Bookings & Sessions
Approve or decline a booking request
Switch on Host Approval so chosen event types ask for your yes before a session is booked, then work the queue — what your client sees while they wait, and what approving or declining does to their calendar invite and their package credit.
Some sessions shouldn't be bookable by anyone who has your link — a first consultation you want to screen, a slot you'd rather hold until you've read the intake answers. Host Approval turns those bookings into requests: the client picks a time, and nothing is confirmed until you say yes.
Approval is switched on per event type, on its Access tab under Event Types in the sidebar. The requests themselves land in Bookings, carrying a gold Pending Approval badge and their own Approve and Decline buttons.
Group events have the same setting and the same rules, but their requests are kept with the group event rather than in Bookings — you answer them on the group event's own page. A one-time event holds them in the Attendees list on its Details tab; a series holds them on its Sessions tab, and on the Enrollments tab when the series has a fixed number of dates. Run a group event or recurring series covers that. Everything below is about your one-to-one sessions.
Turn on Host Approval for an event type
- Open the event type you want to screen
In the sidebar, open Event Types and click the event type clients will be requesting. If you haven't built one yet, create your first event type first — approval is a setting on an event type, not a workspace-wide switch, so you can leave your regular check-ins bookable on the spot and gate only the ones that need it.
- Switch on Host Approval on the Access tab
Go to the Access tab and turn on Host Approval — Require your approval before bookings are confirmed. A gold note appears underneath confirming that bookings will be held as Pending Approval until you approve or decline them from your dashboard.
- Save, and check the badge
Press Save. Back on the Event Types list, that event type now carries an Approval badge next to its price, which is the quickest way to see at a glance which of your offerings ask before they book.
What your client sees while they wait
The booking flow looks the same to your client right up to the last screen. Instead of a confirmation they get a heading reading Booking Request Submitted, and a line telling them they'll receive a confirmation once you approve. An email follows immediately with the same message, the requested date and time, and a note that the booking is pending approval.
What they do not get is a calendar invite. Nothing is written to your calendar either — Calso only creates the calendar event when you approve. If you use the client portal, the session shows there as Pending until you answer.
Work the queue
You'll know a request has arrived three ways: an email with the subject line Booking request followed by the client's name and the event type, a warning line on your dashboard home counting the bookings awaiting your confirmation, and the request itself sitting in your Bookings list.
- Open Bookings and find the request
Open Bookings in the sidebar. A waiting request appears on the Upcoming tab with a Pending Approval badge in the Status column. If the requested time has already gone by, the row drops off Upcoming — switch to the All tab and set the status filter to Pending Approval to see every request regardless of date.
- Read the request before you answer
Click the row to open the booking panel. The Details tab shows the client's name, email and time zone, the session length, and any intake answers they gave you — including the ones you marked as internal, which the client never sees. This is the reading you turned approval on to do.
- Press Approve or Decline
Both buttons sit on a gold strip on the booking's row in the list, and again at the bottom of the booking panel. Approving asks you to confirm at Approve this booking?; declining asks at Decline this booking?. Press Approve or Decline in the dialog to go through with it — the badge changes as soon as Calso has finished.
What approving does
Approve does five things in one press. It re-checks the time against your other bookings and your connected calendar; it moves the booking to Confirmed; it writes the session to the calendar you've chosen to receive bookings; it generates the meeting link if the event type happens online; and it emails the client a booking confirmation with a calendar file attached.
If the time was taken while the request waited, the approval stops and tells you the slot is no longer available. A pending booking can't be rescheduled — that only works on a confirmed session — so your options are to free the conflicting time on your calendar and approve again, or decline and invite the client to pick another time.
What declining does, and what happens to payment
Decline moves the booking to Cancelled and emails the client a short notice that you weren't able to confirm the time, with a button back to your booking page so they can try a different one. The confirmation dialog also promises that any payment will be refunded — in practice there is nothing to refund, because a paid session takes its money at checkout and confirms itself the moment the payment clears, so it never reaches your queue. Declining is final; there is no undo.
That's the rule worth carrying: Host Approval screens the bookings with nothing to charge. To keep a paid event type to invited clients, use Restrict Access on the same Access tab — control who can book an event type covers that. And bear in mind that a client who reschedules themselves on an event type with approval on sends the new time back to you as a fresh request.
Once a request is approved it behaves like any other confirmed session, so reschedule a booking is the next thing worth reading — or brush up on what each booking status means.
Frequently asked questions
Why did a paid session get booked without asking for my approval?
On a paid event type Calso collects the money first, and a session becomes Confirmed the moment the payment clears — it never stops to ask. Host Approval holds the bookings where there is nothing to charge at the time of booking: free sessions, sessions redeemed against a package credit, and sessions a discount code brought down to zero. If you want to vet who books a paid session, use Restrict Access on the same Access tab instead.
Does a booking request hold the time slot while it waits for me?
Not fully. Another client can't request the exact same start time on the same event type, but the time still appears on your booking page and can be taken by an overlapping booking on any of your other event types. Calso re-checks the time when you press Approve, so a request left sitting for days can fail to approve because the slot went to someone else.
When is a client's package credit actually taken?
At the moment you press Approve, not when the client requests the session. While a booking sits in Pending Approval the credit is still on their balance and they can spend it elsewhere. If they do, and nothing is left when you approve, Calso declines the request automatically and emails the client to tell them.
Can I undo a decline?
No. Declining moves the booking to Cancelled, which is final in Calso — there is no restore. If you turned down the wrong request, send the client your booking link so they can pick a time again, or book the session for them from their client record.