Appointments
Toggle whether the phone assistant should be able to book appointment / reservations, as well as third party calendar provider integration.
Overview
If your business does not take appointments or reservations, you can skip this section.
The phone assistant can accept booking requests even without a connected calendar. Once an appointment is booked by the assistant, you can manually enter it into your own system or a physical paper calendar.
However, if you want advanced features like real-time availability checks, conflict prevention, and live schedule lookups, we highly recommend to sign up and link to a third-party calendar provider. Many popular options, such as Google Calendar and Outlook, are completely free to use. Integrating with Google Calendar, Outlook, or Calendly allows the phone assistant to seamlessly book appointments directly into your schedule automatically.
Open this page at: i118.ai/app/appointments
Allow Appointments
This toggle — shown under the Appointment / Reservation Setting heading — enables or disables the phone assistant's ability to book appointments over the phone. When enabled, the phone assistant can take appointment requests. When this toggle is off, the phone assistant will not offer appointment booking to callers even if a calendar is connected.
Require Credit Card for Appointment
This toggle appears only when Allow Appointments is enabled. When turned on, the phone assistant asks callers for credit card information during the appointment process. To retrieve the card details, listen to the call recording.
You can add an instruction in the Business Info section to let the callers know the reason and the amount — for example, charges for no-shows or late cancellations.
(Ensure you comply with PCI-DSS requirements and your local regulations before enabling this feature. Test thoroughly before going live.)
Additional settings
When Allow Appointments is enabled but no calendar provider is connected yet, an Additional Settings accordion appears where you can configure:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Minimum lead time before booking | The buffer period a business or service requires between when a customer makes a reservation and the earliest possible appointment time. It prevents last-minute or same-day appointments, giving providers time to prepare. |
| Max days pre-booking allowed | The maximum number of days in advance that a business or service allows customers to book an appointment/reservation. (e.g., 30 days means not allowing booking appointments more than 30 days ahead) |
These settings apply when the phone assistant uses your Hours of Operation for availability instead of a connected calendar.
After saving, click Save Settings at the top of the page (these settings are saved separately from the integration settings below).
Integrations
Appointments integration lets the phone assistant check availability and book appointments during phone calls. The phone assistant reads your calendar in real time, offers available slots, and creates the booking — all without human involvement.
Google Calendar and Outlook offer free connections. Calendly requires the standard plan or higher to use the integration feature.
Where to Set Up Your Appointment Integrations
You can configure appointment integrations in one of two places, depending on your setup:
| Setup path | Use when |
|---|---|
| Appointments page | Use this if you are connecting a standalone calendar provider (Google Calendar, Outlook, or Calendly). |
| POS page: Use POS appointments | Use this if your appointment or reservation requests should be handled directly through your point-of-sale system (Square or Clover). |
Mutual Exclusivity:Standalone calendar integrations and POS appointments are mutually exclusive—only one scheduling path can be active at a time. If you currently have a standalone calendar connected here, you must disconnect it before you can enable "Use POS appointments" on the POS settings page (and vice versa).
Configuration Source of Truth:Even when POS appointments are active, this page remains the primary source of truth for your booking rules. The only exception is Square (with both a Service and a Team Member selected), which hands off availability and lead-time/booking-window rules to Square’s native calendar.
For all other POS setups—including Clover, or Square without a service/team member selected—the following settings are managed entirely right here on the Appointments page, and your availability will automatically follow your regular Hours of Operation:
-
Allow Appointments
-
Require Credit Card for Appointment
-
Minimum lead time before booking
-
Maximum booking window
Enable Appointments
Before connecting a calendar provider, you must first enable the appointment feature using the toggles at the top of the page.
Connecting a calendar provider
Below the appointment toggles, you will see buttons for each supported provider. You can only be connected to one provider at a time — once connected, the other provider buttons are disabled.
Connecting Google Calendar
YouTube playback quality may be low by default. Use the ⚙️ to switch to 1080p manually if needed. To toggle closed captions, click the 🇨🇨.
Click Connect Google Calendar
On the Appointments page, click Connect Google Calendar.
Sign in to Google
You will be redirected to Google's authorization page. Sign in with the Google account that owns the calendar you want the phone assistant to use.
Grant calendar permissions
Allow the phone assistant to read and write events on your calendar.
Select a calendar
If your Google account has multiple calendars, select the one the phone assistant should book into from the Calendar dropdown.
Configure booking settings
Set your duration, meeting location, and other preferences (see settings below).
Test
Go to Test Simulator, enable "Enable real submission" to POS and integrations, and try booking a test appointment.
Connected state
Once connected, you will see:
-
The connected account Name and Email
-
A green Connected to Google Calendar banner
-
Reauthenticate button — refreshes your Google OAuth connection
-
Disconnect button — removes the Google Calendar connection entirely
Google Calendar availability is based on your Hours of Operation, not Google Calendar's built-in working hours. Make sure your Hours of Operation are configured correctly.
