Creavi Help Center

Knowledge Base

Complete setup instructions and answers for Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar—all on one page, with no separate guide pages required.

Getting started

1How do I install Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar requires WordPress 6.0 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer.

  1. Sign in to the WordPress administration area.
  2. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin.
  3. Search for Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar, or upload the plugin ZIP file.
  4. Select Install Now and then Activate.
  5. Open the Creavi Booking admin menu to access Services, All Bookings, and Info & Help.
2How do I create my first service in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Open Creavi Booking → Services.
  2. Select Add Service or Add New Service.
  3. Enter the service title and a description customers will understand.
  4. Choose the appointment duration and configure available booking days.
  5. Select weekday start times, the service time zone, and any booking buffer.
  6. Configure the booking form, meeting type, notifications, and optional calendar connection.
  7. Select Publish.
3What happens when I publish a service in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Publishing makes the service available to booking widgets and blocks. It does not automatically create a public service page. Add the published service to a normal WordPress page with a shortcode or a Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar Gutenberg block.

1Where do I find the service ID and shortcode in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Open Creavi Booking → Services.
  2. Find the service in the list and look at the Shortcode column.
  3. Alternatively, edit the saved service and copy the generated shortcode from its Shortcode box.
  4. The number inside id="123" is the service ID.
2How do I display an inline Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

The inline layout displays the complete booking interface directly inside the page.

  1. Create or edit the WordPress page where customers should book.
  2. Add a Shortcode block, Elementor Shortcode widget, or equivalent page-builder element.
  3. Paste .
  4. Replace 123 with the actual service ID.
  5. Publish or update the page and test the complete booking flow.
3How do I add a popup booking button from Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Customers select the button to open the service booking flow in a popup.

  1. Add a Shortcode block or Shortcode widget to the page.
  2. Paste .
  3. Replace 123 with the service ID.
  4. Publish or update the page.

Services, employees, and booking forms

1How do I edit a service in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Open Creavi Booking → Services.
  2. Select the service title or choose Edit.
  3. Use the service setup navigation to move between title, description, days, times, form, display, appearance, meetings, notifications, and calendars.
  4. Select Update after changing the settings.
2Which appointment durations are available in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Each service can use a 20, 30, or 60-minute appointment duration. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar recalculates available start times using the duration, selected weekday slots, existing bookings, connected busy calendar events, and the optional buffer.

3How many services can I create with Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar does not impose a service limit. Each service can have independent availability, duration, form fields, notification email, reminders, meeting type, appearance, and Google or Outlook Calendar connection.

1How do I use Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar with multiple employees?

Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar does not currently provide separate employee accounts or a central employee directory.

  1. Create a separate service for each employee, or for each employee-and-service combination.
  2. Include the employee name in the service title, such as Consultation with Anna.
  3. Configure that employee’s availability and meeting settings.
  4. Enter the employee’s address in Admin Notification Email.
  5. Connect the employee’s Google or Outlook Calendar to the service if required.
  6. Display each employee’s service with a shortcode, Service Hero, or Booking Profile block.
2Can different services send bookings to different email addresses?

Yes. Every service in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar has an Admin Notification Email field. Booking notifications, admin reminders, and calendar invitations for that service are sent to this address. If it is empty, the WordPress administrator email is used.

3How do I customize the booking form in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Open the service and go to Booking Form Fields.

  • Enable or disable the default Name and Email fields.
  • Make the default fields required or optional.
  • Add unlimited custom Text or Textarea fields.
  • Mark individual custom fields as required.
  • Enable the GDPR consent checkbox.
  • Customize the consent label and add a privacy-policy URL.
  • Choose whether consent is required.

Availability and scheduling

1How do available booking days work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar supports a rolling booking window and manually selected bookable dates. Use a rolling window when customers should always see availability a set number of months ahead. Use selected dates when appointments are offered only on specific calendar days.

2How do I exclude holidays or days off in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Edit the service and open Available Booking Days.
  2. Use Excluded dates to select holidays, leave, or other unavailable dates.
  3. Update the service.
3How do weekday time slots work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

The Visual Time Slot Selector contains weekday columns and appointment start-time rows. Select the cells customers may book. Different weekdays can use different start times. The weekday order follows the WordPress Week Starts On setting.

4How do I prevent last-minute bookings in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Set How far in advance in the service’s Available Booking Days settings. Enter a value and choose minutes, hours, or days. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar hides appointment times that begin inside this minimum-notice period.

1How does the appointment buffer work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Choose no buffer or a 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, or 60-minute buffer. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar requires this free time after a local booking or connected busy calendar event. The buffer protects availability but does not increase the calendar event duration.

2How do time zones work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  • Localized mode: customers see available times in their own time zone. This is recommended for online meetings.
  • Locked mode: everyone sees times in the service or business time zone. This is recommended for in-person appointments.
  • The selected time zone is shown in the frontend booking flow and booking summary.
3How does Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar prevent double bookings?

Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar removes times that conflict with existing local bookings. When busy-time synchronization is enabled, it also removes overlapping Google or Outlook events. A final conflict check runs again when the customer submits the booking.

Display, design, locations, and meetings

1What is the difference between popup and inline display in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  • Popup: displays a customizable button that opens the booking interface over the current page.
  • Inline: displays the complete booking interface directly inside the page content.
  • The selected display type also determines which generated shortcode appears for the service.
2How do I use Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar with Gutenberg?

Add the Creavi Service block, select a published service, choose popup or inline display, and set the alignment. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar also includes the Service Hero and Booking Profile blocks for complete booking-page layouts.

