Waitlist and held places

The waitlist fills cancelled places for you. When a booking is cancelled, WagDay offers its place to the next customer waiting for that day at that location. With places held (the default), nobody else can take it while that customer decides.

How a released place is offeredCopy Anchor Link

1. A booking is cancelled, by staff, by the customer, through an approved cancellation request, or as part of a cancelled series.
2. WagDay looks for the customer who joined the waitlist first for that day and location, for the same service or for any service.
3. It skips anyone whose dog can't be booked: the dog has another booking that day, already holds a place, or would be refused by your vaccination, assessment or breed rules. Skipped customers stay on the waitlist.
4. If the day still has a free place once bookings and other held places are counted, the place is held for that customer, and they get an email with a link and the hold's end time.

A place isn't offered for a day customers can't book online, for example a day inside your minimum booking notice or a closed day. If the offer email can't be delivered, the hold is released and the place goes to the next customer. Cancelling a booking to refund and rebook it doesn't release its place, because the new booking takes it.

The customer confirms in the customer portal. They choose times, see the price and confirm, and an ordinary portal booking is made. Your approval holds, payment policy, capacity, staffing, and drop-off and pick-up rules all apply exactly as for any portal booking. Joining the waitlist never books or charges anyone by itself.

The customer can use a package credit, as in any portal booking. Booking custom fields aren't asked for on the offer page, the same as a portal booking request. If the customer's saved details can't be used for a portal booking (for example, pet notes longer than 1,000 characters), the offer page says what to update under My pets before they can confirm.

If the customer declines, leaves the waitlist, or doesn't confirm in time, their entry closes and the place is offered to the next customer. Unconfirmed holds are checked about every 15 minutes. The place stops being held the moment the hold ends, even before that check runs. A customer whose offer ended can join the waitlist again; they go to the back of the queue.

Choosing how long places are heldCopy Anchor Link

Go to Settings → Policies → Waitlist places and choose how long a released place is held: 30 minutes to 24 hours, or Don't hold places. The default is 2 hours. A hold never runs past the end of the requested day in the location's time zone, or past the last moment customers can still book that day online (the location's closing time less your minimum booking notice).

With Don't hold places, the next waiting customer is emailed that a place has opened, and the first customer to book it gets it.

What staff seeCopy Anchor Link

The Waitlist page (Bookings → Waitlist) shows each entry's state:

• Waiting: in the queue.
• Held until …: a place is held for this customer, until the time shown in the location's time zone.
• Offer lapsed: the hold has ended. The entry closes at the next check, and the place goes to the next customer.
• Notified: an emailed offer without a hold.

While a place is held, it counts as taken everywhere bookings are made: the booking wizard, reschedules, the customer portal, the booking widget, recurring series, the public API and the booking assistant. A new booking that would need the place is refused as fully booked. In the booking wizard the message reads "fully booked, including places held for waitlist offers". A booking for the held customer's own dog can still use the place.

To give the place to someone else, select Release place on the entry. The entry closes and the place is offered to the next waiting customer. The customer isn't emailed about the release, so let them know if they were planning to confirm. Mark booked still closes an entry you booked yourself.

Entries without a location (from before locations were required) are never offered places automatically. Assign them by hand.