Zoho Bookings Issues We are facing

Zoho Bookings Issues We are facing

Hi team,

Here are list of issues we are facing with Zoho Bookings when migrating from other platforms. Sorry there is a lot but the bookings app need to be functional and practical for people to actually use it and not-cause MORE problems by being so basic and not customisable to each business. 


1: SMS reminders for staff 
There should be time limits on these reminders to make them useful. EG. if a new booking comes in more than 4 hours from now we don't really need to get a reminder, however if it is a last minute or on the day booking, this is something that would be useful to get updates for!

2: Customer Verification
Having duplicate customers is just not enough. Allowing only one person per phone or email is vital to track our customers. Most other Zoho apps have this feature which allow its to operate seamlessly and integrate with other apps. Not sure of any business that would allow a guest and not want to know if they have returned! To eliminate this I suggest there could be the OPTION to turn off guest registrations since you have the option to turn off register guests. Something to keep our database clean!

3. Staff Meetings
We have staff meetings weekly in our workplace but there is no ability to make an appointment and add other staff members in it to ensure all our calendars are blocked off at the same time. 

4: Blocking Off time
If the above option is not available, it would be great if there was a way to categorise and label our blocked off time so it was trackable.. eg. staff meetings, personal stuff, lunch, training ect. That way we can report based on that time blocked off. If this time could also have the ability to apply reminders that would be good too. In the calendar currently it doesn't highlight or take mention of any blocks unless you are in the day view. It does not allow your to edit the blocks or colour code them to make it stand out like HEY you need to do this today. We use this calendar for more than just appointments so its essential we can document those things correctly. EG. on the calendar view of your day today it will show your blocked times and your lunch break times in order. That was you can see your day ahead and account for those periods. When you click on the block it opens up the calendar view showing the notes you have written with the option TO EDIT which is not currently an option. Screenshot for an example. 

5. Resources
The recourses feature is cool however I have come across some roadblocks. For starters it doesn't assign anyone to it, so who is supposed to take care of that? When you get a reminder email about it from a customers perspective its says - you have an appointment with null as there is no way to customise that email for a non appointment service. Where does the resources calendar live? How do we see who is coming in for that and when? EG. We have a Hyperbaric Chamber we use in clinic. There is only 1 and therefore only 1 customer can use it for the hour at a time. If I have many consultants i still need to assign that resource booking to a  consultant but at the same time be sure that no one else has booked that time slot out. Im finding that i cannot do that in its current state. 

6. Staff SMS
I am not sure if it is just our organisation but staff are not receiving any text message reminders. Me as a super admin am receiving all notification during all possible testing type but the staff are not. Am thinking the phone number is updated in the wrong spot or something I am not sure? Can you assist with tackling why this would be the case? Is the phone number pulling from the profile page or the Zoho one account profile page? Or is there something else I am missing?

7. Zoho forms Integration
As a medical practitioner, we need to take notes of our consults. We use Zoho forms currently however we see great potential in the ability for these two apps to be integrated. Having the ability to fill out a form by clicking a button while seeing that customer in the consult and storing a copy of their notes in their file makes sense. I can see this being beneficial to almost every industry. Or at least having a way to access them quickly. Perhaps a short term fix would be to implement the use of custom buttons to navigate to other things? The notes feature currently is quite basic. MOST other booking platforms has some sort of note taking history quick access or forms storage within. Please consider this. 

8. Staff Access to settings
Staff cannot edit a customers details which i find quite odd. If they spelled their name wrong or need to update a phone number this is not possible. I find it quite strange that that would need a supervisor to do this for them. I think it would be much more beneficial to allow us to choose staff restrictions settings as they may differ per industry. Since our staff are not in the same state as thier manager sometimes, it is really unproductive to have to ask for basic changes that are not considered an issue for our staff to access. Hope that makes sense.

9. Bookings
Why cant we edit an appointment once it is made? You only have the choice to reschedule or cancel.  If that is not possible, then why when i press the DO NOT notify the customer of a cancelled booking, it does anyway? Would this not then seeing these cancellations in the reporting? Shouldn't that be an appointment unit of measurement? How long does it take for bookings to show in the reporting? I also think it would be ideal to make the customers name in the bookings clickable to see their profile and have access to their previous bookings if any. I noticed you cannot edit a booking once it is marked completed either even from a SuperAdmin. I think the ability to edit would make sense. EG.. you cancelled cos you thought they were a no show but showed up last minute anyway. Its just seems annoying not to have the option that is all.

10. Ability to see other peoples calendars in your same workplace
This is important for us. The details are hidden but the ability to see their availability is important. Can this be something we look into? 

