Multi-location and multi-provider setup

Model places first

Create one location row per place people actually show up - including a “Virtual” location if you do Meet/Teams visits. Mixing virtual into a street address without a separate row is how join links go missing and confirmations say “come to 123 Main” for a Zoom call.

Put real addresses, phone numbers, and location-specific hours on each row. The agent will quote what you stored. If Downtown closes at 5 and Uptown at 7, that has to live in the location/provider hours - not in a hope that staff will catch it.

Attach people carefully

Providers attach to the locations they cover. Someone who works Downtown Monday-Wednesday and Uptown Thursday-Friday needs hours in both places. Otherwise the agent offers Downtown on Thursday and the customer drives to an empty building.

Map services to the providers who actually deliver them. If only two clinicians do new-patient exams, don’t leave every provider mapped “just in case.” Broad maps create bookings your team will cancel manually - which teaches customers not to trust the bot.

For specialists who only take referrals, keep that service off the public bookable list or require a human handoff in instructions. The product will book what you make bookable.

Hours hygiene

Review the calendar UI every week for the first month. Ghost availability almost always traces to copy-pasted hours, a leftover template from a provider who left, or a location that inherited someone else’s Saturday shift.

Use unavailable blocks for vacations instead of deleting the weekly template. Deleting the template is how Monday morning returns with zero hours and a full voicemail box of confused people.

When a location temporarily closes, mark it unavailable rather than hoping the agent “knows.” It doesn’t know unless you tell it in hours or knowledge - and hours win for booking.

Related guides

• Connect Google or Microsoft calendars - OAuth setup, provider mapping, busy-block checks, and the common mistakes that create ghost calendar availability in AptaBook.
• Public booking page setup - Find the public org booking URL, what visitors choose, form-field traps, and why you still want chat beside the booking link.
• Go-live checklist for first bookings - The go-live order we recommend when a new org wants chat live today and phone soon after - without skipping calendar truth or hours.
• Train on websites and documents - How website crawl and document uploads feed every AptaBook channel - and how to spot stale content before customers hear the wrong answer.