Limited review (/questions) for Bookings 2.0

Limited review (/questions) for Bookings 2.0

Hi all, I'm writing this review of Bookings 2.0 for two reasons: 1) it may be of interest to others, and 2) I'd like to be corrected if I'm wrong on any points.

It's a very limited review, i.e. the things that have stood out as relevant, and particularly the problematic things, for my own use case. I'm a sole trader in health, and I make/manage most bookings myself, i.e. clients rarely book directly via the software. Majority of my clients are recurring weekly/fortnightly, usually on the same day/time.

RECURRING BOOKINGS: I'd been hanging out for this, as I've been booking ~20-30 individual appointments every week. As far as I can tell, nothing's improved.
1-on-1 can't be recurring, only group bookings. Group bookings are treated as a "class", meaning that you can make the timeslot recur, but individuals still need to be booked into each week separately.
There's also still no copy/paste function to replicate an appointment, so every single appointment needs to be booked out in full.

CALENDAR VIEW: The calendar view is worse. Week/Month view is gone ("under development"),

APPOINTMENTS: Not much change. Once past their time, they still can't be cancelled or deleted (e.g. if you'd communicated with a client but hadn't been at your computer); you have to hack it by rescheduling to the future, then cancelling (in a different timeslot) or deleting.

INTEGRATIONS: The Bigin integration is meant to be able to differentiate first/last name from the existing single "customer name" field, but it's just mucked up my Bigin setup, with the full name now being pushed into the Last Name field.
The Bookings browser extension is kind of a nice start, except that for any actual interaction, it just loads the website anyway, so not as convenient as it looks.
The integration with Calendar still doesn't properly handle rescheduled appointments, leaving a copy in the calendar at the old time.

CUSTOMERS: A bug has been introduced where apostrophes aren't allowed, so good luck if you've got an O'Leary or a D'Artagnan.

WORKFLOWS: I believe these are new? They seem like a good addition, from limited testing.

BOOKING PAGES: Seem fine in my very limited view.

--
In summary, I would suggest that:

- If your use case is that you want an externally-facing booking solution, where other people are booking into your calendar, and you have minimal need to manage your bookings directly, this system could well be useful - it handles a number of those elements nicely.

- If your use case is like mine, where you're heavily managing your own calendar and the bookings in it, Zoho Bookings is frankly terrible. Extremely clunky, time and labour intensive, lacking features, and buggy at times.

The inclusion in Zoho One and the potential for smooth integration with other Zoho products has kept me here so far, but this major update has actually made things worse if anything for my situation. Given how long it's taken to see changes, and how under-resourced Bookings seems to be, I'm looking elsewhere and will check back in 12 months.

(As above, if I'm wrong on any points, very happy to be corrected here - I want this to be accurate)

    • Sticky Posts

    • Complete walk-through of Zoho Bookings (video)

      Save time for both you and your customers. Use Zoho Bookings, the appointment scheduling app from Zoho, to free yourself from email and paper-based scheduling. Zoho Bookings can give you a common calendar by syncing multiple calendars, including yours and your staff's. Your customers can book a time convenient for them, and pay for services, through your website or the customizable webpage features available in Zoho Bookings. They'll also get emails reminding them about their appointments and any

    • Announcing: custom color palette + free workshop

      Hello everyone, We're excited to share new feature in Zoho Bookings—a color palette within booking page themes. You'll find this option under Manage Bookings > Workspaces > Booking Page Themes. You can customize the color of every element in your booking page and even alter the transparency of your background image. Please note that this is a paid feature included in the Basic and Premium plans. At the moment, it's available only under the Modern Web theme. This means you can create billions (7,

    • New Features: Service Availability and staff booking page themes!

      Dear All,  Want a dedicated schedule for your one-on-one services? How would it feel to have one-on-one services open for consultations only during certain times? You need a superpower to make that happen and we give it to you - Service Availability is

    • Zoho Bookings has a new pricing - Pay per user

      Dear customers, Businesses around the world use Zoho Bookings. Customers have booked 1.5 million appointments and over 200K online meetings using Bookings. We are only set to cross more milestones, thanks to your support. We are excited to introduce to

    • Zoho Bookings outage on 30th June in the US data center

      Dear customers, While we profusely thank you for your patience when we were busy identifying the issue that caused the outage in our US data center, we sincerely apologize for the trouble it has caused you. It was unfortunate but the events that triggered

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Zoho Inventory MobileApp compatible with barcode scanners such as Zebra