Thanks for your time.
M
    • Sticky Posts

    • Zoho Bookings know-how: A hands-on workshop series

      Hello! We’re conducting a hands-on workshop series to help simplify appointment scheduling for your business with Zoho Bookings. We’ll be covering various functionalities and showing how you can leverage them for your business across five different sessions.
    • 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,
    • 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
    • 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
    • Recent Topics

    • Age Calculation

      I've attempted to calculate the age of someone based on their birthday input by using the formula field. It works but I don't want all those decimals on there. I then tried to use "set variable" after birthday input but I get a field type mismatch, long vs. floating. Any ideas would be wonderful.
    • Access Denied

      I am iOS Developer and updating our clients project and shifted ZohoDeskPortalCore SDKs from cocoapods to SPM and changed few lines of code but now i am get access denied, the help center app is unavailable. please contact administrator.
    • Using Zoho Desk to support ISMS process

      Hi, I am evaluating using Zoho Desk for security incident management. This seems to be aligned with Zoho Desk purpose as its just another type of incident. However in security incident management, ideally I can link incidents (tickets) with a risk from
    • Filtering Tickets based on Email headers

      We're starting to get a lot more junk coming into our Zoho Desk, which is then triggering unnecessary email alerts to agents. Once thing we could do to cut this junk in half, is to filter tickets based on email headers. Any email containing the `List-Unsubscribe`
    • Field Dependency Not Working on Detail Page in Zoho Desk

      Hi Support Team, I’ve created field dependencies between two fields in Zoho Desk, and they are working correctly on the Create and Edit layouts. However, on the Detail page, the fields are not displaying according to the dependencies I’ve set — they appear
    • TaxJar vs Avalara

      Hi, I'm evaluating adoption of a sales-tax service for US based business. Anyone else have experience with TaxJar and Zoho Books? I am a Zoho One subscriber so anticipate needing to use Flow to make this work. It seems like Avalara are simply too expensive
    • How to check Leads with no Task (open activity)

      Hi everyone, I was wondering if there’s a way to view leads that don’t have any tasks assigned or open activities linked to them.
    • What can we do on our end to improve the Answer bot answers?

      Hi, I'm using the Answer bot card in the Codeless bot builder. I've input several questions and their answers in the FAQ section to feed the Answer bot. The text is all in French, as this is the language our customers communicate in. I've tried testing
    • Zoho Books Sandbox environment

      Hello. Is there a free sandbox environment for the developers using Zoho Books API? I am working on the Zoho Books add-on and currently not ready to buy a premium service - maybe later when my add-on will start to bring money. Right now I just need a
    • Taxes for EU B2B Transactions

      Currently, ZC doesn't seem to have a procedure for validating VAT numbers of businesses purchasing in another EU state, and removing local VAT is valid.  This is essential for all inter EU B2B trade.
    • Zoho Down

      I have a drop in my Zoho One services.
    • Customer Parent Account or Sub-Customer Account

      Some of clients as they have 50 to 300 branches, they required separate account statement with outlet name and number; which means we have to open new account for each branch individually. However, the main issue is that, when they make a payment, they
    • Issue with Inline Images in Email Reply via Zoho Desk API

      Hi, I am attempting to send inline images in an email reply using the Zoho Desk API, but the images are not being displayed inline for the recipient. I have followed this documentation: https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Uploads https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Threads#Threads_SendEmailReply
    • No Response from Zoho Support in 8 Days - Typical?

      I have a couple of issues I'm trying to work through. Initially, I was getting support from support@zohofsm.com, but I have not received a response in 8 days (11 on another question). Is this typical? Can I pay for support? For context, I am not spamming
    • How to upload file to Connect using API?

      Hi there. I looked at the API documentation and nowhere did it mention how to use the API method to upload a file even though it is mentioned that it is possible to be done so. Please help.
    • Problem for EU users connecting Zoho CRM through Google Ads for Enhanced conversions

      Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying to connect Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface to setup enhanced conversions? Did you guys get it fixed somehow? The Problem: The current Google Ads integration is hardcoded to use Zoho's US authentication
    • How can I setup Zoho MCP with Chat GPT

      I can set up custom connections with Chat GPT but I cat an error when I try to set it up. The error is: "This MCP server can't be used by ChatGPT to search information because it doesn't implement our specification: search action not found" Thoughts?
    • Group Tax in Service Line Items

      Hi FSM Team! I noticed that when you update a tax in the service line item the group tax is not showing up as an option. Let me know what can be done thank you!
    • Zoho Campaigns - Why do contacts have owners?

