Automating appointment status and customer feedback collection

Automating appointment status and customer feedback collection

Hello community members,

In the spirit of elevating your scheduling game for 2024, we're bringing you a couple of useful workarounds that can enhance your overall Bookings experience.

We have divided the community post into two halves. In the first half, we will show how to automate the appointment status to Completed. This action ensures that emails are automatically triggered after the appointment is completed. In the second half, we will explore how to add and prefill the feedback form in your customer emails. This will allow you to efficiently gather feedback from customers.

In an effort to streamline the entire process, we're merging both topics into a single post. This aims to automate updating the appointment status to completed, triggering the completion email to customers, and seamlessly integrating our Zoho Survey form for actively collecting valuable feedback.

Automating the appointment status

Currently, updating an appointment's status to Completed is a manual process in Zoho Bookings. However, with our new workaround, you can now streamline this task through automation. We've included steps below that will make it so that once an appointment has ended, its status will automatically switch to Completed.  

Note that if you mark an appointment as No show, your selection will not be overwritten by this new workaround. 

If you're still concerned about this, consider editing the content of the appointment completion trigger email, providing generic content suitable for both attendees and non-attendees. This guarantees that even if all appointments are marked as completed, a generic email with relevant information will be sent to all customers.

Prerequisites for automating the appointment status 

1. Zoho Bookings basic or premium subscription.
2. Zoho Flow paid subscription

How to automate 

A. First, we'll create a new flow in Zoho Flow:

1. Sign in to Zoho Flow.

2. Select the Create flow option.



3. Select App and search for Zoho Bookings in the search bar.



4. Select the Appointment booked trigger.



5. Select the Connection and Variable Name.



6. Click Done. 

You have now created a new flow for Zoho Bookings.

Other helpful links for this process:
B. Next, let's configure the logic: 

1. Navigate to the Logic tab in Zoho Flow.

2. Click the Flow Control dropdown and select Delay.

3. Drag and drop the Delay function to the bottom of the Appointment booked trigger.



4. Click on the edit icon next to the Delay function.



5. In the Delay For the column, select the appointment end time variable from the available Zoho Bookings variables.



Completing this steps helps us ensure that this workflow executes exclusively at the end of each appointment.

C. We can now allocate additional time for any necessary actions:

For example, let's consider extending the remaining actions by an extra 5 minutes. This extension grants you additional time to update the appointment status. 

1. From the Logic tab, drag and drop another Delay action to the bottom of the first Delay action.



2. Click on the edit icon next to the Delay function.



3. In the Delay For column, set the desired extra time based on your preference. If going by our proposed example, we'd configure an additional 5 minutes.


For more details: Delay

Note: If you decide not to include extra time and prefer to execute the flow precisely at the end of the appointment duration, you do not need to complete this section of steps.

D. Finally, let's configure a custom function

Through this step, we'll ensure our ended appointment's status updates to Completed (as long as no other status has been selected).

1. From the Logic tab, click the Custom Functions dropdown.



For more details: Custom Functions

2. Click +Custom Function.



3. Add a relevant name for the function under Function Name, and set the Return Type as void - Returns nothing from the dropdown.

4. Under Input parameters, type bookingID and select string from the dropdown as shown in the screenshot below.



5. Click Create to open the Deluge script page, where we will enter our code for execution.

Please configure the below code in the Deluge script page.  

Code Link



If you're interested, here is a brief explanation of the code:

Line 1: To pass the input data below to the code.
  • Booking ID: Identifies the specific booking for fetching details and checking the status.
Line 3: Set up the API endpoint URL based on the Zoho Bookings account's data center.
Line 3–12: We utilize the Get Appointment API' to retrieve the appointment details. For more details: Get Appointment API

Line 13: Here, we're fetching the status of the respective appointment from the response of the Get Appointment API.

Line 15: Implement an 'if' condition to execute the code only if the appointment status is not No show.