        Hi, Although the Zoho Inventory App is working with a scanner mode taken directly through the cell phone which I do not consider it as efficient, I would like to know when are you planning an update on the app so it can be compatible with bar code scanners

      • Automating Sales Order Confirmation & Picklist Generation in Zoho Inventory

        Hi everyone, I’m looking to automate the sales order creation and confirmation process in Zoho Inventory, along with the automatic generation of picklists with bin-level details. Here’s what I need: Sales orders should be automatically created and confirmed

      • Sum Total of various fields in child module and add value to parent module field

        Hi! Having trouble with a custom function, im trying to calculate the total of all the rent and sqm fields of our offices in Products module and have them transfer to the parent module Location. The API names are as below: Child module Products = "Products"

      • campaings flagging domain error but crm says OK

        campaings flags error with domain buy crm says notig wrong - this is new, help

      • Field Validation and Profile restrictions bypassed using Mass Actions

        We have a Validation Rule that prevents ticket closure if the "Subcategory" field is blank. This has been working fine, but recently we noticed a few tickets per day somehow being closed without a "Subcategory". Upon further investigation we found the

      • Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

        commerciale@etruriadesign.it, ERROR CODE :550 - "The mail server detected your message as spam and has prevented delivery." I have been corresponding with the receiver and they wrote "Ciao, ho fatto verificare ma purtroppo non è un problema che deriva

      • Creating Email template that attaches file uploaded in specific field.

        If there's a way to do this using Zoho CRM's built-in features, then this has eluded me! I'm looking to create a workflow that automatically sends an email upon execution, and that email includes an attachment uploaded in a specific field. Email templates

      • Any Companies using HubSpot for Marketing integrated to Zoho CRM ? - Looking for Feedback

        Our company is using HubSpot for Marketing looking at moving from our presently working Z-CRM to hubspot for CRM. I am looking for any companies that are successfully integrating HubSpot Marketing functions with Zoho CRM. Upsides/Downsides/Effort/etc.

      • Multicolumns fields for native forms

        It would be nice to be able to create forms with multiple columns. Currently, each field occupies a single column, which makes a fairly complex form seem too long.

      • Customize Thank You message for native forms

        While it allows me to add a personalized message when completing a form, it would be nice to be able to customize the title (Thank You) and the button text (Close). In my case, the page is in Spanish, and those texts are in English, so I can't edit them.

      • Customize forms validation for native forms

        I'd like to be able to edit and/or translate the validation messages of a native form. My page is in Spanish, but the messages appear in English, and I couldn't find a place to edit what I want to display. Perhaps they can be edited when adding fields

      • Assign values to hidden fields in native forms

        It would be great to be able to assign values (static or dynamic) to hidden fields in a form. Currently, I can only assign a value via the URL. I currently have a form integrated with a webhook, but I don't have a way to send useful form data as parameters,

      • Mass emails - Allow preview of which emails will receive the email based on the criteria

        Feature request. Please allow us to view and confirm the exact recipients of the mass emails based on the criteria we've chosen before sending. It can be quite sensitive if you send the mass email to some wrong accounts accidently, so it would be great

      • Filter Vendors/Suppliers from Campaigns

        We are unable to filter out our vendors/suppliers from any mass campaigns we send out. When synching our CRM contacts within Campaigns, we are unable to map the "Vendor Name" field. We have tried to create a segment from our all contacts list but to no

      • Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

        Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

      • Add picklist in subform lookup

        Hello, I am trying to rewrite a script that works on a from as parent form, to the same form when is is a subform. Here is what I did in the form itself : RefCat = Offre_de_produits.distinct(Categorie_OFFRE); clear Categorie_LIGNE; for each Record in

      • Parent-Child Tickets using API or Deluge

        Hi Everyone, We are looking at the parent-child ticketing features in Zoho Desk. We want to be able to create a parent ticket at customer level and nest child tickets underneath. The issue we are facing is to be able to automate this. I'm checking the

      • Zoho Books | Product updates | May 2025

        Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements to elevate your accounting experience. From configuring approval at the module level to allocating landed costs to multiple bills, these updates are designed to help you stay on top of your finances

      • Date & Time Field | Minimum 24 hour notice.

        I'm trying to use Zoho Forms to build a booking request form. I have the date and time field selected as the field users can select their booking time for. My issue is I need a minimum of 24 hour notice for each appointment. I have it sent to only future

      • Restricting Printing

        Hi Is it possible to stop users printing documents?

