Event types

An event type is a template of something bookable: a 30-minute demo call, a 60-minute consultation, a site visit. Your agent books an event type, so it's the object that carries every rule about how that kind of appointment works.

Creating one

Under Calendars → Event Types, click New event type. If you haven't created a schedule yet, ClearTalk will send you to do that first — an event type with no schedule has no way to know when it's bookable.

The form is short — every rule an event type carries fits on one screen:

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1. 1The slug fills itself from the title, and becomes part of the booking link.
2. 2How long it runs, and how much breathing room to leave around it.
3. 3How soon someone can book, how far ahead, and how many a day you'll take.
4. 4Which schedule decides when it's bookable at all.

The settings

Title and slug

Title is what the appointment is called, and it's what the agent will say out loud: "I can get you booked for a Free Roof Inspection on Thursday." Name it the way a customer would describe it, not the way your CRM does.

Slug is the URL-safe version, filled in for you.

Length

How long the appointment runs, in minutes. This determines the slots that get offered — a 30-minute event type inside a 9:00–12:00 window offers 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, and so on.

Buffer before and after

Protected time either side of the appointment. Nobody can book into it, and it isn't shown as available.

This is the setting people skip and then regret. A 30-minute call with no buffer means back-to-back bookings all morning, with no time to write anything down between them. Ten or fifteen minutes after is usually enough.

Minimum notice

How far ahead someone has to book, in minutes. Without it, an agent on a call at 2:58 can book someone for 3:00 — which is technically correct and operationally awful.

Set it to whatever you genuinely need to prepare and travel. A phone consultation might need 60 minutes; a site visit needs half a day.

Maximum advance

How far into the future bookings are allowed, in days. Caps how far out your calendar can be committed — useful when your schedule changes month to month, and a hedge against no-shows on appointments booked eight weeks out.

Daily limit

The most appointments of this type you'll take in one day. Once it's hit, no more slots of this type are offered, even if your calendar is technically open.

Use it when the constraint isn't time but capacity: three site visits a day is a real limit even if the calendar has room for five.

Location

Where the appointment happens: Phone call, In person, Zoom, Google Meet, or Custom. In-person asks for an address; the link options ask for a URL.

The agent tells the customer what this is when confirming, so it's worth setting correctly even when it seems obvious.

Schedule

Which schedule this event type runs on. Most businesses point everything at one. Separate schedules are worth it when different appointment types genuinely have different hours — site visits only on weekday mornings, phone consultations any time you're open.

How many event types should you have?

Worked example

A roofing company running one outbound agent:

Notice how much of that has nothing to do with the calendar and everything to do with how the business actually runs. That's the point of the event type — it's where operational reality gets encoded so the agent can't book something you can't deliver.

Editing and deleting

Editing an event type changes what's offered from that moment on. Existing bookings keep the details they were booked with.

Deleting one keeps its existing bookings on the calendar — they just can't be re-booked. If you're retiring an appointment type, deleting it is safe; you won't lose anything already on the books.