Overview
Scheduled bookings are designed for typical operations where booking execution is planned for a future date and time.
Configuring Scheduled bookings
Scheduled booking settings are part of Ops configurations (Settings → Ops configuration). Because an Ops configuration is attached to a Service area, you can enable Scheduled bookings in some areas while keeping them disabled in others.
Time picker configuration
After enabling Scheduled bookings in the Ops configuration, you can review and adjust how available bookable times are displayed to customers in the Webbooker. There are three available values to configure:
- Increment. The gap between available times. The default value is 30 minutes, resulting in a list of times structured like this: 12:00, 12:30, 13:00, 13:30, etc.
- Lead time. The gap between the current time and the earliest available time. For example, if it’s currently 13:00 and the lead time is 30 minutes, the earliest available time will be 13:30.
- Show as timeslots. The option defines whether available times should be shown as timeslots. For example, “13:00-13:30” instead of “13:00”. Displaying times as timeslots can be helpful if you can’t guarantee arrival at the exact time but still want to maintain a good customer experience.
Carrying out a scheduled booking
When a Scheduled booking is created, the matching engine finds all eligible drivers and sends them a scheduled booking request, which they can accept or decline.
The action of accepting a scheduled booking request is called "claiming”. When a driver claims a booking, the request disappears from other drivers’ apps. The driver who claimed the booking becomes responsible for starting it on time.
Starting a claimed booking
A driver must manually start a claimed booking when it’s close to the scheduled time. If the driver doesn’t start the booking, it will be released and given to other drivers as a new booking request. The following values that determine this flow are configurable in the Ops configuration:
- Start time. This value defines how far in advance a driver can start a claimed booking. The default value is 60 minutes. At the start time, the driver will receive a push notification prompting them to start the booking.
- Expiration time. This value defines when a claimed booking should be released from a driver who claimed it but hasn’t started it. The default value is 30 minutes.
- Reminder time. This value defines when a driver should receive a push notification warning them that a claimed booking is about to expire. The default value is 5 minutes.
Rejecting a claimed booking
A driver can reject a claimed booking at any time. If this occurs, the booking will transition back to the Scheduled status and become available for claiming by eligible drivers again.
Drivers eligibility
A driver is eligible for a Scheduled booking request if they are in the Service area of a booking. By default, requested capabilities don’t impact eligibility. This means that a driver will receive a scheduled booking request even if they currently don't have matching capabilities. However, If your drivers always have the same capabilities, for example, each driver uses the same truck every day, you can enable this filtering. For that, please reach out to our Customer Success team.
Booking requests in the driver app
Scheduled booking requests are visible in the driver app regardless of whether the driver is online or offline. However, a push notification is only sent if a driver is online.
By default, the app displays the request in full-screen, but this can be changed to “banner-only” in the app settings.
On the dashboard
Once a driver accepts a scheduled booking request, the booking status changes from Scheduled to Claimed. It will remain Claimed until a driver starts the booking, which will change the status to En Route. Learn more about booking statuses.
