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Reschedule or reassign an appointment

basic

Drag to a new time or move an appointment to another professional — and what changes when you do.

Plans change. A client wants a later slot, a team member calls in sick, or you need to even out a busy column. In Apolaris AI you handle both cases from the calendar by dragging the appointment card — drop it on a new time to reschedule, or drop it on another professional's column to reassign. This page covers how the drag works, who is allowed to do it, the guards that stop you from creating a mess, and what does (and does not) change downstream when you move an appointment.

"Reschedule" means keeping the same professional but changing the time. "Reassign" means moving the appointment to a different professional. A single drag can do either, or both at once.

Who can do this

Access is granted per privilege on each user's account, not by a fixed job title. A domain manager (the "is manager" flag) always passes every check below. Everyone else needs the specific privilege.

Action What it needs
See your own appointments on the calendar Linked employee + access to the site
See everyone's appointments at a site View whole-site schedule (can_view_site_schedule)
Drag a card to a new time (same professional) Drag appointments to reschedule (can_drag_appointments) and edit booking (can_edit_booking)
Drag a card to another professional's column (reassign) The above plus View whole-site schedule (can_view_site_schedule)
Lock a customer to one professional Manager only

The drag handle only appears if you can drag. If a staff member has no drag privilege, the cards stay fixed and they can still reschedule the old way — opening the appointment and editing its date and time (which only needs edit booking).

For the full list of these flags and what each one unlocks, see the Privileges reference.

Reschedule: change the time

  1. Open the calendar (Appointments) and find the day with the appointment.
  2. Point at the appointment card. If you have the drag privilege, the cursor turns into a grab hand.
  3. Drag the card to the new time slot in the same professional's column and release.
  4. Confirm the move if asked. The appointment updates immediately and the calendar refreshes.

The appointment keeps its original duration — only the start time shifts, and the end time moves with it. So a 60-minute appointment stays 60 minutes wherever you drop it.

To move an appointment to a different day, change the calendar to that day first, then drag — or open the appointment and edit its date directly.

Reassign: move to another professional

Dropping a card onto a different professional's column moves the appointment to that staff member. Because handing work to someone else is a bigger change than a time nudge, two extra things happen:

  • You need the View whole-site schedule privilege (the same gate that lets you assign a new appointment to someone else). Without it, drops stay locked to the appointment's own column — you can re-time but not re-staff.
  • Apolaris AI asks you to confirm, naming the target: "Reassign this appointment to [name]?" Cancel to leave it where it was.

You can reschedule and reassign in one motion — drop the card on a new time and a new column at the same time, and both the professional and the start time update together.

The professional must actually work at that appointment's location. If they are not assigned to the site, the move is rejected with a message that they "does not work at this location."

Guards that protect your schedule

Every drag re-runs the same safety checks as creating or editing an appointment, so a quick drag can't quietly break something:

Guard What it blocks What you'll see
Already closed / paid Moving a completed, cancelled, no-show, or already-sold visit "This appointment can no longer be rescheduled."
Double-booking Dropping onto a slot that overlaps another active appointment for the target professional "That time slot conflicts with another appointment."
Approved leave Dropping onto a day (or hours) the professional is on approved leave "[name] is on approved leave on this date." (or the specific hours)
Meal / break Dropping onto a scheduled break or meal period "This time overlaps the [name] break …"
Customer lock Reassigning a client who is locked to a specific professional (see below) "[client] can only be attended by [staff] and cannot be reassigned."

Once an appointment has a sale recorded against it (or it's marked completed, cancelled, or no-show) it can no longer be dragged. This is deliberate — moving a visit that already produced revenue would orphan that sale. If you need to change a closed visit, correct the sale instead.

The customer–professional lock

A manager can tie a client to one specific professional, so that person is the only one who serves them — useful for trust, consistency, or sensitive clients. The setting lives on the customer record (the field labelled Locked to professional, with a lock icon) and is manager only to set or clear.

When a customer is locked:

  • You cannot reassign their appointment to anyone else by dragging — the drop is rejected with the "can only be attended by …" message above.
  • You can still reschedule the time, as long as the appointment stays in the locked professional's column.

If the locked professional is deactivated, the lock clears automatically and the client becomes bookable with anyone again. Full details are on Customers.

If a reassign keeps getting rejected and the conflict guards are clearly not the cause, check whether the customer is locked to another professional. A manager can change or remove the lock from the customer record.

What changes when you move an appointment — and what doesn't

Rescheduling or reassigning updates only the appointment's professional, start time, and end time. It's useful to know what ripples out from that and what doesn't:

  • Client reminders. Reminders are based on the appointment's stored time, so after a reschedule the client gets reminded for the new slot, not the old one. See Reduce no-shows for how reminders are set up.
  • No automatic "your appointment moved" message is sent. Apolaris AI notifies your team when an appointment is created or cancelled, but a drag-reschedule or reassign does not fire a separate notification. If the change is significant, tell the client yourself.
  • The sale, receipt, and loyalty are not touched. Moving an unsold appointment doesn't create or change any sale, so reports, inventory, and loyalty are unaffected until the visit is actually sold. (Closed/sold visits can't be dragged anyway — see the warning above.)
  • The original duration is preserved. You're moving the block, not resizing it.

Because no automatic message is sent on a reschedule or reassign, the client may still arrive at the old time or expect the old professional. For anything more than a small nudge, confirm the new time and the new professional with the client directly.

Manager vs staff: a quick comparison

Domain manager Receptionist (whole-site schedule) Regular staff
See everyone's appointments Yes Yes Own only
Reschedule (drag to new time) Yes With drag + edit privileges With drag + edit privileges, own column only
Reassign (drag to another professional) Yes Yes (whole-site privilege) No
Set / clear a customer lock Yes No No

Regular staff can keep their own day tidy by re-timing their own appointments (with the drag privilege), but moving work to a colleague is reserved for managers and whoever holds the whole-site schedule privilege.

Onboard a new employee Close the register at end of day