What a booking creates
What this page is — what actually happens in your organisation when a member of the public books a slot.
What it is for — knowing where to look for a booking, and knowing that your contact list grows every time someone books.
The problem it solves — a booking page is easy to switch on and its effects are not obvious. It writes to two modules, not one.
Route: the booking arrives on the calendar it was made against · Permission: Loads the Calendar Page.
1. The four things that happen
| # | What | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The guest is matched to a contact by email — or a new contact is created | Orbit Pulse |
| 2 | An event is created on the calendar, titled Booking: <name> | This calendar |
| 3 | The guest is added to the event as a participant | The event |
| 4 | An invitation is sent, if the calendar has a connection | Email / WhatsApp |
2. Your contact list grows
This is the consequence most administrators do not expect.
A booking from an email address you have never seen creates a contact, marked as having come from the booking page and set to the lead lifecycle stage. A busy public calendar is therefore a source of new contacts, and they will appear in Orbit Pulse alongside contacts from every other source.
A returning guest is recognised only if they type their address the same way. A different capitalisation creates a second contact for the same person.
If you use bookings as a lead source, expect some duplicates and review the contact list periodically.
3. Where the booking appears
| Looking for | Go to |
|---|---|
| The appointment | The calendar it was booked against — it appears as a normal event |
| Who booked | The event's Participants |
| Their details | The template's fields on the event, plus the contact record in Orbit Pulse |
| Bookings across calendars | The assigned resource's other events, on any event form |
A booking is a normal event once created: it can be rescheduled, reassigned, edited or deleted like any other.
4. What a booking does not do
| Create a login for the guest | No |
| Take payment | No |
| Confirm anything to the guest beyond the invitation | No |
5. Don't confuse this with…
| Participants you invite yourself | Same list, different origin — see event participants |
| Contacts created elsewhere | A booking-created contact is a Pulse contact like any other, marked with where it came from |
6. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| A booking is not on the calendar | Check the date booked, and that you are on the right calendar |
| Duplicate contacts for one guest | They used a different capitalisation — §2 |
| The guest received nothing | The calendar has no connection set — see event notifications |
More in troubleshooting.