Line 16–27: In this step, we utilize the 'Update Appointment API to mark the appointment status as Completed' when the condition specified in line 15 of the code is met.

This is how the final flow will look:



Note: The described flow is tailored for newly scheduled appointments. For cases where appointments are initially scheduled and later rescheduled, a separate flow must be created. The flow for rescheduled appointments follows the same steps outlined above, with the only modification being the initial trigger. Instead of the 'Appointment booked' trigger, please substitute it with the 'Appointment rescheduled' trigger in step A (steps B, C, and D remain the same).



Collecting feedback with surveys

Ensuring a seamless and positive customer experience is a top priority for every appointment. An integral part of this process involves gathering feedback from customers after the appointment's completion. This valuable feedback not only helps understand their sentiments but also provides insights for continuous improvement. 

Let's explore how to leverage Zoho Survey to collect valuable feedback from customers. Additionally, we'll delve into the process of pre populating survey fields with the customer's name extracted from the appointment.

How to create a survey in Zoho survey:

You have the option to create a new survey from scratch or choose from templates or existing surveys.

For more details, refer to: Create a Survey.

As an example, let's use the Customer Feedback Survey from the templates.




To enhance your survey experience, you have the flexibility to edit the survey form and select specific fields for inclusion.

Now, let's take a closer look at streamlining the customer experience by auto-populating the field inputs in Zoho survey with customer details. This additional step eliminates the need for customers to add their information manually, contributing to an enhanced overall experience.

1. Click on the Actions button (three dots) next to the Last Name field, and choose Edit.




2. Click on Advanced options and check the box next to Prepopulate answer.



3. Select First Name, Last Name, and Email Address under Question label and URL parameter in each corresponding Value from field.



4. In the Value field, configure the parameter name (e.g., firstname, lastname, email). Once configured, this parameter name will be used in the survey link to prefill the fields in the survey form. Customize it as per your requirements, ensuring consistency with the term used in the survey URL.



To publish the survey, go to the Launch tab and click on the Publish button to obtain the Zoho Survey URL.




Pre-populating fields in the Zoho Survey form

Once we have the Zoho Survey URL, we'll need to match the configured parameter name and variables from the Zoho Bookings email notifications. These variables play a crucial role in dynamically fetching customer information and populating it in the Zoho Survey form.

For details about variables in Zoho Bookings email notifications, refer to this link: Pre-defined variables

We'll now edit the survey URL to align the variables with the configured Value, or parameter name, from our prepopulated answer settings.

Let's say this is our survey URL: 

https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/E****h

We'll want to use a question mark ("?") at the end of the survey URL and an ampersand ("&") to separate different parameter names.

Here's what that would look like using our example Value names from earlier:


Now, let's map the parameter names to the Zoho Bookings variables.

It would look like this:


For more details: Autofill 

Where to use the Zoho Survey URL

To enable the automatic sending of the Zoho Survey URL to customers upon updating the appointment status to Completed, follow these steps in the Zoho Bookings application:

For one-on-one services:

1. Click on Service in the top left corner.
2. Select the desired one-on-one service.
4. Navigate to the For Customers tab.
5. Click Customize next to the Mark As Completed' trigger to access the email content.



6. Enter your desired name for the button. For example, you might use something like 'Please fill out the survey'. 

7. Select the entered text and click on the Add Link icon. Paste the configured Zoho Survey URL in the URL box. This will convert your text into a hyperlink that leads to the survey.



For group and resource booking services, please follow the same steps under Workspaces > Notifications.

For more details: Workspace Notifications

With the completion of this step, we have incorporated the Zoho Survey URL with dynamic variables, facilitating the dynamic autofill of customer data.

To wrap it up

With the successful implementation of the configuration described above, the entire process of automating status updates and collecting feedback is now seamlessly integrated, promising an elevated and enhanced product experience for all users.

If you have any questions or need assistance with your configuration, please email us at hello@zohobookings.com or support@zohobookings.com.



