Work the public booking waitlist

Review customers who joined the online booking waitlist when nothing was available, invite them when a slot opens, convert them to a booking, or close the entry.

In the sidebar, open Operations, then Online Booking. The page address is /bookings/public-operations. The page opens on the Waitlist tab.

Before you start

• Your admin has to give your role permission to read the public booking waitlist. To invite, close or convert an entry you also need permission to manage it.
• Converting an entry straight into a booking needs the waitlist conversion feature on your plan. When it is off, a lock notice sits next to Waitlist queue.

Steps

1. Under Managed public surfaces, press the booking surface you want to work. Each card shows the surface name, its status, and Default or Branch-scoped when that applies. The Selected surface section confirms your choice.
2. On the left, press Waitlist.
3. Narrow the Waitlist queue with Status (open, invited, converted, closed, expired, duplicate), Service and Preferred date. Press Refresh to reload the list.
4. Read each entry: the customer's name, email and phone, the service they asked for, their preferred date, the status, and when they signed up. A review line means the customer still has an open identity review; see Resolve a public booking identity review.
5. When a slot opens, press Invite to tell the customer. The entry moves to invited.
6. To book the slot for them yourself, type the start in Conversion start time (UTC) in the format shown in the field, then press the Convert button that carries the customer's name under the list.
7. If the customer no longer needs the slot, press Close.

What you see

Nova confirms each action: the invitation is queued or the entry is marked as invited, the entry is converted and a booking now exists on the Schedule calendar, or the entry is closed. Invite and Close only work on open or invited entries. The Convert buttons show for the first three open or invited entries in the list.

The other tabs on this page are Identity Reviews, Payment Approvals and Support Tools. Open settings and Open analytics in the header take you to the surface's settings and its analytics.

If something looks different

• The page says no booking surfaces are available yet: nobody has set up online booking. Ask your admin.
• Convert stays disabled: fill in Conversion start time (UTC) first, or the conversion feature is off for your plan.
• Nova says you do not have permission to manage waitlist entries: your role can read the queue but not act on it.
• The list says no waitlist entries exist for this surface yet: try another surface, or clear Status and Preferred date.