Group bookings
One appointment, several people — for families and groups.
A family wants their flu jabs together. Two colleagues want travel vaccinations on one trip. Group bookings let one person book for all of them in a single appointment — the slot runs longer, and each extra person is charged the service price.
What a group booking is — and isn't
A group booking is one appointment, one member of staff, more people in the room. Three people on a 20-minute service become a single 60-minute appointment with Priya Sharma — not three appointments running side by side.
That distinction matters. Booked has no class size and no "maximum bookings per slot" anywhere. Two customers can only be seen at the same time when two different qualified staff members are both free — so a flu clinic seeing six people at once needs three pharmacists on the rota, not a group booking.
Switch it on for the whole site
Group bookings are off until you turn them on. The site-wide switch lives in Settings › Booking rules, in the More than one appointment card.
Several people in one slot, or several services in one visit.
Settings › Booking rules › More than one appointment — the site-wide default.
- 1Booking rules — in the Settings rail under Taking bookings. Group bookings sits in the More than one appointment card, beside appointment bundles.
- 2The switch — off by default. Turning it on makes group bookings available to every service that hasn’t been told otherwise.
- 3Most people in one booking — appears once the switch is on. The party-size ceiling for any service that doesn’t set its own, held between 2 and 10. Press Save at the top of the screen when you are done.
Whatever you type here, and whatever a service sets, 10 people is a hard ceiling on the booking form, and the lowest maximum is 2.
Override it on a single service
Most pharmacies want groups on some services and not others — a flu jab for the household yes, a 45-minute travel consultation no. Open Services, open the service, and look in the Options card at the foot of the General tab.
How long it takes, what it costs, and what is taken up front.
Only the ones that apply to this service.
The business-wide default for group bookings lives under Settings → Booking rules.
The Group bookings option on a service’s General tab.
- 1Length — the length of one person’s appointment. A group booking is a multiple of this number, so check it before raising the party size.
- 2Group bookings — three choices. The first says what the site-wide setting is today, for example Global default (on, up to 2); the others are On for this service and Off for this service. Setting it here beats the site-wide switch in both directions, and flicking the switch at the left of the row picks On or Off for you.
- 3People — a cap for this service alone, between 2 and 10. Leave it empty (the grey figure shows what it would use) and the service follows the number in Settings.
One thing to watch: the people box shows whenever the dropdown is anything other than Off for this service — including when the service follows a site-wide setting that is switched off. A number in that box is not proof that group bookings are running; the switch at the left of the row is.
Press Save service when you're done — the six tabs share one form.
What it does to your diary
The block of time Booked has to find is number of people × length, plus one gap after. The gap is added once at the end, not once per person. Three people on a 20-minute flu jab with a 10-minute gap need a clear 70 minutes.
Because the whole block has to fit inside one continuous stretch of open time, a longer appointment can't straddle a lunchtime close or run past closing.
Why a 12:00 slot disappears as the party grows.
- 1The lunchtime close — a break in the branch’s opening hours, 13:00 to 14:00. Any appointment must sit entirely on one side of it.
- 2The group block — 3 × 20 minutes plus the 10-minute gap is 70 minutes, which runs to 13:10. The 12:00 start is offered to one person (30 minutes) or two (50 minutes) and quietly withdrawn for three.
Booked refetches availability the moment the customer changes the party size, so adding a person can wipe out most of the day. Expect far fewer bookable times for large parties — that is the maths, not a fault.
What the customer sees
On a service with group bookings on, the customer gets an extra step called How many people? It comes before the date and time, because the party size decides which slots are long enough.
Book this appointment for more than one person — you’ll all be seen back-to-back in one visit.
Who else is coming?
3 people · £54.00 total
The "How many people?" step, sitting ahead of the date and time.
- 1An extra step — it only appears on services where group bookings are switched on. Everything else books exactly as before.
- 2The party pills — one per person, 1 up to the maximum you set (4 here). The times on the next step are then looked up for that many people.
- 3The running total — the service price multiplied by the number of people, shown before they pick a time.
Under Who else is coming? there is a name box for each extra person — Person 2 name, Person 3 name and so on. The booker’s own details come in the usual step later, so a party of three asks for two extra names. The names are optional: Continue works with them blank, and a missing one appears as “Guest 3” in the confirmation email. The running summary beside the form adds a People line and multiplies the Duration.
What lands in your Bookings list
A group booking is a single row in Bookings and a single block in the Diary, saved at the service price multiplied by the number of people. In the list the customer’s name carries “×3”. Open it and the Customer section becomes People: “3 people”, “one appointment for all of them”, the person who Booked it, then the other names, which you can correct, remove or add to with Add a person. The header carries a 3 people pill.
Every email about the booking says who is coming too: the confirmation, the receipt, a change or a move, a cancellation and each reminder. Unless the template already uses {party_size}, {attendee_names} or {attendee_list}, Booked adds a Booked for 3 people panel: each name numbered, the booker marked “(you)”, and a line such as “3 × £18.00 = £54.00 · 1 hour in total, one after another”. Texts end “Booked for:” and the names. Your team’s alerts carry the same list, with the booker marked “(made the booking)”. To see it, open a booking email under Messages, pick A group of three in the list beside Preview, and press Preview.
Bookings you create yourself — with Add booking, from the Diary, or as a walk-in — start as one person. Press Make this a group booking in the Customer section to add people. The Length follows the head count (people × the service’s length, with no gap added) unless you have changed it by hand, but the Price does not: set it yourself. This works on any service, whatever its group setting, and is not held to the cap of 10.
Money, courses and the limits
The saved price scales with the party. The deposit does not — it is worked out from one person's price, even when the deposit is set to Full amount (100%).
| People | Clear time needed | Booking saved at | Taken by card | Due in the pharmacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30 min | £18.00 | £4.50 | £13.50 |
| 2 | 50 min | £36.00 | £4.50 | £31.50 |
| 3 | 70 min | £54.00 | £4.50 | £49.50 |
A 20-minute service at £18.00, 10-minute gap after, 25% deposit.
Booked Payments charges the deposit on one person’s price however large the party, and the sentence on the details step works the balance out the same way: a party of three is told “A £4.50 deposit secures your appointment. The £13.50 balance is due at your visit.” while the summary beside it shows a £54.00 total. The emails work from the full price, so the confirmation says “Left to pay at your appointment £49.50” and the receipt agrees. Have your team check the party size on the booking and take the rest at the counter.
A service set up under Repeat visits is always booked for one person. If group bookings are also on for it, the customer still sees the How many people? step and can pick 3 — and it is ignored without a word. Set courses to Off for this service.
One last thing: a group booking never creates a second slot, it lengthens one. Two people seen at the same time needs a second qualified, available member of staff.