Managing Your Kiosk's Reservations Online

Updated 2 months ago by Triana Kalmanoff

We are pleased to provide a software solution for managing your kiosk's reservations online. We have partnered with Flexbooker to allow you to manage your regular hours, closures, and reservations easily with your location's account. Members of the public (and your staff) can make reservations or view kiosk locations on our website. Read more about making a legal kiosk reservation here.

If you want to allow members of the public to reserve your kiosk online, you can use our software platform. If you would prefer to manage reservations manually, you can choose to do that as well.

Getting Started

  1. If you are interested in using our software to manage your kiosk reservations, you can view the demos here and here. We will set up accounts for however many staff members need access to manage the reservations. You can have one account for each staff member who will be managing your location's reservations or one that is shared for your organization. We'll need a name and email for each account. Email Triana with that information to set up your account.
Please make sure to watch the demos before signing up. We explain the information we need from you to configure your account.
  1. Once you sign up, we will configure your account and send you an invitation to join our platform.
  2. Click on the "Get Started" button to confirm your information and set up your account's password. Make sure to keep your password as you will need to use this account to log in and manage your location's reservations.
  3. You can log into your Flexbooker account here anytime to view your reservations, update your hours, block off times you are closed, and change your settings.

Configuring Settings

When you sign up with this form, we will configure your account to reflect your location's hours, address, and accounts. If you need to change your settings, here's how.

Changing Your Reservable Hours

If your location's regular hours have changed, you can update your reservable hours below. Please keep in mind, you will also have to change the hours that appear on our map. Changing these hours will alter the times that members of the public can make a reservation.

  1. From your login page, click "Setup" in the header
  1. On the Setup tab, click on "Schedules" on the left-hand menu. You should see the schedule already set up for your location.
It is important that we only use "Flexible Schedules" and not "Fixed Schedules". Your account should already be set up with Flexible Schedules, although you may see "Fixed Schedules" as an option.
  • Kiosk: This will say your location's name. If you have multiple Model B kiosks at your location, you should see two schedules for "Location Name - 1" and "Location Name - 2". You should not need to change this.
  • Services: Reserve Kiosk. This does not change.
  • Buffer Time: This is the amount of time added to the beginning and end of each reservation. This will allow for staff to sanitize between clients, video meetings that go over time, or clients that are running late. This can be changed by clicking on "15 minutes". It will bring up the Schedule Buffer Time setting box. Feel free to change this time. Click Save when you are done.
  • Advanced Options: Project-specific settings that should not be changed.
  1. On the right side of the schedule, you will see the set hours. You can change your regular hours here. These do not have to reflect your location's hours, but rather the hours you want to allow people to make reservations. For example, if you close at 5, and want to make sure any kiosk users are done well in advance of closing, you can change your closing time to 4:30. Click on the hours to pull up the editor.
  2. You can manually change the times in the text boxes or click "Copy Times to Other Days" to speed up the process. Make sure to click "Save Schedule Hours" when you are done editing.

  3. Don't forget, you also need to change the hours that appear on our map

Adding a Block

Sometimes you may want to prevent people from reserving your kiosk on a specific day and time. For example, if you are closed due to COVID or want to block off a holiday, here's how to create a block on the kiosk calendar:

  1. Log into your Flexbooker account here. From the homepage, click on "Calendar" in the header.
  2. Once you are on the calendar page, you can view your upcoming reservations by month, week, or day. Click the green "Create New" dropdown and then on "New Block".

  3. Configure your block by adding the date and a name for the event.
For "Which Kiosk?": You can select either the name of your location from the list or Everyone. The people listed are the accounts that have view access.

  • If you choose to name the block then that title will appear in the calendar.
  • Make sure the start and end times match the time that you would like to block and then click "Save".
  • You can also create repeating blocks, by checking the "Repeat?" checkbox:
  • For example, to create a block every week for the next year, enter "Every 1 Week for 52 times".
  • And then hit the "Save" button to save the block you created.

You should now see the block on the calendar view.

Calendar Integrations

You can sync your exisiting calendar with the kiosk's calendar to make sure you stay on top of your reservations or to ensure availability is always up to date. There are 2 types of calendar integrations:

  • 1-way calendar sync: kiosk reservations appear on your existing calendar
  • 2-way calendar sync: kiosk reservations appear on your existing calendar AND events on your existing calendar are blocked off on the kiosk calendar (this is particularly useful for locations with kiosks in rooms that are frequently used for other purposes. The 2-way calendar sync prevents kiosk reservations when your room is being used for another event)
Setting up a 1-way calendar sync

To set up a 1-way calendar sync, you can generate an iCal feed with Flexbooker and share it with your existing calendar.

