Sometimes we need to plan ahead for bookings which might take place before they’re confirmed. By creating a tentative booking, you can pencil in work so it’s on your team’s radar, and then simply confirm it when it becomes a done deal.
Tentative bookings are different to waiting list bookings. When a booking goes onto the waiting list, it’s a confirmed booking that does need to go ahead; it just hasn’t yet been scheduled within someone’s availability. Tentative bookings on the other hand have not yet been confirmed; they are bookings which may or may not take place.
To create a tentative booking, click or click and drag on the timeline, just like you would to create a new booking. Fill out the details of your booking, and then click the Confirmed/Tentative slider to set the booking’s status.
Tentative bookings are easy to spot on your schedule, because the booking container will be white and the colour of the project or client that the booking is for will be shown as an outline around the booking. If you’re not familiar with the Color by setting in the schedule, check out our article on using colours.
You can keep track of any tentative bookings over in your Reports, so it’s easy to plan capacity around potential workloads.
When it comes to the Dashboard, tentative bookings will only be shown to the booker. Tentative bookings will not be shown to the people who have been booked. Once a booking is confirmed it will appear on the dashboard of both the booker and the person who has been booked. The containers of your tentative bookings are displayed in the color of the assigned project. If there’s no project assigned, they’ll appear grey.
Guru tip
Tentative bookings don’t require approval, but if the approval feature is turned on and a non-approver turns a tentative booking into a confirmed booking, the booking will then require approval.
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