Approve a booking request without leaving the chat

Released 3 September 2026

A booking request used to be something you spotted in the chat and answered somewhere else. Now you answer it where you found it.

What's new

• Approve and Decline, in the card. When a booking needs your say-so, its card in the chat thread carries both buttons at the bottom. Press one and the card becomes a confirmation, or strikes through — and the customer gets exactly the same email and calendar invitation as if you had answered from the diary.
• The card tells you when it is yours. If the booking is with you, it says Assigned to you above the buttons.

Worth knowing

• Anyone who can manage appointments can answer any request. The "Assigned to you" line is a signpost for whoever is scanning the thread, not a lock. This matters more than it sounds: somebody on your rota who never signs in here — a visiting stylist, a doctor who only ever sees the diary you print — has no way to answer their own requests. If only the person named could decide, theirs would sit waiting on nobody.
• Declining from the chat sends no reason. It is the quick no. When you want to tell the customer why, decline from the requests queue in the diary instead — that is where the box for it lives, and what you type goes into their email.
• If you may only look at the diary, the card points you to it rather than showing you a button that would turn you down.
• Two people can be in the same thread. If a colleague answers first, the card says so instead of pretending it worked.