Booking flow settings

The Settings → Booking Flow tab controls which steps a customer moves through when they book on your public site, and in what order. Turn on only the steps your menu needs — a smaller flow books faster.

Configure the steps

Open Settings → Booking Flow.
Under Step Configuration, toggle each step on or off.
Click Save Changes.

Customers move through the enabled steps in this order:

Step	Purpose	Required?
Collection	Top-level grouping. Customers pick a collection, then a category, then a service.	Optional. Requires the Category step.
Category	Groups services. When off, customers choose a service directly.	Optional.
Service	The service sets the appointment’s duration and price.	Always on — every booking needs a service.
Add-On	Optional extras a customer can add to their chosen service.	Optional.
Stylist	Assigns the appointment to a stylist for availability and scheduling.	Always on.

The Service and Stylist steps are locked on and can’t be turned off. Every booking needs both: the service determines what’s being done and how long it takes, and the stylist determines whose calendar the slot lands on.

The catalog hierarchy rule

Collection, Category, and Service form a hierarchy — a collection groups categories, and a category groups services. The steps enforce it so a customer never hits a dead end:

Turning Collection on also turns Category on. A collection needs categories to drill into.
Turning Category off also turns Collection off. You can’t group by a collection when there are no categories beneath it.

So your valid combinations are: Service only; Category → Service; or Collection → Category → Service.

Optional grouping and step hints

Each toggle shows a short hint describing what the step does, so you can decide whether your menu is large enough to justify it. A small menu (a handful of services) usually reads best with grouping off — customers pick a service directly. A large menu benefits from categories, and a very large one from collections.

Letting customers skip choosing a stylist

The Stylist step is always shown, but a customer who has no preference can pick No preference — show all available times to see the combined availability of every qualified stylist instead of choosing one. The system assigns an available stylist automatically. This keeps the flow fast for customers who just want the earliest slot.

What a step actually shows

The booking site only offers choices that can lead to a real appointment. A service that isn’t active, or a service no stylist can perform at the selected branch, is hidden — so a customer never picks something they can’t book. See availability for why a specific slot does or doesn’t appear, and activation and visibility for activating services, categories, and collections.

Availability — how hours, time off, and stylist bookability shape the times a customer sees.
No-shows and cancellation policy — the rules customers agree to when they book.