Product demos and appointments

An appointment is one booked visit for a customer at a branch time slot: a product demo or test drive for a prospect, or a service visit for a customer's vehicle or machine. You book it from a lead, an opportunity or a case (or straight from the Appointments list), the branch's slot capacity decides which times are free, and after the visit you record how it went and, for service work, raise a service order from it.

Overview

Every appointment is an Appointment record, whatever it is for. It holds:

• who and where — the partner account taking the booking, the branch, the customer account and the executive who works it;
• when — the appointment date and the branch time slot, which together take one place on that slot for that date;
• what — the item of interest, the demo or customer asset, and for service visits the service type and service job type;
• how it went — status, rating, the customer's voice, start and end usage readings, remarks and the cancellation reason;
• links — the lead, opportunity or case it was booked from, and the service orders raised from it.

The bookable times come from branch time slots, which an administrator sets up per branch with a number of places for each weekday.

When to use it

• A prospect wants to see or try a product before deciding: book a demo from the lead or the sales opportunity.
• A customer needs a service visit for an asset: book an appointment from the lead, the service opportunity or the support case.
• The front desk takes a booking that has no lead or case yet: use New on the Appointments list.
• After the visit: record the outcome and, when work is needed, create the service order from the appointment.

How xMatix handles it

• One booking dialog everywhere. Every way of booking opens the same New Booking dialog. It walks through Branch selection, Slot booking and Confirmation, and saves an Appointment. The same dialog runs in the xMatix mobile app.
• Capacity is checked when you save. Saving a booking takes one place on the slot for that date. If the date is closed or full, the save is refused, so two people cannot both take the last place.
• Moving or releasing a booking. Changing the slot or the date gives the old place back and takes a new one. Ticking Cancelled, clearing Confirmed or deleting the appointment gives the place back.
• The executive is assigned for you. On a new appointment, Executive is filled from the partner resource rules for its partner account and branch, unless an assignment rule already sets it.
• Numbering. Each appointment gets a number such as PD-27102026-000001 when it is first saved. The counter restarts every day; see Document numbering.
• Status is a label. Confirm, Complete and Cancel set Appointment Status. They do not hold or release the slot place; the Confirmed and Cancelled ticks do (see Business rules).
• Opportunity stage. Booking a demo or appointment from an opportunity moves the opportunity to Appointment/Quote; see Opportunities.

Prerequisites

• The branch has at least one active time slot, with places on the weekday you want (see Branch time slots).
• The partner account and branch are active, and the branch belongs to the partner account.
• A customer account. A new appointment cannot be saved without one.
• To have the executive filled in, partner resources set up for the partner account and branch (see Resources).
• The action permissions listed under Permissions.

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the booking dialog

Open the record the visit is about and choose the booking action:

The New Booking dialog opens and shows Step 1 of 3 · Branch selection. The customer, partner account, branch, item and asset are taken from the record you started on.

If the record already has a live appointment, the dialog lists it instead, with Reschedule and Cancel buttons (see Step 6).

Step 2 — Choose the branch

The list shows the branches you can book at: the ones in your resource's partner assignments plus the record's own branch. Search by name, code, city or postal code, select a branch and choose Next.

If the record already has a branch of the right type, this step is skipped. If you see Showing all branches, your user has no active resource or branch assignments, so every branch is offered; ask your administrator to link your resource.

Step 3 — Pick a date and time slot

On Slot booking, pick a day from the date strip (use Previous week and Next week to move), then a time slot. Each tile shows how many places are left, fully booked or closed. Past days are greyed out and branch holidays show their name. Use the service-type chips to narrow the slots. To book at a different branch, use Change; this reloads the slots and clears the one you picked.

Only active slots for the branch are offered. A slot restricted to an item or item group appears only when the appointment's item matches.

Step 4 — Confirm and save

On Confirmation (Confirm Details), check Partner Account, Branch Name and the customer, fill any fields your organization added to this step, and choose Save.

You see Appointment created successfully! and the new appointment opens. It holds its slot place, its Confirmed box is ticked, Demo Time is the slot's start time and Executive has been filled in where a partner resource rule matched. The record is linked to the lead, opportunity or case you started from.

Step 5 — Confirm the visit with the customer

When the customer confirms, open the appointment and choose Confirm. Appointment Status becomes Confirmed. The slot place was already held from Step 4.

Step 6 — Reschedule or cancel

To move a booking, choose the booking action on the lead, opportunity or case again; the dialog lists its live appointments. Choose Reschedule on the appointment's card, pick a free slot, and choose Confirm new slot. You see Appointment rescheduled.; the old place is given back and the new one is taken.

To cancel, choose Cancel on the card and confirm Cancel appointment. You see Appointment cancelled and the slot released.: the appointment is marked Cancelled and its place is given back.

