Appointments

Overview

The Appointments feature in Modern Events Calendar (MEC) allows users to book time-specific slots for appointments, such as doctor visits, hair salon sessions, or any other one-on-one or limited-seat service that requires time-based booking. Unlike regular event bookings, appointments are structured around fixed time slots with customizable durations and availability schedules.

How to Enable Appointments

1. Go to MEC Settings > Booking > Appointments.
   
2. Check the Enable box to activate the Appointments feature.
   
3. A new Appointments tab will appear when creating or editing events.
   

Note: The following features cannot be used in conjunction with Appointments due to incompatibility:

• Event Repeating
  
• Hourly Schedule
  
• SEO Schema / Event Status

Setting Up Appointments in Events

Once enabled, a new interface appears in the Event Edit > Date and Time section, with two tabs:

• Event: Contains the original Date & Time settings that were previously part of the general event setup.
• Appointment: Where you define appointment-specific options.
  

Appointment Settings

Appointment Duration

• Defines how long each time slot will be.
• Available durations: 10 minutes up to 4 hours.
• Buffer time between appointments

This option lets you set a short break between consecutive appointments. The buffer time is defined in minutes and is applied after each appointment before the next one can start.

If each appointment lasts 1 hour and you set a buffer of 10 minutes, a booking from 10:00 to 11:00 will automatically block the next available slot until 11:10.

Availability

• Type: Repeat Weekly.
• You can define one or two time ranges per day (e.g., 9:00–17:00 and 19:00–22:00).
• Add or remove time ranges using the + and 🗑 icons.
  
  

Adjusted Availability

Adjusted Availability allows you to change your availability for specific dates without affecting your regular weekly schedule.

You can:

• Shorten or extend your available hours for a specific date.
• Add multiple availability ranges for a single date.
• Temporarily mark a specific date as unavailable.

If your default availability is 8:00 – 18:20, you can set 8:00 – 15:20 for a specific date, without changing the default hours for other days.

Controls:

+ Plus Icon: Add another availability range for the same date.

🗑 Left Trash Icon: Mark the selected date as Unavailable (no bookings allowed).

🗑 Right Trash Icon: Delete the adjusted availability entry entirely.

Note: Adjusted Availability always overrides your weekly availability for the selected date.

Multiple Appointment Selection (Optional)

To allow booking of multiple slots:

1. Go to MEC Settings > Booking > Booking.
2. Set Date Selection to Checkboxes instead of Dropdown or Calendar.
   

Once enabled:

• Users can choose multiple time slots on the frontend using checkboxes.
  
• Works like selecting multiple tickets or occurrences in standard event bookings.

Best for clients who may want multiple consecutive or non-consecutive appointments.

Frontend Booking Behavior

Depending on your configuration:

• Dropdown or Calendar selection: user can choose only one time slot.

• Checkboxes selection: user can pick multiple time slots.

All available slots are generated based on the Appointment Duration and Availability settings.

Use Cases

• Personal consultations
  
• Salons & barbers
  
• One-on-one tutoring/coaching
  
• Any service requiring exact time-slot bookings

Limitations and Notes

• Event Repeating is disabled
  
• Hourly Schedule view is incompatible
  
• Event Status and SEO Schema won’t work
  
• Not compatible with recurring/multi-day events