Google Calendar settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Calendar | Select which Google Calendar the phone assistant reads and writes to. You can choose any calendar from your Google account. |
| Duration | Default appointment length. Presets: 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120 minutes. Or choose Custom and enter any value (minimum 15 minutes, maximum 1 day). Custom durations can be specified in minutes, hours, or days. |
| Meeting Location | Optional text that appears on the calendar event (e.g., your office address or "Phone call"). Maximum 500 characters. |
| Existing appointment handling | Select whether overlapping appointments are allowed when checking availability and creating reservations. |
| Ignore existing calendar conflicts | When enabled, availability uses only your booking window and hours of operation, and does not block times because of existing calendar events or buffer time. When disabled, the phone assistant respects existing events. |
Additional settings (accordion)
Expand the Additional Settings accordion to configure:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Minimum lead time before booking | How far in advance an appointment must be booked (between 0 minutes and 10 days) |
| Maximum booking window | How far into the future the phone assistant can book (between 15 minutes and 365 days) |
| Buffer Time | Add time between appointment slots to avoid back-to-back bookings (between 15 minutes and 4 hours). Only shown when Ignore existing calendar conflicts is off. |
Connecting Outlook Calendar
YouTube playback quality may be low by default. Use the ⚙️ to switch to 1080p manually if needed. To toggle closed captions, click the 🇨🇨.
Click Connect Outlook
On the Appointments page, click Connect Outlook.
Sign in to Microsoft
You will be redirected to Microsoft's authorization page. Sign in with your Microsoft account.
⚠️ Please Note: Microsoft requires you to use a work or school account for this integration. Personal Microsoft accounts cannot be used to sign in.
Grant calendar permissions
Allow the phone assistant to read and write calendar events.
Configure booking settings
Set your preferences (see settings below).
Test
Go to Test Simulator, enable "Enable real submission" to POS and integrations, and try booking a test appointment.
Connected state
Similar to Google Calendar — you will see account details, a green connected banner, and Reauthenticate / Disconnect buttons.
Outlook Calendar availability is based on your Hours of Operation, not Outlook's built-in working hours. Make sure your Hours of Operation are configured correctly.
Outlook Calendar settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Calendar | Outlook integration is locked to your primary calendar. Unlike Google Calendar, you cannot select a different calendar. |
| Duration | Same presets (15/30/45/60/90/120 min) and Custom option as Google Calendar. |
| Meeting Location | Optional text for the calendar event location. Maximum 500 characters. |
| Existing appointment handling | Select whether overlapping appointments are allowed when checking availability and creating reservations. |
| Ignore existing calendar conflicts | Same behavior as Google Calendar — when enabled, availability uses only your booking window and hours of operation and ignores existing calendar events and buffer time. |
Additional settings (accordion)
Same as Google Calendar:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Minimum lead time before booking | How far in advance an appointment must be booked (between 0 minutes and 10 days) |
| Maximum booking window | How far into the future the phone assistant can book (between 15 minutes and 365 days) |
| Buffer Time | Add time between appointment slots to avoid back-to-back bookings (between 15 minutes and 4 hours; only shown when Ignore existing calendar conflicts is off) |
Connecting Calendly
YouTube playback quality may be low by default. Use the ⚙️ to switch to 1080p manually if needed. To toggle closed captions, click the 🇨🇨.
Click Connect Calendly
On the Appointments page, click Connect Calendly.
Authorize
Sign in to Calendly and grant permission for the phone assistant to access your event types and scheduling.
⚠️ Please Note: Calendly integration requires a Calendly Standard plan or higher (paid plan). The Calendly free plan does not support API access needed for this integration.
Select event types
Choose which Calendly event types the phone assistant should use for phone bookings. You must select at least one event type.
Test
Go to Test Simulator, enable "Enable real submission" to POS and integrations, and try booking a test appointment.
Connected state
Once connected, you will see:
-
The connected account Name and Email
-
Calendly Organization URI and User URI
-
A green Connected to Calendly banner
-
Reauthenticate and Disconnect buttons
Calendly manages its own availability, duration, and buffer settings. These are configured in Calendly, not in this dashboard. You will not see Duration, Meeting Location, Ignore existing calendar conflicts, or Buffer Time settings when connected to Calendly.
Calendly event types
After connecting, a multi-select dropdown lets you choose which Calendly event types the phone assistant can book. You can select multiple event types.
-
Click Resync data to pull the latest event types from Calendly after making changes there
-
You must select at least one event type
After making changes in Calendly (adding/removing event types, changing availability), click Resync data on this page to resync.
Calendly requirements
For the phone assistant integration to work correctly with Calendly:
-
Standard plan or higher — API access is required
-
Event types must be free — the phone assistant cannot process paid Calendly events
-
All questions should be optional — required custom questions may block bookings since the phone assistant collects information verbally and maps it to standard fields
-
Add a "Summary" question — if you want the phone assistant to pass a booking summary to Calendly, add a custom question titled "Summary" to your event type. The phone assistant will populate this with the caller's details.
How appointment booking works
-
Caller asks to book an appointment
-
The phone assistant checks your connected calendar for available slots (using your Hours of Operation for Google/Outlook, or Calendly's own availability)
-
The phone assistant offers available times to the caller
-
Caller selects a time
-
The phone assistant creates the event on your calendar and confirms with the caller
-
You receive a notification with the booking details