Our system is equipped with several mechanisms developed to significantly reduce unwanted bookings. These strategies can be employed as preventive measures or during a spam attack.
Remember that these options may limit spam bookings and potentially beneficial ones like any restrictions. We suggest you use them mindfully and carefully.
There are the following methods of protection in order of increasing influence and limitations:
- Blacklist
- Valid numbers only
- Booking quantity limitation
- Confirmation code
- Temporary disabling of online booking
Let us consider them in more detail.
Blacklist
You can add undesirable clients to this list using their phone number or IP address, effectively blocking any bookings from them.
There are two ways to go about this:
- Add an IP address to the list.
- Block a client completely, using both their phone number and IP address. For more information on the Blacklist, please refer to this article.
Valid numbers only
By enabling this feature, bookings can only be made with a valid phone number. The system checks for the number of digits and the correct phone format specific to each country.
This feature can also be helpful in situations where obtaining a valid phone number from a client is required rather than random digits. Once the number format is validated, the error message will be replaced with a green checkmark, allowing the booking process to be completed.
Booking quantity limitation
This feature allows you to limit the number of bookings made from each phone number. To configure this limit, navigate to Settings – Administration – Booking, and scroll down to the Limit for clients in the online booking section.
Here, you can set restrictions on the number of bookings for each phone number, ranging from one per hour to one per week.
Remember that the restriction applies to the reservation dates, not the time between bookings. For instance, with a 'One booking per week' limit, clients can make several consecutive bookings, but they can only select one date for each upcoming week.
By combining this with the option to limit the period for advance online booking, you can effectively reduce the open booking period on your Calendar:
Confirmation code
With this protection feature activated, a unique code will be sent to the client, which they must enter to confirm their booking.
Currently, this feature is under development.
Temporary disabling of online booking
This is the most extreme measure, completely disabling the ability to book online.
In addition to being helpful during active attacks, this feature can be valuable when an administrator needs to manually handle all service bookings, such as during peak periods, maintenance tasks, or other situations in your company.
Let's consider three such methods:
a) Disabling a location
If attacks are being carried out on one of the locations, or for other reasons it should not be visible online and in the Calendar, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings - Business - Locations .
- Select the required branch.
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Click Edit and set the toggle to Deactivated :
This method is unsuitable for companies with only one location, as at least one location must remain active.
b) Changing the schedule
You can change the working days to weekends in the employees' schedule, making their services unavailable online:
The advantage of this method is that booking through the Calendar remains available. You can meet clients personally or make bookings by phone, and enter visit and sales information into the system.
However, keep in mind that such edits will erase the current schedule. To save it, you can use the export function:
c) Disconnecting the employees
There is an option to detach employees from locations:
- Go to Settings – Business – Locations.
- Select the required location.
- Click Staff & Units.
- In the menu with three dots ⋮ in the top right corner, select Disconnect all users.
After that, the services in the widget will be marked as available only by phone:
When you need to restore online booking, in the same menu select Connect all users or enable the required employees individually: