An AI agent that books the appointment, not just answers questions about it, saves your front desk the most time. This article shows you how to connect an agent to Appointments.
When Appointments is enabled and a resource is assigned to the agent, the agent can:
- Read your catalog: services, durations, prices and bookable resources (doctors, rooms, staff).
- Check real availability, using the same weekly hours, closures and existing bookings as your team calendar.
- Offer the customer free times and create the appointment once the customer confirms.
Bookings made by the AI appear on the calendar with the source "AI". HueChat's database prevents two bookings from overlapping on the same resource, so an AI booking can never collide with one your team made at the same moment.
Screenshot: a WhatsApp conversation where the agent offers three times and confirms a booking
- Open Appointments and choose Booking settings. Turn on Enable native booking, set the timezone, the schedule interval, minimum notice, maximum advance and the Confirmation mode (Manual confirmation or Automatic confirmation). Save.
- Choose Manage resources and services. Add each service with a Duration (minutes), buffers before and after, price and an AI description that explains what the service is for so the AI offers it correctly. Add each resource (for example "Dr. Sarah" or "Room 1").
- On each resource, use Assign AI agents. Leave it empty to allow all agents, or pick specific agents to restrict who can book that resource.
- Choose Availability and add the recurring weekly hours for each resource, plus any one-off closures.
- Open the agent in AI Agents. Pick the Booking agent type, or keep another type and mention booking in the Instructions. Make sure the agent serves the inbox where customers write.
- Publish the agent, then test with the Test Agent panel: "I want to book a cleaning next Tuesday afternoon."
- Automatic confirmation: the booking is confirmed as soon as the customer agrees.
- Manual confirmation: the booking is created as tentative or booked, and your team confirms it from the calendar. Use this when you need to check something before committing.
¶ Rescheduling and cancelling
Customers can ask the agent to move or cancel a booking in the same chat. Set the Cancellation notice (minutes) in Booking settings so late cancellations are refused politely. Your team can also do this from the appointment detail.
If you already run a booking system, use the agent's Booking Integration section (Webhook, REST API or Zapier) instead of native booking. HueChat's native mode and an external booking integration cannot be active at the same time.
Exact options may differ by plan.