Managing Bookings
The Calendar Dashboard lets you view, search, sort, approve, reject, cancel, reschedule, and export every PCPI Calendar booking without entering wp-admin.
New here? Start with the Getting Started Guide for a step-by-step walkthrough of creating a booking type and getting a working booking link.
Status tabs
All, Upcoming, Pending, Past, Cancelled, and Rejected — each tab shows a live count and filters the table instantly. “Past” means a confirmed booking whose start time has already passed, not just any older booking.
Searching and sorting
Use the search box to filter by guest name, email, or booking type — matches appear across every page at once, so pagination is hidden automatically while a search is active. Click the Guest or Date & Time column header to sort.
List and Calendar view
The two icons next to the search box switch between a sortable list and a full month-grid calendar. Calendar view shows up to three bookings per day (color-coded by status) with a “+N more” indicator, and clicking any booking, “+N more,” or the day number opens the same detail view as the list — “+N more” and the day number open a Day Detail list first if there’s more than one. Cancelled and rejected bookings are left out of the calendar view — use the status tabs in list view to review those.
Exporting bookings
Click the download icon next to the search box to export a CSV — Guest Name, Guest Email, Booking Type, Date & Time, Status, Payment Status, and Amount. The export respects whichever status tab and search filter you currently have applied, and always includes every matching booking rather than only the current page.
Adding a booking
Click + Add Booking to create one on a guest’s behalf — choose the booking type, enter the guest’s name/email/phone, pick a date and time from the same live availability calendar guests use, set the status, and optionally send a confirmation email.
Viewing a booking
Click View on any row to see the full booking detail — guest contact info, date and time in the guest’s own timezone, payment status, and any custom question answers collected at booking time.
Approving, rejecting, and cancelling
- Approve — confirms a pending booking. The guest receives their confirmation email with calendar invite.
- Reject — declines a pending booking. You may include a reason, which is included in the guest’s notification.
- Cancel — cancels a pending or confirmed booking.
Rescheduling
Click Reschedule to pick a new date and time from the same live availability calendar guests see when booking — you cannot double-book a slot. The guest is notified of the new time automatically.
Email notifications
This dashboard doesn’t send emails itself — every action below calls PCPI Calendar’s own notification system directly, the same one used for bookings made through the public widget.
| Action | Who’s notified | What they get |
|---|---|---|
| New booking created (pending or auto-confirmed) | Guest | “Booking Request Received” if it needs approval, or “Booking Confirmed” with a calendar invite if it doesn’t. |
| Host | A “New Booking” email — only if that booking type has “Send me an email notification for each new booking” turned on (on by default). Any CC addresses set on the booking type get a copy too. | |
| Approve | Guest | A “Booking Confirmed” email with a calendar invite. The host isn’t re-notified — they already got the New Booking email above. |
| Reject | Guest | A “Booking Request Declined” email, including your reason if you added one. |
| Cancel | Guest and Host | Both receive a “Booking Cancelled” email, regardless of who cancelled it. |
| Reschedule | Guest | A “Booking Rescheduled” email with the new date and time. No re-approval is needed for reschedules done from this dashboard. |
| Add Booking (created here by a Manager) | Guest, and Host/CC if applicable | Only if “Send confirmation” is checked — same guest email as a new booking above, and the same host/CC rules apply if that toggle is on for the booking type. |
| Reminders | Guest or Host | Sent automatically before or after a booking’s start time — 24 hours and 1 hour before by default, or whatever reminders are set up on the Reminders page. |
Note: cancelling from this dashboard sends the host a plain “Booking Cancelled” email, not “Booking Cancelled by Guest” — that mislabeling (present in PCPI Calendar 1.10.8 and earlier) is fixed as of PCPI Calendar 1.10.9.
Table display preferences
The gear icon next to the Help link opens a settings modal where you can set how many rows the table shows per page (10/20/25/50/100). This is separate from Global Settings below — see that section for site-wide configuration.
Managing Booking Types
The “Booking Types” button next to “+ Add Booking” opens Booking Types on its own page, kept separate so this Bookings screen doesn’t get any more crowded. From there you can create, edit, clone, activate/deactivate, and delete booking types — the full set of options: title, description, duration, price, location, scheduling rules, payment gateway, intake questions guests answer when booking, notification email overrides, and a per-type availability schedule with its own blocked dates. Each type also has an Embed option with three ready-to-copy formats: a website shortcode, an email-safe HTML link, and the direct booking URL.
Managing Reminders
The “Reminders” link opens Reminders on its own page — automated emails that send a set amount of time before or after a booking. Each reminder can target one specific booking type or all of them, go to the guest or the host, and fire before or after the appointment (e.g. “24 hours before” or “1 day after”). Subject and Email Body are both required — unlike booking type notifications, there’s no system default a reminder falls back to, so click a merge code below the Email Body field (Guest Name, Date, Time, etc.) to build the message. Editing or deleting a reminder here works on any reminder, including ones originally created in wp-admin — both read and write the same underlying data.
Global Settings
The gear icon on the Booking Types page opens Global Settings on its own page — General (brand name/logo, timezone, date/time format), Payments (Stripe and PayPal), Emails (from name/address, header color, footer), and Advanced (booking page URL slug, REST API, and a Danger Zone for resetting PCPI Calendar’s data). This page requires full Administrator access, not just Manager — the same restriction wp-admin’s own Settings page has, since it holds payment gateway secret keys and a destructive reset feature. If you’re a Manager but not also an Administrator, you’ll see a permission message here instead of the form.