Booking Requests

The Appointments Inbox receives appointment requests submitted by clients through your public request form. This is separate from the calendar, requests must be reviewed and manually approved or declined before they become appointments.

New in v4.2 (web): The share-link and embed-code controls for the appointment request form moved out of the old “Settings > Inbox” page and into the unified Settings > Sharing page (Appointment Requests accordion). Bookmarks to /settings/inbox redirect there automatically. The Inbox itself, where requests appear for review, is unchanged.

On mobile, the same share controls live in their own Settings > Inbox screen. Same functionality, just organized as a standalone screen instead of an accordion section.

How It Works

1. Share your request form link with clients (website, Instagram bio, Google Business Profile, email, etc.)
2. Clients fill out the form, they provide contact info, preferred date/time, notes, and can upload reference photos
3. Request appears in your Inbox with status “Pending”
4. You review and respond, Book it (converts to an appointment) or Decline it
5. If booked, attachments and notes from the request are automatically linked to the new appointment

Clients also get an email confirming their request, and you can message them from your Inbox. See Client Messaging.

The public form filters its date picker and time-of-day options based on your studio’s business hours and the selected artist’s availability, so clients only see slots when you’re actually open. Closed days are disabled in the picker with a friendly helper line (“We’re closed on Sunday and Monday”). When the request is converted to an appointment, the same off-hours and artist-availability soft-warn fires from the calendar’s Convert Request modal. See Business Hours for the full walkthrough on how hours flow into the public form.

Getting Your Request Form Link

Go to Settings > Sharing and expand the Appointment Requests accordion (it is open by default). You will find:

Copy Link, your unique form URL: https://app.tattoostudiopro.com/request/[your-studio-id]

Preview, see exactly how clients see your request form

Instagram bio link, a copy of your form link tagged for Instagram. Put it in your bio and requests that come through it are labeled “via Instagram” in your Inbox (see Where a Request Came From)

Embed code, an iframe snippet to place the form directly on your site. Embed codes include ?embed=1 so the form renders without your studio header or logo for a clean fit on third-party sites.

Clients can submit requests 24/7 without logging in. The form works on all devices.

What the Form Looks Like to Clients

Clients see a streamlined request form with:

• Contact fields (name, email, phone)
• A date picker with closed days disabled and a helper line listing your closed days
• An artist selector. By default it includes an “Any artist” option at the top (picking it falls back to studio hours only and submits with no artist preference, and you assign someone when converting the request). You can change this behavior, hide “Any artist,” pre-select a default artist, or require clients to pick a real artist, from Settings > Form Editor > Request Form (see Configuring Artist Selection below)
• Service-aware filtering: if a client picks a service first, the artist list narrows to only the staff who offer it; if they pick a specific artist first, the service list narrows to only what that artist offers. Picking “Any artist” or no artist shows all services. This is driven by the per-staff services you set in Staff Management
• Morning, afternoon, and evening time-of-day buckets, filtered to the chosen artist’s working hours (an artist working noon to 6 PM disables the Morning bucket)
• An optional reference-image upload
• A notes field
• An SMS consent disclosure below the phone field, naming your studio and enumerating the message types clients may receive (booking confirmations, reminders, deposit links, check-in forms, receipts), message frequency, rates, STOP/HELP instructions, and links to the Privacy Policy and Terms. This block is required for the Twilio A2P 10DLC compliance carriers now enforce on every public SMS-triggering form. The same disclosure also appears on the walk-in check-in form and appointment-specific check-in forms.

Prefer walk-ins? If a client would rather skip the request form, you can also display a QR code at your front counter (see the Check-In Forms accordion on the same Sharing page). Clients scan the code, fill out their intake on their phone, and land in your queue instead of going through the request-and-review flow.

Configuring Artist Selection

New in v4.2. Go to Settings > Form Editor > Request Form to control how the artist picker behaves on your public form. There are two independent levers:

• Allow “Any artist” (a switch). On (the default) shows the “Any artist” option; off removes it so clients must pick a specific person.
• Default artist (a dropdown). Pre-selects an artist when a client opens the form. Leave it on None for no pre-selection.

Combining the two covers the common setups:

Why this matters: picking “Any artist” submits with no artist, so the form can only filter by studio hours, not by a specific artist’s availability. That’s the root of the old “clients booked a time when nobody was in” complaint. Turning “Any artist” off (or pre-selecting a default) means the form checks that artist’s real availability and collisions before offering a slot. If a default artist is later deactivated or hidden, the form quietly falls back to no pre-selection rather than pointing at someone who isn’t bookable.

