Reservations

Reservations let customers book a service and a time in advance. Staff serve those bookings beside walk-ins in the same queue. This guide covers the setup, the day-to-day management, what customers and staff see, and the limits.

What reservations are

Reservations are included in the Pro plan. See Billing and plans for plans. You turn reservations on for each queue with Accept reservations. It is off by default, and then customers cannot book a time. When it is on, a queue runs in one of two modes:

• Reservations and walk-ins lets booked customers and walk-ins share one queue. Jonot refuses a walk-in ticket that would delay a booked customer.
• Reservations only lets only customers with a booking join the queue.

Set up reservations

Open the location, go to Reservation settings, and choose the queue. Org-managers and location-managers can edit these settings. If your Pro plan ends, Jonot turns reservations off. Confirmed bookings stay on record and can still be served or cancelled, but you cannot add services, rules or new bookings.

1. Services. Under Services, add each service customers can book. Set its Duration from 5 to 480 minutes in steps of 5, and optionally a Preparation time and a Cleanup time of up to 120 minutes each. Preparation and cleanup time block the schedule before and after each booking. A queue can have up to 100 services, archived ones included.
2. Booking rules. Under Booking rules, set the Capacity (1 to 50 bookings served at the same time), the Booking horizon (1 to 365 days ahead, 30 by default), the Minimum notice (up to 1,440 minutes, 30 by default), and Check-in opens before the booked time (5 to 120 minutes, 30 by default). Times follow the location time zone.
3. Booking terms. Under Booking terms, write your cancellation, no-show and lateness terms (up to 2,000 characters). Save a draft, then use Publish version. Customers accept the published terms when they book, and an existing booking keeps the version the customer accepted. Terms are optional.
4. Booking questions. Under Booking questions, ask up to 5 active questions for each service. A question is short text, a choice, or checkboxes (2 to 10 choices, or none for a single yes/no box). You can make a question required, translate it into each language of the location, and retire it. A customer who uses a language you did not translate sees the original text. The text, type and choices of a question cannot be changed after you add it, so retire it and add a new one instead. You can still edit its translations.
5. Venue details. Under Venue details, enter an address (up to 300 characters) and instructions to read before arrival (up to 1,000 characters). Customers see both, and Jonot adds them to the calendar entry. Both are optional.
6. Blocked dates. Under Blocked dates, close a date for bookings or give it other hours. Choose a date from yesterday up to one year ahead.
7. Arrival assistance. Under Arrival assistance, turn on Offer location-assisted arrival, enter the venue latitude and longitude, and set a radius from 25 to 1,000 metres. A customer who allows location access can then check in near the venue. Checking in by hand always works.

Turn on Accept reservations last. Jonot lists what is missing: at least one active service, weekly opening hours, a valid time zone, and a capacity of at least 1. When you turn reservations off, bookings that are already confirmed stay on record until their time has passed.

A change can leave existing bookings outside the opening hours or capacity, for example a shorter day, a lower capacity, a longer service, or a blocked date. In that case Jonot opens Review affected bookings and lists each affected booking. For each one, you keep it, cancel it, or move it to another time. Jonot notifies the customer by email about a cancellation or a move. Nothing changes until you choose Apply decisions and save.

Manage bookings

Open Bookings in the location to see a day or a week of bookings for one queue. Show cancelled adds cancelled bookings to the list. Select a booking to see its detail page. The page shows the service, time, arrival, customer details, and the status of the emails Jonot queued for the booking. Only people who manage the location see the customer details.

• Move booking changes the time. A staff move skips the customer cutoff, the minimum notice and the booking window, but never the capacity, the opening hours or a closed day. The customer receives a change email with the new time.
• Cancel booking cancels the booking after you check the terms recorded for it. The customer receives a cancellation email.
• Close bookings for this day stops new bookings for one day, for example for a holiday. Bookings already made are not cancelled, and walk-ins are not affected. If bookings remain on that day, Jonot asks you to keep or cancel each one. Reopen bookings opens the day again.

A booking that has no recorded outcome 7 days after its end closes without outcome. This is not a no-show. Jonot erases a booking’s customer details, answers and terms acknowledgement under a 30-day retention rule, and the manage link then stops working.

The customer’s view

On the queue page, the customer chooses Book a time and goes through these steps:

1. Choose a service, a date and a time. Times are shown in the venue time zone.
2. Enter a name and an email address. A phone number is optional. Then answer your booking questions and accept the terms.
3. Enter the 6-digit code Jonot emails to the customer. Jonot holds the chosen time for 10 minutes while the customer confirms.
4. Read the confirmation, which shows the booking number and a private link to the booking page. The booking number replaces the name at the venue.

The emailed link opens the booking page. Anyone who has the link can change or cancel the booking, so the page asks the customer to keep it private. The page offers these actions:

• Add to calendar saves an ICS calendar file with the time, the place and the booking link.
• Change time picks another time, up to the minimum notice before the booking starts. If the terms changed since the booking, the customer accepts the current terms first.
• Cancel booking cancels the booking until the appointment starts. After staff call the customer, only staff can change the booking.
• I'm here checks the customer in once check-in has opened. With arrival assistance on, the customer can share the location instead. The phone checks the distance and Jonot never receives or keeps the location.

Jonot records the language the customer used to book, within the languages your location enables. The booking page and the emails use that language. Jonot sends a confirmation, a change notice, a cancellation notice and a reminder about 24 hours before the booking. The reminder is sent only for bookings made or last moved at least a day ahead.

At the desk

The desk lists bookings beside walk-ins in call order. Each booking shows a status, such as Not arrived, Arrived, Due now, Late or Called.

• Call next calls the due bookings first, then walk-ins in arrival order.
• Call early calls a customer who has arrived before the booked time. Jonot refuses it when it would delay another booking or a waiting walk-in.
• Mark arrived marks a customer as arrived when the customer cannot check in alone. Undo arrival reverses it.
• Mark no-show… marks a no-show. Jonot never does this on its own. You can mark a booking that is at least 5 minutes late and has not arrived, or a customer you called who did not answer.
• Reschedule… moves a booking to another free time. Jonot emails the customer.
• Look up booking finds today’s booking in this queue by booking number or name.
• Close bookings for today stops new bookings for today. Existing bookings are still served.

Display and kiosk

The display shows bookings as a booking badge in Up next and Recently called. Up next also shows the estimated time when a booking runs at least 5 minutes late, and the multi-queue board shows a note when bookings run behind. Recently called shows the time since the call. The kiosk does not take bookings. On a reservations-only queue, a customer who tries to join on an online kiosk sees a message that the queue accepts bookings only, and the kiosk issues no ticket.

Limits

• Jonot does not collect payments or deposits. Your terms can state fees, but Jonot neither calculates nor charges them. You handle fees outside Jonot.
• Booking and managing bookings need an internet connection. Host LAN and offline mode do not cover booking. Walk-in service keeps working offline through a connected Host, including on queues that take reservations, and the desk shows reservation data as read-only until the connection returns.
• Jonot does not sync with Google Calendar or Outlook. Customers add a booking with the ICS file.
• Jonot sends booking messages by email only. There is no SMS.