    Access your files securely from anywhere









                          Zoho Developer Community




                                                • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                • Digest


                                                • Functions


                                                • Meetups


                                                • Kbase


                                                • Resources


                                                • Glossary


                                                • Desk Marketplace


                                                • MVP Corner


                                                • Word of the Day


                                                • Ask the Experts



                                                          • Sticky Posts

                                                          • Approve or deny appointments based on criteria

                                                            Hey, community members! Have you ever wondered how to automatically approve or deny appointments? While we're still working on building that feature, we've got an alternative method to cancel appointments if they don't meet your specific criteria. Let


                                                          Manage your brands on social media



                                                                Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                    Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                      Zoho Books Resources


                                                                        Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                          Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                            Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                              Qntrl Resources


                                                                                Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                    Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                    • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                      CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                    • Kaizen

                                                                                      Kaizen

                                                                                    • Functions

                                                                                      Functions

                                                                                    • Meetups

                                                                                      Meetups

                                                                                    • Kbase

                                                                                      Kbase

                                                                                    • Resources

                                                                                      Resources

                                                                                    • Digest

                                                                                      Digest

                                                                                    • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      CRM Marketplace

                                                                                    • MVP Corner

                                                                                      MVP Corner







                                                                                        Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                        Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                        Get Started Now


                                                                                          Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                            Zoho Writer

                                                                                            Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                                                                                Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                    ご検討中の方







                                                                                                            • Recent Topics

                                                                                                            • Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition

                                                                                                              Hello Everyone, This week’s edition focuses on configuring a custom function within Zoho Desk to streamline time tracking within the Blueprint. In this case, we create a custom field, and request the agent to enter the spending time within the single
                                                                                                            • Feature Request: Reviews

                                                                                                              Any chance we could get a "Reviews" element to put on sites? It should be extremely simple to do. Basically just take the comments box and add an option for a star rating. At the very least, it would be nice to have more customization options for the comment box so the text could be changed from "Comments" to "Reviews". I've looked at a bunch of embeddable review widgets but nothing meets my needs so this would be a great feature to have added to the site builder.
                                                                                                            • Can we handle a support like (incident management) project in Zoho Projects?

                                                                                                              Hi, I have a new profile of a project whereby we provide "ticket" base support to a client. They have a request and ideally we would handle comms via a email exchange logged in Zoho. Today we use Zoho Projects for all out projects, which means that we
                                                                                                            • Trying to show the actual Terms & Conditions on PDF

                                                                                                              Hi, On Zoho forms I am trying to have the actual terms and conditions that the user needs to accept also show on the pdf that they receive after. Right now it only says "Agreed". Please help.
                                                                                                            • Installing EMAIL Setup in New Domain

                                                                                                              Respected Support team, I'm facing an issue with cloudflare in Pakistan, I want to setup Zoho Mail Setup but I Don't know how to enable Zoho mail setup without cloudflare. My Website https://stumbleguyzzapk.com/, https://fakservices.com/ is using CF,
                                                                                                            • Enhancements to Zoho Meeting Annotator

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to share a few improvement suggestions regarding the Zoho Meeting Annotator used during screen sharing. While the current version provides helpful annotation tools, there are several limitations
                                                                                                            • Zoho Social/Marketing Plus - Addition to "Monitor" function

                                                                                                              It would be very helpful if the Monitor function would allow us to add a column to monitor hashtags in addition to pages and mentions. This is a common and very valuable function in other social listening tools.
                                                                                                            • Zoho forms - > Zoho desk multiple agents

                                                                                                              Hi! I would like to use a standard form to be used when we hiring people, so we looked at zoho forms for that. Now we would like to get that info in to Zoho desk and their different users shall take care of this ticket simultaneous . So, what would be
                                                                                                            • Almacenamiento

                                                                                                              Hola, Quisiera saber como podría hacer para bajar el almacenamiento de 5gb a mis usuarios, en otras palabras los quiero ir limitando de la cuota real, y luego ir agregando poco a poco la cantidad hasta llegar a los 5gb que me dan en el plan free. 
                                                                                                            • Zoho Invoice Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

                                                                                                              Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal
                                                                                                            • Will I Get a Refund If I Downgrade Zoho Mail?