3What is the Service Hero block in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Service Hero is an editable booking hero with a profile image or logo, background image, heading, description, trust points, social links, color presets, and a booking card connected to a published service.

4What is the Booking Profile block in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Booking Profile combines a service-provider profile with a live inline calendar. You can edit the profile name, role, photo, biography, included items, social links, call-to-action text, and accent color, then connect the block to a published service.

1How do I use Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar with Elementor or another page builder?
  1. Edit the page with the chosen page builder.
  2. Add its Shortcode widget or element.
  3. Paste for an inline calendar or for a popup.
  4. Replace 123 with the service ID.
  5. Publish the page and test it outside the editor.
2How do I customize the appearance of Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Edit the service and open Booking Appearance. Appearance settings apply to the service’s popup or inline booking interface.

  • Primary accent color and button label.
  • Light or black booking theme.
  • Dark background, border, and optional frame.
  • Button text, background, border, radius, font size, and padding.
  • Button hover text, background, and border colors.
3Which location and meeting types are supported by Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  • In-person: add a physical address that appears in emails and calendar events.
  • Phone call: add the phone number shared with the customer.
  • Custom link: add an external meeting URL.
  • Secure video: generate customer and host meeting links through the built-in video option.
4How do secure video links work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Configure a secure meeting title and optional host display name. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar creates a customer link and a host-specific link. The appropriate link is used in customer emails, admin emails, reminders, Google or Outlook events, and calendar attachments.

Emails, reminders, calendars, and bookings

1How do confirmation emails work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Each service has separate customer and admin email templates plus a customizable thank-you message. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar sends the customer confirmation to the submitted address and sends the admin notification to the service-specific Admin Notification Email.

2Which email placeholders are available in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Templates support placeholders such as {name}, {email}, {service}, 30 July 2026, {time}, {location}, {custom}, {google_calendar}, {video_url}, {name_url}, and {admin_link}. Available placeholders vary slightly by template.

3How do reminders work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  • Customer and admin reminders can be enabled independently for each service.
  • They can use different timing, subjects, and message templates.
  • Timing ranges from 10 minutes before the appointment to one day before.
  • For day-before reminders, choose a delivery time in the service time zone or leave it empty for exactly 24 hours before.
4Why can reminders from Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar be delayed?

Reminders depend on WordPress Cron. On a quiet website, WordPress Cron may run later than scheduled. Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar recovers overdue reminders on the next available run before the appointment. For dependable timing, configure the server to call wp-cron.php regularly.

5How do I connect Google Calendar to Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Edit the service and open Google Calendar.
  2. Select Connect Google Calendar and authorize the Google account.
  3. Enable Add bookings to Google Calendar to create events.
  4. Enable Block busy times to remove overlapping Google events from frontend availability.
  5. Customize the event title, location, description, and attendee invitation settings.
1How do I connect Outlook Calendar to Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  1. Edit the service and open Outlook Calendar.
  2. Select Connect Outlook and authorize the Microsoft account.
  3. Enable automatic booking events and optional busy-time blocking.
  4. Customize the Outlook event title and description templates.
2Can different services use different calendars in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Yes. Google and Outlook connections are configured per service. This allows services representing different employees to connect to different calendar accounts and block each employee’s own busy events.

3Can customers add a Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar appointment to their own calendar?

Yes. Customer emails can include a Google Calendar link and an attached ICS file. ICS files can be opened by Outlook, Apple Calendar, and many other calendar applications.

4How do I manage bookings created by Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Open Creavi Booking → All Bookings. The dashboard shows the appointment date and time, customer details, linked service, and meeting type. Open a booking record to review saved fields and appointment details.

5How does automatic booking cleanup work in Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

In All Bookings, enable automatic cleanup and choose how long completed records are kept. Select a preset or custom retention period and choose whether eligible records move to Trash or are deleted permanently. Cleanup removes local WordPress booking records only; it does not remove Google or Outlook events.

Troubleshooting and help

1Why is my Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar service not visible on the website?
  • Confirm that the service is published.
  • Confirm that the WordPress page containing the block or shortcode is published.
  • Check that the shortcode uses the correct service ID.
  • Remember that publishing a service does not create a standalone public page.
  • Clear WordPress, hosting, CDN, and browser caches.
2Why does Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar show no available dates or times?
  • Check the booking window or selected bookable dates.
  • Check excluded dates.
  • Confirm that weekday start-time cells are selected.
  • Review the appointment duration and minimum booking notice.
  • Review the service time zone and current date.
  • Check existing bookings, the buffer, and connected Google or Outlook busy events.
3Why are emails from Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar not arriving?
  • Verify the customer and Admin Notification Email addresses.
  • Check spam and junk folders.
  • Test whether the WordPress website can send email.
  • Configure a reliable SMTP plugin or transactional email service.
  • For reminders, also check the reminder settings and WordPress Cron.
1Why is Google or Outlook not synchronizing with Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?
  • Open the affected service and verify that the correct account is connected.
  • Check whether event creation and busy-time blocking are enabled.
  • Reconnect the account if authorization has expired or shows an error.
  • Confirm that the booking belongs to the service with that connection.
  • Check that the external calendar event is marked busy when testing conflict blocking.
2Does Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar work with caching plugins and CDNs?

Yes, but booking availability is dynamic. If the interface looks outdated or displays stale availability, clear all caches and exclude pages containing Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar from aggressive full-page caching. Also clear the cache after installing or updating the plugin.

3How do I get help with Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?

Open Creavi Booking → Info & Help for quick-start information and support links. When requesting assistance, include the Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar version, WordPress version, affected service, shortcode or block used, screenshots, and a clear description of the expected and actual behavior.

Still need help with Creavi Appointment Booking Calendar?