How to add a booking calendar to your website

Decide how bookings should work

Requests or instant bookings: An instant booking is a promise: the slot is yours. That only works if the calendar knows your real availability. A request ("Request this time") lets you confirm by reply, which suits anyone whose diary also fills by phone or walk-in.
Booking window: How far ahead people can book. Too short and regulars can't plan; too long and you're committed to dates before you know your holidays. Many service businesses use somewhere between four and twelve weeks.
Notice period: The minimum gap between booking and appointment. Same-day bookings are great for a barber, impossible for a caterer.
Services and durations: List what people can book and how long each takes. If times vary widely, show fewer, clearer options rather than every combination.

Add it, step by step

Write down your rules first: services, durations, the days and times you take bookings, the window and the notice period.
Choose the tool. A website builder's built-in calendar keeps everything in one place. A dedicated scheduling service is better if you need calendar sync, staff rotas or deposits. A simple enquiry form is enough if you book fewer than a handful of appointments a week.
Put it where people decide. The booking section belongs next to your services and prices, and the main button on the page should lead to it.
Ask for the minimum. Name, email, phone if you'll actually ring, the service, the day and the time. Every extra field loses bookings.
Say what happens next right under the button: "We'll confirm by email within a working day", or "Your slot is held; we'll be in touch to confirm." Only promise an automatic email if your tool really sends one.
Route the bookings to where you'll see them fast: email, a team chat, or a spreadsheet you check every morning.
Make a test booking for tomorrow and for the furthest date allowed, and check both arrive.

The booking calendar in Anticode

In Anticode, a booking calendar is one of the must-haves you can tick in the plan, and the booking app kind is built around it. Visitors choose a service, a day and one of six fixed times (09:00, 10:30, 12:00, 14:30, 16:00 and 17:30; Mondays are skipped) and send the booking. You can't set your own hours, slot lengths or closed days, so check those times suit you before you rely on it. A few rules are built in:

The days stay current. The calendar always shows the coming days, even weeks after you published, so it never offers last month's dates.
Out-of-range dates are refused. Dates in the past or more than 120 days ahead are rejected by the server, even if someone edits the page in their browser.
No double booking. Two visitors can't take the same slot; the second is turned away.
Bookings reach you. Each one is saved with your project, sealed at rest, and can be emailed to you. You can also send it on through a connector: Slack, Discord, Telegram, Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, HubSpot or any webhook.

Anticode doesn't email the visitor: each booking reaches you, and you confirm it yourself by email or phone. The generated thank-you and FAQ text mention a confirmation email, so edit that wording to say what you'll actually do, such as replying within a working day. You can also attach a site function to the booking form: the slot check runs first, then the function, which can refuse the booking with its own message (a signed call to your own endpoint could turn away a day you're away, for example) or show a message on the thank-you page. If you need bookings checked against your own diary without building that endpoint, a dedicated scheduling service is the better fit.

Mistakes that cost bookings

Offering times you can't keep. If you also take phone bookings, treat online bookings as requests until you've confirmed them.
Hiding the calendar. If the booking section is below a long about section, many visitors never reach it. Link to it from the top of the page.
No confirmation message. People book twice when they aren't sure the first one worked.
Silence after booking. Reply the same day. A booking with no answer is a lost customer.
No cancellation terms. Say how to cancel or change a booking and how much notice you need.

Check it worked

On the live site, book the first available slot and confirm the submission appears in the dashboard and in your email or connector. Try booking the same slot again from another browser; it should be refused. Open the page on a phone and make sure the day and time choices are large enough to tap without zooming. Then ask a friend to book without help, and watch where they hesitate.

Limits

Anticode's booking calendar is deliberately simple. It doesn't take deposits, doesn't sync with Google Calendar or Outlook, and doesn't manage staff rotas or multiple rooms. It won't send confirmations or reminders to customers, and it uses its six fixed times rather than your own hours. If no-shows are a real cost for you, or several people share one diary, use a dedicated scheduling service and link to it from your site. For deposits, a separate payment link can work alongside the calendar, but the two aren't connected.

Questions people ask

Can customers cancel online?

Not through the built-in calendar. Tell people on the page how to cancel, such as replying to the email you send to confirm the booking.

How far ahead can people book?

With Anticode's calendar, up to 120 days. Dates beyond that, or in the past, are refused.

Where do bookings go?

They're saved with the project and shown in the dashboard. Switch on email notifications or a connector to have each one sent to you as it arrives.