You can also cancel from the appointment itself with the Cancel button in its header. It asks for a Cancellation Reason (Lapsed, Not Interested or Postponed) and sets Appointment Status to Cancelled, but it does not give the slot place back. To free the place as well, choose Edit and tick Cancelled.

Step 7 — Run the visit and record the outcome

Choose Edit on the appointment and fill in what happened: Usage Reading Start and Usage Reading End for a test drive or for a machine brought in, Demo Rating, Customer Voice and Remarks. Save, then choose Complete. Appointment Status becomes Completed. Completing does not give the slot place back.

Step 8 — Create a service order

For a service visit, choose Create service order in the appointment's header. A new service order is created with the customer, asset, branch, partner account, service type, customer voice, remarks and opening usage reading copied from the appointment; the executive becomes the order's service advisor and the appointment date becomes its document date. The order has no lines yet: the workshop adds labour and parts. It is listed on the appointment's Related tab, and Service Order on the appointment names it. See Service orders.

Step 9 — Find appointments

Open Service → Appointments, or CRM → Settings → Appointments. The All appointments list shows the number, branch, opportunity, slot, appointment date and time, customer account, status and executive. From a lead or opportunity, the related appointments are listed on its Related tab.

On mobile

In the xMatix mobile app the same booking actions open the same three-step dialog, including reschedule and cancel. Booking, rescheduling and cancelling need a connection; offline, the app says so and does not save.

Fields

The appointment page shows a header with the number, partner account, branch and customer, a timeline of Appointment Status, and a Details tab in four sections.

Not on the shipped page but on the record: Appointment Date (the booked date), Confirmed and Cancelled (the ticks that hold or release the slot place), Appointment Status, Customer Voice, Partner Account, Branch and Delivery Order. The full list is on the Appointment reference.

Business rules

• Partner and branch. On create, the partner account must exist and be active (Invalid Partner Account., Partner account is Inactive.). If the partner account has branches, the branch is required and must be one of its active branches (Branch is required for this Partner Account., Invalid Branch for Partner Account., Branch is Inactive.).
• Customer. On create, the customer is required and must be active (Customer is required., Customer is Inactive.).
• Slot place. An appointment with a slot takes one place on that date only while Confirmed is ticked and Cancelled is not. If Confirmed is not ticked, it holds no place. The booking dialog and the lead and case book actions always save it ticked.
• Slot checks. The slot must exist, belong to the appointment's branch and be active; an item-restricted slot needs a matching item or item group; a slot's service type and service job type must match exactly. A date whose capacity is 0 is closed; a date with no places left is full. A slot with no capacity set is unlimited.
• Move and release. Changing Appointment Slot, Appointment Date, Confirmed or Cancelled gives the old place back and books again, which can be refused if the new date is full. Keeping the same slot and date never refuses an edit, even on a day that is now over capacity. Deleting an appointment gives its place back.
• Status actions. Confirm, Complete and Cancel only set Appointment Status (Cancel also asks for the reason). None of them moves slot places.
• Service orders. Create service order can be run more than once; each run creates another order, and Service Order names the newest.
• Usage readings. On Sales appointments, Usage Reading Ends should be Greater than Usage Reading Start stops a save whose end reading is lower than the start reading.
• Booking-action checks. The lead and case book actions refuse a booking with no slot (A time slot is required to book an appointment.), no date (An appointment date is required to book an appointment.) or no branch (A branch is required to book an appointment, and this Lead has none.). The branch check is skipped when your organization does not use branches.

Example

A tractor dealer's showroom offers a 10:00–11:00 demo slot with 3 places on weekdays. A sales executive has a lead for a compact tractor, opens it and chooses Book product demo. They pick the showroom branch; on Slot booking, Thursday shows 1 left, and the executive picks it and saves. Appointment PD-29102026-000004 opens with Demo Time 10:00 and the showroom's demo executive filled in; Thursday's slot is now full.

The customer phones to confirm, so the executive chooses Confirm. On Thursday the demo runs: the executive edits the appointment, enters usage readings 120 and 126, rating 5 and the customer's comment, saves and chooses Complete.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox, with a branch that has an active slot of capacity 1 on tomorrow's weekday:

1. Open a lead at that branch and choose Book product demo. Book tomorrow's slot. Expected: the appointment opens, Confirmed is ticked, and the slot tile now shows fully booked for tomorrow.
2. Choose New on the Appointments list and try to book the same slot and date. Expected: tomorrow's tile shows fully booked and cannot be picked.
3. On the first appointment choose Cancel in the header with reason Postponed. Expected: status Cancelled, but the slot is still fully booked.
4. Choose Edit, tick Cancelled and save. Expected: the slot shows a free place again.