                                                                                                              Hello, We upgraded an email account for our new employee. However, the employee left after one month, and now I've reduced the number of Zoho Mail users from 7 to 6. Can we get a refund for the remaining portion of our annual payment?
                                                                                                            • Infinite loop of account verification

                                                                                                              Hi I can't do anything on my zoho account.  I always get this message Hi Sheriffo Ceesay As a security measure, you need to link your phone number with this account and verify it to proceed further. When ever I supply the details, it displays that the number is associated with another account. I don't have any other account on zoho so this is really annoying. 
                                                                                                            • Zoho Billing Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

                                                                                                              Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal
                                                                                                            • Introducing the revamped What's New page

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - France

                                                                                                              L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité
                                                                                                            • Name autocomplete

                                                                                                              Hi, During searching emails the web tool does not always propose the auto-completion of the saved emails. As a result I either have to go to contacts and look up the exact email, or the exact full name including the middle name and any dots, which is very annoying. For example I have a contact that I emailed in the past that has "First M. Last" <email@email.com> type of contact. When I start typing 'First' the email may or may not pop up in the autocomplete menu. Then if I start typing "first last"
                                                                                                            • Using a CRM Client Script Button to create a Books Invoice

                                                                                                              Hello, I need help handling error messages returned to my client script from a function. The scenario I have setup a client script button which is available from each Deal. This CS executes a crm function, which in turn creates an invoice based on the
                                                                                                            • How do i follow up my email campaign in-thread

                                                                                                              Is there a way to follow up the email campaign so that it is in-thread using zoho campaigns? eg customer gets original email with subject line "hello" then 5 days later follow up would be with subject line "RE: hello".
                                                                                                            • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.29.0)

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.29.0) is here with new features and enhancements to enhance your business communication. Let's take a quick look at them. Access shared mailboxes. You can now view and access shared mailboxes in Trident, which are
                                                                                                            • Books is extremely slow again today !

                                                                                                              Everything is running slowly even with 500mb connection speed
                                                                                                            • Cyclic dependencies in many-to-many relationships...

                                                                                                              I have an application which includes a form for companies, and a form for contacts. Each company can be assigned 1 technical and 1 administrative contact. I have this working okay so far, but I want to copy the scripts used so far to a new empty application. When I import the scripts it fails with a message that says: Problem encountered while creating the application Error in resolving form dependency:Cyclic dependency among the forms:[Company, Contact] What can I do to resolve this? After all,
                                                                                                            • Zoho API to create ticket

                                                                                                              I'm developing an integration to create tickets via API, but, locally it works (send and recieve requests). In production it also works sending requests, but, my file don't recieve any response data. My URL is available in Zoho API Console and I have
                                                                                                            • Automate Timesheet Approvals with Multi-level Approval Rules

                                                                                                              Introducing Approval Rules for Timesheets in Zoho Projects. With this automation, teams can manage how timesheets are reviewed and approved by setting up rules with criteria and assigning approvers to handle submissions. Timesheet, when associated to
                                                                                                            • Labels Part 2

                                                                                                               Hey Zoho Mail Team, On the labels window on the left-hand pane, alphabetize label name display, rather than displaying in order created.  This one should be easy. Thanks, Drew
                                                                                                            • Building Toppings #1 - Serving your needs with Bigin Toppings

                                                                                                              Hey Biginners! We're excited to kick off our Developer Community series on building toppings for Bigin, and our goal is to provide an accessible, beginner-friendly, and relevant path for every developer. Imagine creating tiny pieces of software that unlock
                                                                                                            • Can we create Sprint with tasks from Multiple projects?

