Manage bookings and enquiries

When someone fills in a form on your site — a booking, a catering enquiry, an appointment, a quote request, or a general message — it lands in Requests in your dashboard sidebar. You also get an email, and if you've turned them on, an instant notification on your phone or computer.

From there, responding takes one click. You never have to compose a reply from scratch — FastPage shows you the email it's about to send, you press one button, and the customer is told.

Finding your way around the inbox

The Requests inbox lists everything customers have sent you. New, unread requests are highlighted so you can't miss them.

To find something specific, you can:

• Search by name, email, or the message they wrote
• Filter by Status — Open, Approved, Declined, Cancelled, or Archived
• Filter by type — Booking, Catering, Event, Quote, Appointment, or Contact

Open any request to see everything the customer entered — their details, their message, and any files they attached (each with a Download button).

Approving or declining a request

When you're ready to respond, press Approve. A confirmation dialog appears — "Send confirmation email?" — showing the exact email the customer will receive, in full, before anything sends. If it reads right, press Send confirmation email and you're done. One click, one email.

Decline works exactly the same way, with a "Send decline email?" dialog so you can see the wording before it goes out.

For date-based bookings, the customer's confirmation email includes calendar buttons so they can save the booking, and a link they can use to cancel if their plans change. If they do cancel, the request shows a "Cancelled by customer" note in your inbox, along with their reason if they gave one — no awkward no-shows without explanation.

When you'd rather talk to them first

Sometimes a request needs a conversation before a yes or no — a big group, an unusual date, a quote that needs more detail. Press Contact customer and their email and phone appear with Copy, Email, and Call buttons. Sort out the details personally, then come back and approve when you're both happy.

Adding a booking to your own calendar

After you approve a booking or appointment, an Add to your calendar panel appears with three options: Google Calendar, Outlook, or Download .ics — the .ics file is the one to use for Apple Calendar.

The event is saved in your business's timezone, so it shows the right time wherever you check it. That's also why the Timezone setting matters — you can check it in Site Settings.

Keeping things tidy

Once a request is handled, press Archive request to move it out of the default view. Nothing is deleted — archived requests are still there under the Archived filter whenever you need to look something up.

One nice side effect of the whole system: customers get a receipt email the moment they submit, with a reference number and a link to check the status of their request. That means fewer "did my booking go through?" phone calls interrupting your day.

If requests aren't arriving

Two things need to be true for requests to come in: your site is published, and it has a request form section on it.

If you don't have a form yet, open the builder, go to Extra sections, and add a Request form. There's a walkthrough in editing your site in the builder. Once your site is live with a form on it, everything above just works.