      • Delete a department or category

        How do I delete a Department? Also, how do I delete a Category? This is pretty basic stuff here and it's impossible to find.

      • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

        Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

      • Ticket layout based on field or contact

        Hi! I want to support the following use-case: we are delivering custom IT solutions to different accounts we have, thus our ticket layouts, fields and languages (priority, status field values should be Hungarian) will be different. How should I setup

      • Presenting the brand new Zoho Bookings!

        Hello everyone, Greetings from Zoho Bookings! We're happy to announce a new version of our product with enhanced features to simplify scheduling, coupled with a sleek interface and improved privacy across teams. Here's what you can expect from the latest

      • Zoho RPA is now available in your Zoho One bundle!

        Hello All! Of late, it's been quite a stint of new app integrations in Zoho One. This announcement pertains to the addition of another Zoho application, the most sought-after Zoho RPA - Robotic Process Automation, to the bundle. What is Zoho RPA? Zoho

      • Looking for basic script structure course

        Hi, I am not a programmer, but try to learn on my own. I get a lot of good advises in this forum, and thanks, but I tend to ask the same questions since I do not remember comparable answers I already received. Is there a basic course of "scripting structure"

      • Check out in Meetings

        Why there is no check out in Meetings of Zoho CRM, very difficult to track

      • How to let only account-bound products visible to users

        Hello friends, I'm trying to leave only the Products linked to the accounts visible to Zoho Portal users. If the user clicks "All Products," they can open tickets incorrectly for products that do not belong to the account that are registered. Is it possible

      • Canvas Detail View Related List Sorting

        Hello, I am having an issue finding a way to sort a related list within a canvas detail view. I have sorted the related list on the page layout associated with the canvas view, but that does not transfer to the canvas view. What am I missing?

      • Add Lookup Field in Tasks Module

        Hello, I have a need to add a Lookup field in addition to the ones that are already there in the Tasks module. I've seen this thread and so understand that the reason lookup fields may not be part of it is that there are already links to the tables (https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/custom-fields-on-task-module).

      • RTL Support on iPad

        hi I have this issue that when I create notes on my android app [in hebrew] all the text is aligned correctly to the right because I’m typing in Hebrew. But then when I open it up on my iPad, everything is suddenly aligned to the left and there is no

      • Sites Speed and Performance Grades

        I noticed that there are no recent inquiries or complaints about load speed or performance issues with Zoho Sites websites. However, I wanted to understand what Zoho has done to ensure that speed remains optimized, images are compressed and lazy loaded,

      • Possible to reorder Pipelines position?

        I have multiple Pipelines and want to reorder their positions, so that in the Deals module record for the Pipeline field, I have them ordered in a certain way. Is there a way to reorder the position of the Pipelines without deleting existing Pipelines

      • Set up multiple IMAP email addresses

        Hi, I just started using CRM and its great, but I just found out I can only add one imap email address for incoming mail in the included salesinbox ...this is ridiculous. All companies have different email such as sales@domain, info@domain , personal@domain

      • Zoho CRM Outlook integration: no option showing up even after installation

        I followed the instructions on this page to install the add-in: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/integrations/microsoft/ms-outlook-add-in-for-zoho-crm/articles/outlook-add-in-for-zoho-crm#Understanding_the_add-in But I don't see the options in Outlook

      • No sync

        I have amended a note on my PC, startet syncing but on the smart phne sync starts und runs for minutes. The note amendment ist not shown, but when I go to version the new version is shown but not possibility to accepte the new version

      • Validating an order by a superior

        Hi, I have a very specific use case for Backstage. Let me know if this is possible or how I could get around this (or if there are no workaround). One of my client uses Backstage to manage internal (on site) events. Participants from different departments

      • Zoho Books - Feature Request - Provide "Show PDF View" toggle on Invoice records

        I have noticed it is possible to activate or deactivate the PDF preview on some records but not all. This would be very helpful on Invoices when a custom template is being used and the PDF preview does not represent the output file. Not available on:

      • Dark mode

        Because the whole world talks about it and iOS also will get this option. Please make a real dark mode happen. It is very cool to switch the navigational color, but the content always stays in light colors.

      • Changing Default PDF Name

        Is it possible to change the default name of a PDF? As of right now, all of my quotes are named 'QT_$QuoteNumber' (i,e: 'QT_19803471298374) - would it be possible to change this to: '$CompanyName - $AccountName - $QuoteNumber' for instance?

      • Next Page