                                                                                                              Hi Team, We were using Zoho Sprints for quite sometime. Currently we have started the process of Sprint method. We couldnt create the active sprint board with the tasks from multiple projects. I would like to know whether this is possible or Any timeline
                                                                                                            • Tip of the Week #74– Create automated workflows in MS Power Automate

                                                                                                              Zoho TeamInbox now connects directly with Microsoft Power Automate, letting you streamline everyday routines tasks such as from sending emails to managing threads, with automated workflows. About the integration Zoho TeamInbox integrates with Microsoft
                                                                                                            • Account validation

                                                                                                              Hello everyone, I registered my account on ZeptoMail to use the system, but the problem is that the verification period on Zepto's end has already passed and I have limited functionality.
                                                                                                            • Paste issues in ZOHO crm notes

                                                                                                              Hi, since a week or so I have issues with the paste function in ZOHO CRM. I use "notes" to copy paste texts from Outlook emails and since a week or so, the pasting doesnt function as it should: some text just disappears and it gives a lot of empty lines/enters.....
                                                                                                            • Is it possible to add a gradient color to a newsletter im designing?

                                                                                                              From where i sit it looks like you can only choose a single color but not combine 2 colors?
                                                                                                            • New Feature: Audit Log in Zoho Bookings

                                                                                                              Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re excited to introduce Audit Log, a new feature designed to help you track all key actions related to your appointments. With Audit Log, you can maintain transparency, strengthen security, and ensure accountability.
                                                                                                            • Custom validation in CRM schema

                                                                                                              Validation rules in CRM layouts work nicely, good docs by @Kiran Karthik P https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/validation-rules/articles/create-validation-rules I'd prefer validating data input 'closer to the schema'
                                                                                                            • Account disabled

                                                                                                              I have an issue I need help with. Whilst trialing ZOHO CRM I created the following: Account1 (-------------) using m__ame@m__rg___s__i__.___.__ and 2 personal emails Account2 (-------------) using a personal email and 2 users _al__1@______________._o_.__
                                                                                                            • Blocked Email

                                                                                                              We are a Zoho One subscriber and use Yahoo as our MX provider. A few times each year, for the past four years, CRM blocks one or more of my Zoho One users from receiving internal email from CRM. This includes "@mentions" in all modules, and emails from
                                                                                                            • No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

                                                                                                              Outraged. Just referred a colleague to use her domain (not posting it publicly here) to Zoho, just as I have other colleagues, clients, friends. Expected the exact same free plan features as I have and as everyone else I ever referred got. I was helping
                                                                                                            • message var is empty in bot mention handler

                                                                                                              Hi, I'm encountering a problem: in my bot's mention handler, I want to retrieve the text the user typed when mentioning the bot. Example: On the #tests-cyril channel, I send this message: “@Donna hello how are you ?” I expect the system variable "message"
                                                                                                            • Remembrance Day to Remember – Recalling Values

                                                                                                              The phrase “at the eleventh hour” refers to the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, when the hostilities of World War I came to an end—but it still holds meaning today. Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the US) is observed on November
                                                                                                            • Enhancing Zia's service with better contextual responses and article generation

                                                                                                              Hello everyone, We are enhancing Zia's Generative AI service to make your support experience smarter. Here's how: Increased accuracy with Qwen One of the key challenges in AI is delivering responses that are both contextually accurate and empathetic while
                                                                                                            • How to display two measures (sales and price) divided by categories on one line chart

                                                                                                              Hi everyone, I’m having trouble figuring out how to display two columns on a line chart with category breakdowns. What I need is a line chart where one line represents Sales and the other represents Price. However, the Price data is divided into around
                                                                                                            • Create custom rollup summary fields in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              Hello everyone, In Zoho CRM, rollup summary fields have been essential tools for summarizing data across related records and enabling users to gain quick insights without having to jump across modules. Previously, only predefined summary functions were
                                                                                                            • Next Page