Quick reference

• Book from the lead, opportunity or case; use New on the list only when there is no source record.
• Saving the booking takes the slot place; Confirm only changes the status.
• The header Cancel does not free the slot: tick Cancelled too, or cancel from the booking dialog.
• To move a booking, use Reschedule in the booking dialog.
• Change the slot, not Demo Time, to change the time.
• Record readings, rating and customer voice with Edit, then Complete.
• Create service order copies the header only; add lines on the order.
• Each Create service order run makes another order.

Permissions

Appointments follow your security profile. In the shipped profiles:

The booking actions on lead, opportunity and case (Book product demo, Book appointment, Appointment) are granted to System Admin, Standard User, Sales Executive and Sales Manager, not to the Service profile. A user without a grant does not see the button. Grants are set on the profile's actions; see Security profiles. CRM → Settings is shown to System Admin only.

Configuration

• Branch time slots — the bookable windows, places per weekday, and item, service type and transaction type restrictions. See Branch time slots.
• Holidays — a branch, partner or organization-wide holiday closes the date in the booking dialog. See Holidays.
• Executive routing — partner resources and their assignment rules decide Executive; an assignment rule on this field takes precedence. See Resources and Assignment rules.
• Numbering — the shipped document setting for Appointment (series PD, daily date part, six digits). Change it under Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Document settings. See Document numbering.
• Picklists — Appointment Status, Cancellation Reason, Demo Rating and Service Type are entity picklists you can extend in the entity's field settings. The status actions write Confirmed, Completed and Cancelled by exact value, so keep those values.
• The booking dialog — the dialog is configured on the action's layout in the layout designer: step titles, which transaction type of slots it offers, extra fields on the Confirmation step, an asset and contact row, a Doorstep (onsite) option, and Book another appointment. The Doorstep option is off in the shipped layouts.
• Where it appears — Appointment is in the Service app, in CRM → Settings and in the Service settings app under Workshop Operations.

Common problems

"No bookable time slots for this branch"

The branch's slots exist but are not marked Active. An administrator opens the branch's time slots and ticks Active.

"No time slots configured for this branch"

The branch has no slot, or none of the transaction type this booking action asks for. Pick another branch, or have an administrator add a slot of that type.

"The time slot '…' is fully booked on …" or "… is not available on …"

All places for that date are taken, or the slot has 0 places on that weekday. Pick another slot or date, or have an administrator raise the capacity.

"The time slot does not belong to the specified branch."

The appointment's branch was changed after the slot was chosen. Pick a slot at the new branch.

"The service type does not match the time slot's required service type."

The slot only accepts one service type. Set Service Type to the slot's value, or choose another slot. The same applies to The service job type does not match the time slot's required service job type.

"The selected item is not applicable for this time slot."

The slot is for a specific item or item group. Choose a slot without an item restriction, or correct the appointment's item.

"Customer is required."

The appointment has no customer account. Choose one on the Confirmation step, or set Account on the source record first.

I cancelled the appointment but the slot is still full

The header Cancel sets the status only. Edit the appointment and tick Cancelled, or cancel it from the booking dialog.

"Usage Reading Ends should be Greater than Usage Reading Start"

The end reading is lower than the start reading. Correct one of the readings.

The Executive is empty

No partner resource rule matched the partner account and branch, and no assignment rule set it. Pick the executive by hand, or set up partner resources.

Common questions

Why does the appointment say Confirmed before I chose Confirm?

The Confirmed tick and Appointment Status are different things. Saving a booking from the dialog ticks Confirmed, which is what holds the slot place. Appointment Status is the customer-facing stage you move with Confirm, Complete and Cancel. So a new booking already holds its place before anyone chooses Confirm, and choosing Confirm changes only the status. Likewise, the header Cancel changes the status but keeps the place until Cancelled is ticked.

Can I book a visit at the customer's address?

Yes, when your administrator turns on the Doorstep option in the booking dialog's layout; it is off in the shipped layouts. A doorstep booking is saved with Demo Onsite ticked, and the address goes in Demo Address. It still uses a branch time slot, so it counts against that branch's capacity for the date.

Can one appointment produce several service orders?

Yes. Each Create service order run creates a new order linked to the appointment, and all of them are listed on the appointment's Related tab. Service Order on the appointment always names the most recent one, so use the Related tab to see them all. The orders start without lines; the workshop adds labour and parts on each order.

How is this different from the appointment scheduling engine?

The Scheduling appointments page describes the appointment-type and slot-template engine. The Appointments you book with Book product demo or Book appointment are the records on this page, booked against branch time slots.

Related topics

• Branch time slots
• Leads
• Opportunities
• Service orders
• Product configurator
• Holidays
• Appointment reference