What changed: you can now set how much notice a client must give before cancelling or rescheduling through your booking portal. The two are set separately.
Prefer to watch? There is a three minute walkthrough of both this and appointment resources.
Late change restrictions stop clients making changes through your booking portal at short notice. When a client opens their cancellation or reschedule link inside the window you have set, they see a notice asking them to contact you instead of a form.
You set the two restrictions separately, so you can allow a late reschedule while blocking a late cancellation, or the other way round.
Set a cancellation restriction
Go to Account, then Appointments.
Open the Portal Settings tab and stay on General Settings.
Scroll to Late change restrictions, below the cancellation refund policy.
On the first row, No cancellation within, choose an amount and a unit.
Click Update General Settings.
Setting a cancellation notice period
The amounts available are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 and 72 hours, or 1 to 14 days. Choose No restriction to switch it off again.
Set a reschedule restriction
The second row, No rescheduling within, works the same way and is independent of the first. Set it, then click Update General Settings.
Switching between hours and days changes your number. The two lists do not hold the same values, so if the number you had is not available in the new unit it snaps to the closest one. Check the row after switching.
What your client sees
A client who opens their cancellation or reschedule link inside the window does not get a form at all. They see a page headed This appointment can no longer be cancelled online, with a panel telling them the window you set.
The notice a client sees inside the cancellation window
Below that, the page shows their appointment type, date and time, and tells them to contact their therapist by name, or your practice if no therapist name is available. Where you have a booking link set up, they also get a Book another appointment button.
The reschedule link behaves the same way. That page is headed This appointment can no longer be rescheduled online and names your reschedule window rather than your cancellation one.
How this works with your refund tiers
Cancellation is blocked before any refund is worked out. A refund tier that needs less notice than your cancellation restriction can therefore never apply to a portal cancellation, because the client cannot get that far.
Check your refund tiers after setting a restriction. If you block cancellations within 48 hours, a tier offering 50 per cent back at 24 hours will never be used. Clients cancelling inside 48 hours have to come through you, and you handle the refund yourself.
What is not affected
You and your team. Restrictions apply to the booking portal only. You can still cancel or move an appointment from the diary at any time.
The exact cutoff. A client cancelling at exactly 24 hours out, with a 24 hour restriction, is still allowed. The block applies inside the window, not on it.
Rescheduling is judged on the original time. The window is measured against the appointment the client already has, not the new slot they are trying to move to.
Class blocks. A class block cancellation is measured against its earliest remaining session. Class blocks cannot be rescheduled through the portal in any case.
Only team administrators can set this. Team members see the section but cannot change it, as with the other business-level booking settings.