Set Up Staff, a Service and Your First Booking Page

The fastest way to learn Core Bookings is to take one real booking. You need three things: a staff member with working hours, a service that staff member delivers, and a page where customers can book it. Start with a free service so you can test the whole flow without touching payments.

Add a Staff Member

Staff are existing WordPress users. Create the user first in Users if they don’t have an account yet. You can add yourself.

1. Go to Bookings → Staff and click Add staff.
2. Pick the person under WordPress user. The list shows up to 50 users, so use Find a WordPress user and Search users on a bigger site.
3. Set their Timezone. Search by city, region or UTC offset. Their hours follow this timezone, wherever your customers are.
4. Under Weekly availability, tick Available for each working day and set the hours. A new profile starts at 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday. Use Add shift for a split day, such as a lunch break.
5. Leave Available for bookings ticked and click Save availability.

The same screen has Date-specific hours for one-off changes and Time off for holidays. Staff Hours, Time Off and Holidays covers them. Saving a profile also lets that user see their own appointments in the Bookings menu.

Create a Service

1. Go to Bookings → Services and click New service.
2. Fill in Service name, an optional Short description and Location or meeting link.
3. Set Duration (minutes), anywhere from 5 to 480.
4. Leave Appointment type on One-to-one appointment.
5. Tick the staff member under Assigned staff.
6. Set Payment method to Free for this first test.
7. Make sure Available for online booking is ticked, then click Save service.

The defaults under Scheduling and cancellation rules work for a first test:

Setting	Default
Start interval (minutes)	15
Buffer before (minutes) and Buffer after (minutes)	0
Minimum notice (minutes)	60
Booking horizon (days)	60
Change or cancel cutoff (minutes)	1440 (24 hours)

Create a Service explains each one, plus group sessions and paid services.

Publish the Booking Page

Every active service already has its own booking page. Pick whichever way suits your site:

• Share the built-in page: on the service card in Bookings → Services, click Booking page. Copy that address into an email, a social bio or a button. No WordPress page needed.
• Add the block: edit any page, insert the Core Bookings block and pick your service in its settings. You can create a service from inside the editor too.
• Use the shortcode: open Embed shortcode on the service card and paste it into a page, a widget or a page builder.

[core_bookings service="12"]

Replace 12 with your service’s ID. Leave out service and the form shows a Service picker with all your listed services. For a service directory or a popup button, see Add the Booking Form, Service Directory and Popup Button.

Take a Test Booking

1. Open the booking page in a private browser window, so you see it the way a customer does.
2. Pick a date and one of the Available times, then click Continue.
3. Enter a name and an email address you can check, tick the confirmation box and click Confirm appointment.
4. Check your inbox for the confirmation, then open Bookings → Appointments. Your test booking is there with the status Confirmed.

Paid services show Reserve and continue instead, and services that need approval show Request appointment. Want to see a finished flow first? Try the coaching sessions demo.

If No Times Show Up

• The staff member isn’t ticked under Assigned staff, or Available for bookings is off on their profile.
• The day you picked isn’t a working day, or it falls inside Time off.
• Minimum notice rules out today’s remaining times. Try tomorrow.
• The service is paused. A paused service’s Booking page button is greyed out.
• A connected Google Calendar marks the time busy. Connected calendars block availability.

The Your booking setup panel on Bookings → Overview ticks off staff, services and payments, and its Open booking page link opens your first service. Once the free flow works, connect payments in Choose How Customers Pay.