Understanding Workflow Behavior with Appointment Changes

How Workflows Respond to Appointment Updates

When a contact books an appointment, they enter a workflow designed to manage their journey. However, appointments can change after a contact is already in a workflow. This guide explains how the system handles different scenarios, such as cancellations, rescheduling, and multiple bookings, ensuring your automated communications remain accurate and relevant.

Multiple Bookings and Re-entry

A single contact can book multiple appointments. The system is designed to handle this by allowing a contact to enter an appointment-triggered workflow multiple times, regardless of whether they are already active in it or what the workflow's general "Allow Re-entry" setting is. Each new appointment booking acts as a fresh entry point.

Scenario 1: Appointment Cancellation

If a contact cancels an appointment while they are actively progressing through a workflow, the system will immediately remove them from that workflow instance. No further actions from that workflow will be sent to the contact.

How it works: The system treats an appointment as "Cancelled" when its status is changed to Cancel, Invalid, or No Show from a status like New or Confirmed. Once this happens, the contact's journey in that specific workflow path is terminated.

Scenario 2: Appointment Rescheduling

When a contact reschedules an appointment by changing its start or end time, the system treats this as a "Rescheduled" event. The contact will be pulled out of their current position in the original workflow.

Re-entering the workflow: The contact can only re-enter the same workflow if a specific trigger is set to activate on an "Appointment Status" of "Rescheduled," and the rescheduled appointment meets all other trigger conditions (like the correct calendar or assigned user). Crucially, the workflow's "Allow Re-entry" setting must be enabled for this new entry to occur. If these conditions aren't met, the contact will not re-enter the workflow after rescheduling.

Scenario 3: Recurring Appointments

Appointments set up as part of a recurring series will not trigger a contact's entry into a workflow using the standard "Customer Booked Appointment" trigger. You must use alternative workflow triggers or strategies to manage communications for recurring appointment schedules.