Set up a public booking page

Create a booking surface, name it, choose which services customers can book on it, write the headline they see, then publish it so customers can book online.

In the sidebar, open Settings, then choose Online Booking under Website & Forms. The page address is /settings/org/public-booking.

Nova calls each public booking page a surface. Most companies need one. You might add a second for another branch, another brand, or a campaign with its own look.

Before you start

• Your role needs permission to read public booking settings to open the page, and permission to write them to save. A yellow banner tells you when you can only read.
• Customers can only book the services you have set up as offerings with public booking allowed. See Create an offering.
• Booking hours, lead time and blackout dates for online booking are set on the Availability tab, for the whole organization, a branch or one service. They are shared by every surface and do not limit your own Schedule.

Steps

1. Under Managed public surfaces, press the surface you want to change, or press Create surface to add one (Nova names it something like Booking Surface 1).
2. On the Details tab, under Identity, scope, and presentation, type a Surface title (customers do not see this). The Surface key is a short name that tells surfaces apart in reports; it is not part of the web address.
3. Pick a Branch scope if the page should only book work for one branch. Leave All branches otherwise.
4. Under Allowed services, the box shows how many services are picked, or that all active services are allowed. To change it, press Manage services, pick services on the Services tab, press Save service selection, then come back to Details.
5. Turn on Default Booking surface if this is your main page.
6. Type a Hero title and Hero subtitle (the headline and line under it on the customer page) and a Success message for after they book. Booking times are always shown in your business's local time with no time zone. When you leave the subtitle empty, a visitor whose device is set to another time zone sees which one the times are in, for example "Times are in Eastern time."
7. Under Legal policy links, each policy starts on Use canonical default. Pick Use policy page to link one of your published pages, or Use external URL for a page on your own site.
8. Under Surface access policy, keep Hosted page on.
9. Press Save surface.
10. When you are ready, press Publish in the surface header, and the hosted page goes live. Turning on Enable public booking and pressing Save surface does the same.

What you see

• Each tab beside the surface (Details, Services, Flow, Availability, Delivery and the rest) has its own save button. Save one tab before moving to the next.
• The header shows Publish while a surface is offline and Disable once it is live. Archive takes it out of use; Restore brings it back offline.
• The default surface answers your main booking address; other surfaces get their own. Copy it from the Delivery tab.
• If your booking flow asks customers to upload files, customers can remove an unused upload before booking. It moves to Trash. Files already attached to a booking stay with that booking.
• Open operations takes you to the waitlist, identity reviews and payment approvals for bookings that came in. See Approve a public booking.

If something looks different

• Create surface is missing: your role cannot write public booking settings.
• A tab is greyed out: that tab needs a permission your role does not have.
• Your edits vanished after you pressed a header button: those buttons reload the surface and drop unsaved changes. Press Save surface first.
• The hosted page shows nothing after you publish: check that Enable public booking is on and Hosted page is on under Surface access policy.
• A note says the surface is scoped to an inactive branch: pick a different Branch scope or reactivate the branch.
• You want the page inside your own website rather than on Nova's address: see Put your booking page on your website.

Open Public Booking