  1. From your login page, click "Setup" in the header
  2. Click on "External Calendars" on the left hand menu and then on "+ Add Feed" under iCal Feeds.
  3. With the dropdown next to "Choose New Feed Kiosk", select the name of your location.
Important: Do not select the name of your staff account. The staff account will be used to manage the reservations but will not contain any.
  1. Click Save. This will generate a feed URL that will allow you to access the kiosk's calendar with another. The feed URL will look similar to this (although each feed you publish will have its own unique URL):

https://www.flexbooker.com/iCal/f334de67-a37d-4b0e-a380-833459b73458

The last part of that web address is a globally unique identifier that is just for you.

  1. If using Micorosoft Office or Outlook as your calendar, then due to a non-standard way that those programs handle timezones, please add this to the end of the URL for your feed: ?forOutlook=true

It should look like this after: https://www.flexbooker.com/iCal/f334de67-a37d-4b0e-a380-833459b73458?forOutlook=true

  1. Almost all calendar systems support the iCal feed published from your FlexBooker account. To import your FlexBooker calendar feed into other calendars follow these step-by-step instructions:
    1. For Google Calendar:
      1. Open a new browser window and go to Google Calendar. Click on the dropdown button (or the "Add" link in the old Google Calendar version) in the "Other Calendars" section on the left-hand side.
      2. Choose "Add by URL"
      3. On the pop-up, paste the URL of your FlexBooker iCal Feed in the selected text field.
      4. Click "Add Calendar" to finish.
    2. For Outlook 2007:
      1. Select "Tools", then "Account Settings" in your Outlook 2007 Calendar menu.
      2. Select "Internet Calendars" and click "New".
      3. Paste the link to your FlexBooker iCal feed in the location field.
      4. Set up the display name for your calendar and/or add a description in "Subscription Options"
    3. For Apple iCal:
      1. Select the 'Calendar' menu and then select 'Subscribe'
      2. Enter the calendar URL into the 'Calendar URL' field
      3. Click 'Subscribe' to load the feed into your calendar.

Setting up a 2-way calendar sync

The kiosk's calendar can integrate directly with your external Google, Outlook, or iCloud calendar to synchronize events and bookings in both directions. New kiosk reservations will automatically appear in your external calendar, and also that new events added to your external calendar will automatically be added to your kiosk's calendar, blocking off its availability for reservations.

To set up a 2-way calendar sync, you will need to let us know. We will configure the settings on your kiosk account to allow you to connect it to your external calendar.

  1. Email us to let us know you'd like to set up the 2-way calendar sync. Please include the email address associated with your external calendar.
  2. We will give you temporary log in credientials that will allow you to log in as if you are the kiosk, rather than your usual staff account used to manage reservations.
We have set up the platform to treat kiosks as if they are employees so that they can have their own calendar (like when you make an appointment with a hairdresser). For this reason, each kiosk is associated with an email address. We will give you temporary access to the kiosk's account so that you can log into the kiosk's account where the reservations are stored and link it to your external calendar.
  1. Log in to Flexbooker here with the new account details we give you.
  2. From your login page, click "Setup" in the header
  3. Click on "External Calendars" on the left hand menu and then on "+ Add Calendar Integration" under Other Calendar Integrations.
  4. This will guide you to a screen asking you to choose what type of external calendar you'd like to integrate with:
  1. You will be asked to sign in with the email (associated with your external calendar) and password. Once you've authenticated to the external calendar and verified that you want to allow FlexBooker to access it, you will be taken to a screen to customize the integration.
    1. Make sure to choose which calendar you'd like to sync with (some calendar providers, such as Google, allow you to have multiple calendars under one account)
    2. Choose the first option: "Push all Flexbooker bookings into my external calendar, and block times in Flexbooker when I'm marked as busy in my external calendar (MOST POPULAR)"
  1. Click "Save and Begin Synchronization". When complete, you should see events from your external calendar marked as busy on your kiosk calendar and kiosk reservations on your external calendar.
  2. Don't forget to sign out of the kiosk's account. The access you were granted is temporary and you will not be able to manage the reservations on that account. Please sign back into your original account with your email and the password you created initally (see "Get Started" above).

Managing Your Reservations

You can view, change, or cancel your reservations direction from your homepage.

  1. Log into your Flexbooker account here to view your reservations.
    1. You will see the list on the Home page under Upcoming Appointments.
    2. You can also view them by clicking on "Calendar" and viewing by month, week, or day.
  2. To make a chage to an existing reservation, click on it. It will bring up the detials screen.
  3. You can edit the details or cancel the reservation entirely. Click "Save" to save your changes.
    Users/clients will be notified if you change or cancel a reservation unless you choose not to notify them.


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