Switching features on and off
Everything Booked can do, in one place, with a switch each.
Booked does a great deal, and no single business wants all of it. The Features screen, under System in the sidebar, is the one place that lists the 16 things it can do, says whether each is switched on, and switches it. They are grouped as Appointments, Messaging, Growing your business and Taking money, with a Search features… box and a filter (All, On, Needs finishing, Off, Not on plan) above them.
Four features have a screen of their own in the menu — Follow-ups, Unfinished, Booking links and Take payment, whose screen is Payments under Bookings — and those menu items disappear while the feature is off, so you are not reading about things you do not use.
Features
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Features. Each card is one thing Booked can do.
- 1The four counts — what is on, what is on but not working yet, what is off, and anything your plan does not cover. Tap one to filter the list.
- 2Needs finishing — switched on but not doing anything yet, and the amber line underneath says why. Open goes to the feature’s own screen; a feature without one shows Finish setting up instead.
- 3On — working. Set up opens its settings.
- 4Off — ready when you want it: flip the switch.
The four states
Every feature is in exactly one of these. The third is the one that saves you a support call.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| On | Switched on and working. If it has a screen of its own, that screen is in the menu. |
| Off | Yours to use, you just have not switched it on. If it has a screen of its own, that menu item is hidden until you do. |
| Needs finishing | Switched on, but something it depends on is missing — so it looks on and behaves off. Booked tells you exactly what is missing. |
| Not on your plan | It needs a paid add-on you do not have. The card shows Add-on with the monthly price, and Add to my plan in place of a switch. Add-ons are added under Settings › Your plan. If your licence is not active, the add-on features show here too. |
Three things can be "needs finishing", and each has caught people out:
- Text messages. Switched on with no sender name chosen, so texts have nowhere to come from.
- Video consultations. Switched on with no service set to be held over video, so nothing changes for anybody.
- Follow-ups. Switched on with every follow-up still a draft, so nothing is being sent.
That is deliberate: if you do not use booking links, the words should not be on your screen. Nothing is deleted — switch it back on and everything you had built is exactly where you left it.
Take payment: a till for the front desk
Take payment is in the Taking money group, and it is off until you switch it on. Turning it on puts these on screen:
- Payments in the sidebar, under Bookings: every payment taken, and a Take payment tab with every bill still owing, walk-ins and quick sales.
- Walk-in in the Diary toolbar, for somebody at the counter who wants seeing now.
- Take payment in the Diary, on an appointment’s popover, to open its bill.
- A new job for Walk-in on Bookings: for anyone allowed to take payment, it opens the same walk-in window as the Diary, rather than an empty booking.
- Take payment on a booking, under Quick actions, with what is still owed beside it, such as Take payment · £40.00.
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The Taking money group just after Take payment was switched on.
- 1Take payment — off until you switch it on. It is not an add-on, and it has nothing to set up, so there is no Set up button: only the switch.
- 2Open — shown while it is on. It goes to the Payments screen, which now sits under Bookings in the sidebar.
Switching it on does not let your whole team take money. The buttons appear for owners, and for colleagues whose Take payment access is at Edit; giving money back is a separate Refunds permission. See Team access, and Take payment for how the till works.
Check-in: marking arrivals at the desk
Check-in is in the Appointments group: "Mark a customer as arrived from the diary or their booking, so whoever is seeing them can see they are here." It is off until you switch it on, it is not an add-on, and it has nothing to set up, so its card has only the switch. On, it puts a green Check in button on the Diary popover and in a booking’s Quick actions, adds Checked in to the Diary’s key, and marks a checked-in appointment with a green edge and a tick, Here since 10:32 when you open it, and a Here tag on the Bookings list and on Payments › Take payment. The buttons are there for owners and for anyone whose Bookings or Diary access is at Edit. See Check people in when they arrive.
Setting a feature up
Set up (or Finish setting up) opens a panel on the right with the feature’s own switch and only the settings it needs — the hold time for the waiting list, say, or the default deposit. Where there is something to set, its Save changes those settings and nothing else. Reminders and Text messages are the exceptions: they take you to Messages, where they are set up.
Only people allowed to change features can flip the switches. Anyone else sees the page with the note Only an admin can switch these. See Team access.
What each switch actually does
A switch is not decoration. Turning Follow-ups off stops new follow-ups starting and holds the ones already part-way through: nothing queued is sent while it is off. Turning Booking links off closes every link you have published at once — visitors see a page saying This booking link is not available, with your business name and phone number, rather than a broken form. Turning Take payment off takes away the Payments screen under Bookings, the Diary’s Walk-in button and every Take payment button with it, puts Walk-in on Bookings back to opening the booking editor, and Booked refuses any bill with “Take payment is switched off. Turn it on in Features.” Bills and payments already taken are kept for when you switch it back on. Turning Check-in off takes its buttons and the Diary’s Checked in key away, and a check-in is refused with “Check-in is switched off. Turn it on in Features.” Anyone marked as here stops showing as here until it is switched back on.