Viewing Requests (Inbox)

Navigate to Appointments > Inbox (web) or Inbox in the main menu (mobile).

Requests and Messages Tabs

The Inbox has two tabs at the top: Requests and Messages. Requests is where booking requests live. Messages holds your conversations with clients (see Client Messaging). If messaging isn’t on for your studio, you only see your requests.

Filter by Status

Under Requests, use the Status filter to choose which requests you see. On web it’s a dropdown on the left of the Inbox header. On mobile, tap the Status button and pick from the list. It starts on Pending.

The Inbox badge count shows pending requests needing attention.

Request Information

Each request shows:

• Client name, email, phone
• Preferred date and time
• Notes (design ideas, placement, etc.)
• Reference images (if attached)
• Where the request came from, when we can tell (see below)

Tap/click any request to expand and see full details.

Where a Request Came From

When we can tell where a client found your form, the expanded request shows it as “via” and a name. On web it sits next to the submitted date. On mobile it appears as Source.

• Requests that come through your Instagram bio link show “via Instagram.”
• Other requests show the site the client came from, such as Facebook, Google, or TikTok. For other sites, the label shows the site’s name.
• If we can’t tell where a request came from, no label shows.

The label is there to help you see which links bring in requests. It doesn’t change how you review or book them.

Searching

Type in the search bar to find requests by client name, email, or phone number.

Processing a Request

Book a Request

1. Open the pending request
2. Review client details, preferred date/time, and notes
3. Click/tap “Book” (web) or “Convert to Appointment” (mobile)
4. The appointment editor opens, pre-filled with the client’s information
5. Adjust date, time, artist assignment, and any other details
6. Save, appointment is created and request moves to “Booked” status
7. Reference photos and notes from the request are attached to the appointment

If the client is already in your records and ticked the text message opt-in on their request, booking the request saves that opt-in to their profile. Their booking confirmation, deposit link, and reminders then send to the phone number on the request, even if they had declined texts earlier. A request with the box left unticked never turns off an opt-in the client already gave.

Book a Request for a Client You Already Have

When you book a request into a client who’s already in your records, their saved name and email stay as they are.

If the phone number on the request is different from the one on their profile, the app asks which one is right before you can book:

• Use request phone: saves the request’s number to their profile
• Use client phone: keeps the number on their profile
• Client has both phones: uses the request’s number as the main one and keeps the profile number as the alternate

Decline a Request

1. Open the pending request
2. Click/tap “Decline”
3. Request is archived with status “Declined”
4. The record remains in your Inbox for reference

Get an Email When a Request Comes In

When a client sends a request from your request link, embedded form, or website, Tattoo Studio Pro emails the studio owner and every manager. If the client picked an artist, that artist gets the email too.

The email shows the client’s name, the date and time they asked for (or “No date picked yet”), and the artist. A button opens the request in your Inbox. It leaves out the client’s phone, email, and notes, so open the request to see those.

Requests you create yourself inside the app don’t send an email. Owners will be able to turn these emails off in an upcoming update.

Badge Count

The badge on the Inbox link/icon shows the number of pending requests. It updates automatically when new requests arrive. Unread client messages show on the separate Messages item instead.

Best Practices

• Respond within 24 hours, clients may book elsewhere if they wait too long
• Share your link everywhere, website, social media bios, Google Business Profile, email signature. Use the Instagram bio link in your bio to see how many requests come from there
• Embed on your website, forms embedded directly on your site get more submissions
• Check Inbox regularly, pending requests are time-sensitive

Troubleshooting

Not receiving requests

• Confirm you’re sharing the correct link (check Settings > Sharing > Appointment Requests for your URL)
• Ask clients if they received a confirmation after submitting
• Check all status tabs, request may already be Booked or Declined
• Verify you’re looking at the right inbox view (not filtered)
• Refresh the page

Request form link not working

• Verify your studio has a valid Studio ID (check Settings > Studio Profile)
• Test the link in an incognito/private browser window
• Contact support if the form shows an error

Embed code not working on website

• Verify the code was pasted completely
• Some website builders restrict iframes, check your platform’s settings
• Test the form URL directly in a browser first

Copy button not working

• Check browser clipboard permissions
• Manually select the URL and copy with Ctrl+C / Cmd+C
• Try a different browser

Related Docs

• Appointments, Calendar and appointment management
• Business Hours, studio hours and per-artist availability that drive the public form’s date and time-of-day filtering
• Settings, Settings > Sharing for the link, embed code, and QR code
• Client Messaging, Message clients about their requests from Inbox > Messages
• Check In Links, Walk-in check-in links and QR code (separate from booking requests)