- Phone call — for the rare family that just wants a 15-minute intro conversation without video. Most schools never enable this; enable it only if you actively want phone-only conversations.
There's no separate "open house" or "info session" type. If you run events, use the dedicated Open Houses tab — it's a different surface with RSVP collection rather than 1:1 slot booking.
Setting availability
Bookings → Settings → Calendar settings. Five things matter:
- Weekly availability. For each day, toggle on and set time ranges (e.g. Tuesday 14:00–17:00, Thursday 14:00–17:00, Saturday 09:00–12:00). The system splits each range into slots based on the meeting duration + buffer (see below).
- Meeting duration (default 60 min). Most campus tours land at 60-90 minutes; video calls work at 30-45.
- Buffer between slots (default 15 min). Catch-your-breath time. Without buffer, a 4pm tour ending late means the 5pm family is waiting in the lobby. Don't go below 15 minutes.
- Minimum notice (default 24 hours). Stops families from booking the very next morning when your admissions lead hasn't prepared. 24-48 hours is the right zone for most schools.
- Maximum advance booking (default unlimited). If you cap it at e.g. 60 days, families can't book in September for visits in February — useful if your team's schedule changes seasonally.
Blackout dates (Bookings → Settings → Blackouts) override everything above. Add holidays, school breaks, board-meeting afternoons, the head's vacation week. Blocked dates show as unavailable to families regardless of weekly availability.
What families see
When a family clicks "Book a visit" on your public profile, they see a calendar showing the next ~4 weeks. Available slots are clickable; blocked or fully-booked slots are greyed out. Picking a slot shows a short form (name, email, phone, student name + age, notes) and a submit button.
After submitting, the family sees a confirmation screen and receives a confirmation email within ~2 minutes. The booking lands in your dashboard with status Pending.
The booking lifecycle
Bookings flow through three main states:
Pending → Confirmed → Completed
↓
Cancelled / No-show
- Pending — the family has booked but you haven't confirmed yet. Default behavior is "require approval" — you decide whether to accept each booking.
- Confirmed — you've approved it. Family gets a second email confirming the slot. For video calls, the meeting link is generated (or your fixed link is included).
- Completed — the visit happened. You mark this manually from the booking detail view after the tour.
- No-show / Cancelled — the family didn't show up, or the booking was cancelled by you or them. Mark from the same detail view.
The Pending → Confirmed transition is the operational step that matters most. Don't leave bookings in Pending — families assume the slot is theirs and won't double-check. The expectation is to confirm within a business day.
Confirming a booking
Bookings tab → click any pending entry. The detail view shows the family's info, the slot, the meeting type, and the notes they included. From here:
- Confirm — sends the confirmation email and creates the meeting link if applicable.
- Reschedule — pick a new slot. Family is notified by email. The system doesn't double-check the new slot against your availability — you're overriding your own calendar, which is often the point (squeezing in a family who can only do Wednesday).
- Decline — sends a polite "we can't accommodate this slot" email. Use sparingly; better to reschedule.
If you accidentally confirm something you can't actually do, the right move is reschedule, not cancel — families read cancellations as rejection.
Reminders
You can turn on automatic reminder emails in Bookings → Settings → Send automatic reminder email. When enabled, the system emails each family the morning before their confirmed visit — once per booking, no double-sends if the cron retries.
The reminder is off by default (opt-in). Once on, you don't need to do anything per booking; the system handles it. There's also a "Send reminder" button on each booking detail view if you want to fire one ad-hoc (e.g. for a visit happening the same day).
Why it matters: a family books a tour weeks ahead, then life happens. The reminder is the cheapest intervention you have — one toggle, once, and every booking thereafter gets a nudge on the morning it matters. Empty slots are the most expensive thing in your calendar: the family was already interested enough to book.
Keeping tours full
After each tour, mark it Completed from the booking detail view so your records stay accurate and the family's timeline reflects what happened.
If tours are going unattended, it usually isn't a platform issue — it's usually:
- Too easy to book too far in advance (cap your maximum advance booking)
- Reminder not being sent (see above)
- Confirmation email is bare ("see you Tuesday") without practical details (parking, who they'll meet, what to bring) — useful confirmations stay at the top of the inbox
Custom confirmation emails
Bookings → Settings → Confirmation Email lets you add a Custom Message to the confirmation every family receives. It's one message for all booking types, not a template per type, so write it to cover the common ground and keep the specifics for your reply.
Worth including for in-person tours:
- Parking instructions (gate code, where to park, what to do if the lot is full)
- Who the family will meet (name + role) — humanizing this drops no-shows
- A short "what to bring" line — usually nothing, but explicit beats ambiguous
- A direct phone number for "if you're running late or lost"
For video calls, include the meeting link prominently (top of the email), a "test your audio before joining" line, and a fallback phone number.
Tour feedback (optional but worth using)
After a tour is marked Completed, the system can email the family a short feedback form: overall rating (1-5), sub-ratings on facilities / staff / curriculum / environment, and a free-text field. Results flow into the family's CRM record so the next person picking up the conversation can see how the visit landed.
Enable this in Bookings → Settings → Post-tour feedback. Default is off — opt-in because not every school wants to ask for feedback from every family.
Common mistakes
- Opening too many time slots. A calendar that's wide-open every weekday afternoon signals "we're not busy" — and families read "not busy" as "not in demand." Two or three afternoons a week with 4-6 slots each is better than ten slots a day.
- Letting bookings sit Pending. Inbox-zero discipline matters here. Confirm within a business day, ideally same day.
- Forgetting to mark bookings Completed. Without this, show-rate analytics are wrong, and your booking history shows phantom "confirmed" entries forever. Build a Friday-afternoon habit of closing the week.
- Using the booking system for parent-teacher meetings or internal staff calls. It's designed for prospect families, not internal use. Use a separate calendar for internal scheduling — otherwise your analytics get polluted with internal meetings counted as "tours."
When to escalate to us
Email admin@swissprivate-schools.ch if:
- A family says they booked a slot but you don't see it in your dashboard (rare but happens — usually a timezone display issue)
- The confirmation email isn't going out (we can check the delivery log)
- You're seeing the same family book multiple slots — we can merge the duplicates from our side
- You want a meeting provider (Zoom, Google Meet) wired up for auto-generated links — currently a manual setup we run for you
We respond within 2 business days.