      When searching for contacts in Zoho Campaigns I am sometimes caught out when I don't select the filter option "Inactive users". So it appears that I have some contacts missing, until I realise that I need to select that option. Campaigns Support have
    • FSM Improvement Idea - Show an Import button when there is no data

      I am setting up FSM for a client and I noticed that there is no option to import data, see screenshot below. Even when you click Create Contact there is only an option to Import from Zoho Invoice. It is only after you add at lease 1 record that the Import
    • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

      Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based
    • Zoho FSM API Delete Record

      Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,
    • Transition from Sole Proprietorship to GmbH (Limited Liability Company) – Best Approach in Zoho Books / Zoho One

      Hello everyone, I am currently operating under a Zoho One plan with a sole proprietorship in Switzerland. As of January 1st, 2026, I will be incorporating a new legal entity – a GmbH (Swiss equivalent of a Limited Liability Company). While the business
    • Insert auto number from main form into subform rows

      Hello. I'm trying to take from my main form "order number" which i have setup as an auto generated number into every line created in my subform. So when a row is created in my subform i want the "order number " from the main form to be inserted automatically.
    • Adding a developer for editing the client application with a single user license

      Hi, I want to know that I as a developer I developed one application and handed over to the customer who is using the application on a single user license. Now after6 months customer came back to me and needs some changes in the application. Can a customer
    • Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

      Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over
    • Limiting search or dependencies with an asterisk "*".

      I have a form with several dependency fields with options still developing for each field. Since these options were developing and not yet ready to be a selection in the field, I placed a filter for the dropdown field. In this filter, I selected fields
    • Collaps Notes

      There are times when long/large notes are added to a record i.e. Accounts or Deals etc. Currently, the full note is displayed in the notes related list section. It would be great if by default only 5 to 10 rows of the note are displayed when the note
    • Improved RingCentral Integration

      We’d like to request an enhancement to the current RingCentral integration with Zoho. RingCentral now automatically generates call transcripts and AI-based call summaries (AI Notes) for each call, which are extremely helpful for support and sales teams.
    • How to overcome limitations in meetings

      As a company, one of our deliverables is a meeting between two other companies, where we act as facilitators. So, if we recorded this meeting  in Zoho CRM, it should be connected to 2 accounts, 2 contacts, and 1 campaign (a campaign, in our use, is the
    • Cross Data Center Support for 1:1 Chats with External Users

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. We appreciate the recent enhancement that enables cross data center collaboration in external channels, which has already improved communication across distributed teams. However, we’ve noticed that this
    • Support Bots and Automations in External Channels

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, How are you? We actively use Zoho Cliq for collaboration, including with our external developers. For this purpose, external channels are a key tool since they work seamlessly within the same interface as all of our other channels
    • Answer Bot and Personalized Questions

      Hi there, I have the same problem using the SalesIQ Answer Bot and the Zoho Desk Answer Bot (which really need different names, to be honest, in order to avoid confusion...) Customers that visit our website ask questions in the form of "What do you do?"
    • Handling Greetings/Small Talk at the Beginning of a Zobot Conversation

      Hello everyone, I’m currently configuring a **Zobot** in Zoho SalesIQ and everything is working as expected, except for one specific scenario at the very beginning of the conversation. My target audience has the habit of starting with a **greeting or
    • Regex in Zoho Mail custom filters is not supported - but it works!

      I recently asked Zoho for help using regex in Zoho Mail custom filters and was told it was NOT supported. This was surprising (and frustrating) as regex in Zoho Mail certainly works, although it does have some quirks* To encourage others, here are 3 regex
    • Importing a new list into campaigns

      I'm in the middle of switching my email platform to campaigns. I have a list that I want to import, and it overlaps with my existing Zoho CRM list. The fields in my Zoho CTM are more robust. Will this new list that I upload into my campaigns overwrite
    • Client Script Payload Size Bug

      var createParams = { "data": [{ "Name": "PS for PR 4050082000024714556", "Price_Request": { "id": "4050082000024714556" }, "Account": { "id": "4050082000021345001" }, "Deal": { "id": "4050082000023972001" }, "Owner": { "id": "4050082000007223004" }, "Approval_Status":
    • Webform & spam

      Hi, We set up 2 webform on our website, fowarding the content to Zoho CRM. Since it has been opened up, we are getting lot of spam message (for now about 20 a day). To lower the  amount of false new leads we added the captcha field and new enquieries are send to the Approval Leads list. However we still get some spam. Is there any "anti spam" mechanism built in Zoho CRM, or how is the best way to avoid these kind of spam ? Thanks
    • when I email a invoice how can i see it was sent and also were i can go to see all emails sent

      when I email a invoice how can i see it was sent and also were i can go to see all emails sent?
    • Kaizen #208 - Answering your Questions | Functions, AI and Extensions

      Hello Developers! Welcome back to a fresh week of Kaizen! We are grateful for your active participation in sharing feedback and queries for our 200th milestone. This week, we will answer the queries related to Functions and Extensions in Zoho CRM. 1.
    • Next Page