Ready to make workshop booking a breeze? With AUXO, you can set up Online Booking in a snap and provide your customers with a web page where they can easily request bookings with your workshop.
ℹ️ Online Booking is available in the Auxo Workshop Pro plan and higher.
Here's a quick rundown of how it all works:
Setup
Online Booking is activated in Auxo Workshop by default - so all you need to do is set up your Services and start sharing your Public URL.
💡 Tip: Drive customers to your online booking page by adding you Public URL link to your website, social media pages, Google business profile and email signatures.
This can all be found on the Online Booking Settings page, by going to Settings > Online Booking:
Sharing your Public URL
Simply click the Copy icon highlighted above to copy the URL and start sharing with everyone! You could add this URL to links in your emails, have your web-designer attach this link to a "Request Booking" button on your website, or add it to your social media pages!
🗒️ Note: WOF & Service reminders sent from Auxo Workshop should automatically include a link to your online booking page, if you don't want this you may have to edit your templates.
Booking Capacity Limit
Here you set the limit of your capacity (how much time you have booked out) for allowing a new booking on a selected day.
For 'capacity' Auxo Workshop refers to the total work hours of technicians set up in your system compared with the time allocated to existing bookings.
If, for example you set the Booking Capacity Limit for online bookings to 75%, no further online bookings will be accepted for any days that are already 75% booked out.
Cut Off Time
In the cut off time, you can set the time of day where you will "cut off" the acceptance of new bookings for today. For example if you put 4pm, the system will no longer accept new online bookings for today requested after 4pm.
Preferred Pick Up & Drop Off Times
🧪 Beta Release: This change is currently in beta testing and is only available to select customers included in the beta. It will proceed to full release pending beta feedback.
Turn this on if you want customers to tell you what time of day suits them best for dropping off or picking up their vehicle, on top of picking a date.
In the Booking Settings card, flip the Show Preferred Pick Up / Drop Off Time switch on. It saves straight away, there's no separate Save button.
Once it's on, two extra time fields appear on your booking page for customers to fill in if they'd like to.
The times customers can choose from are limited to your workshop's operating hours for the day they've picked, so a customer booking on a day you're closed simply won't see any times to choose from.
If your workshop hasn't set up operating hours yet, customers can pick any time of day. Head to Initial Setup & System Configuration to set your hours first if you'd like to keep this restricted.
📝 Note: These are requested times only. Your booking capacity and cut off time rules still apply, and your team can adjust the drop off and pick up times for a job at any point from the job card.
Setting Up Services
You can click the New Service button on the screen shown above where you can set up the name, estimated time and specify if/how you want the pricing displayed to customers on the booking page:
You can add up to 15 services to your online booking page.
What your customer sees when making a booking
Here's a quick example of what your customer will see when opening your booking link:
On this form they can:
Enter their contact details (Company name, first name, last name, mobile number and email address)
Enter their vehicle details (rego, year, make and model)
If your workshop has a default state set in System Configuration, the online booking form will automatically prefill the state for customers where applicable.
Select from the Services you've made available in your online booking configuration
Enter Notes
Select a preferred date for their booking
Note: they can only select the day, not the specific time slot. However, they could specify a preferred time in the notes field.
If you've turned on preferred pick up and drop off times, two extra fields appear once a date is picked: Preferred drop off time and Preferred pick up time.
Both fields are optional. A customer can leave them blank, fill in just one, or fill in both.
The pick up time must be later than the drop off time. If a customer gets this the wrong way round, they'll see a message asking them to fix it before they can submit.
Customers can only request one date for both times. If they need to drop off one day and collect on another, they can mention this in the Notes field, and your team can adjust the pick up date afterwards from the job card.
💡 Tip: Customers pick times in 15 minute steps, e.g. 9:00, 9:15, 9:30.
Managing Online Booking Requests
New Booking Notification
When a customer submits a booking request using your Online Booking form, you will receive a notification within Auxo Workshop (on the top right, notification bell):
You also see a red notification beacon beside the Calendar and Online Booking Scheduler icons in the side-menu:
Online Booking Scheduler
When you receive a new booking notification, head to Calendar > Online Booking Scheduler in the side-menu:
This opens the Pending Requests section, displaying all unprocessed bookings requests:
Review Booking Requests
Each booking request displays the customer, vehicle and booking details
On the right, choose to Approve or Decline the booking
If preferred pick up and drop off times are turned on, the customer's requested times also show on the request card, labelled Drop Off Time and Pick Up Time. If a customer left one blank, it shows as a dash.
Send Confirmation
After clicking Approve or Decline you're provided options to either:
Send a confirmation email.
Send an SMS.
Click Confirm to proceed without sending a notification.
Existing Customer Notification
If the system detects a potential existing customer, you will see the following screen showing the possible matches:
On this screen you will be given the option to either assign the job to the existing customer or create a new customer.
If you select to assign the job to an existing customer you are also provided options to:
Update the customer name
Update the customer mobile number
Update the vehicle owner
Approve and Send
After choosing to confirm via SMS or Email, you're presented with the template selection screen to choose the email or SMS template to send to the customer (default preselected):
Success / Confirmation
Once the approval has been submitted, the booking will be added to your calendar/schedule and you will see the following confirmation notification:
📝 Note: When you approve a booking, any preferred times the customer requested are carried over to the job's own Drop Off and Pick Up fields on the job card, where your team can review or change them at any time.
How to Deactivate Online Booking
If you need to entirely deactivate your online booking page so customer's cannot request a booking:
Go to Online Booking Settings:
In the side menu, select "Settings" and then choose "Online Booking"
Deactivate Online Booking:
On the Online Booking settings page, click the "Deactivate Online Booking" option
