Bookings Module Update: Creating Bookings Without an Assignee and Unassigned Bookings in Calendar

We've updated the booking workflow in RO App. You can now create bookings without assigning them to a specific employee right away. This is especially useful for businesses that first accept a client's request and decide later who will perform the work.

Previously, clients using Online Booking had to choose an employee, and the Assignee field was required when creating a booking in the system. This made it difficult to support workflows where bookings are reviewed, qualified, or distributed only after additional information is collected.

With this update, you can create bookings without an assignee, view them in both the Calendar and Bookings table, and assign them later when you're ready.

Many businesses don't assign work to a specific employee as soon as a booking is made. Instead, they first need to confirm the request, clarify the scope of work, assess its complexity, or check staff availability.

For example, a client may book diagnostics, a consultation, a preliminary inspection, or a general service. At that stage, it may not yet be clear which employee is the best fit. Once the details are confirmed, a manager or administrator can assign the booking to the appropriate team member.

This update helps you:

A new Show employee selection step setting is now available under Settings > Public Pages > Online Booking page.

By default, this setting is enabled, so your existing Online Booking flow remains unchanged: clients select an employee, a service, and an available time slot.

If you disable this setting, the employee selection step is removed from the booking flow. After choosing a location and service, clients will immediately see available time slots based on the location's working hours. The booking will then be created without an assignee.

When the employee selection step is disabled, available time slots are generated based on the location's working hours rather than individual employee schedules.

This means clients see the location's general availability instead of the schedule of a specific employee.

This approach is ideal for businesses that use Online Booking as an initial request or time reservation rather than as a final appointment with a specific specialist.

The Assignee field is no longer required when creating a booking manually.

Simply leave the field empty to create an unassigned booking. You can complete all other booking details as usual and assign the booking later, once you've determined who should handle the job.

To make unassigned bookings easy to manage, Calendar now includes a dedicated Not assigned section.

This section appears at the top of the employee view and contains all bookings that have not yet been assigned to an employee, making it easy for managers to see which requests still need to be distributed.

In the daily, weekly, and monthly Calendar views, you can also filter the schedule to display only unassigned bookings.

A customer books vehicle diagnostics or a preliminary inspection. At the time of booking, it's not yet clear whether the job will require an auto electrician, engine specialist, suspension technician, or another expert.

With unassigned bookings, the workshop can accept the request first and assign it to the right technician after the inspection.

A client books an initial consultation without choosing a specific specialist. An administrator later assigns the booking to a doctor, therapist, beautician, or consultant based on availability, specialisation, and workload.

This workflow is ideal for clinics, beauty salons, and wellness centres.

A customer requests an installation, on-site repair, or maintenance visit. Before assigning the job, the business needs to confirm the address, assess the work required, or determine which team is available.

Managers can accept the booking first and assign it once the details are confirmed.

A customer books diagnostics for a phone, laptop, or other device. The appropriate technician may not be known until the device has been inspected.

The administrator can accept the booking without assigning it immediately and later route it to the right specialist based on the repair requirements and current workload.

We've also updated the Public API to support unassigned bookings. For bookings without an assignee, the assignee_id field will return null in booking retrieval methods. When creating a booking through the API, the assignee_id field is no longer required.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback about this update, please contact us through the Support chat.