Manage Bookings

Every booking request lands in the Bookings hub. From your podcast, click Bookings in the sidebar.

The hub has three tabs: Board and Calendar for your bookings, plus Booking Links for the links themselves (see Create a Booking Link).

Who can manage bookings

Confirming, declining, canceling, rescheduling, and recording outcomes require the Host or Producer role. Co-Hosts see a read-only board and calendar. See Team and Roles.

The board

The Board tab shows six lanes, left to right:

Lane	What's in it
Sent	Guest Network invites for this podcast, informational until the guest books
Pending	Booking requests awaiting your confirmation
Confirmed	Upcoming recordings on the calendar
Date Passed	Recordings whose time has passed, waiting for you to mark how they went
Published	Bookings whose episode has been published; they move here automatically when the episode goes live
Declined & Canceled	Declined requests and canceled recordings

Bookings move between some lanes on their own: a confirmed booking flows to Date Passed the moment its slot time passes, and to Published when its episode goes live.

General bookings on the board

Bookings made through a General booking link sit on the same board and use the same lanes, marked General booking in place of an episode title. They flow Pending → Confirmed → Date Passed and finish as Completed, No-show, or Canceled. Published never applies to them, because there is no episode to publish, and the detail sheet has no Open episode shortcut.

To act on a booking, open its card menu, use the buttons in the detail sheet, or drag the card: drag from Pending to Confirmed to confirm, or from Pending or Confirmed to Declined & Canceled to decline or cancel. Whichever way you start, a confirmation dialog opens before anything changes.

Search and filter

Once bookings exist, the toolbar offers a search box (matching guest names, emails, attendee names, episode titles, and booking-link names), a booking-link filter when more than one link is in play, and a refresh button.

The booking detail sheet

Click any card to open the detail sheet. It shows:

• The guest's name, email, and phone, with the booking's status badge
• Schedule: the slot in your time, noting the guest's own booking time zone when it differs
• A join shortcut labelled for your recording platform (Join on Riverside, Join Zoom Meeting, Join Google Meet), plus Open episode, when available. In-person sessions show a Recorded in person note instead, or Meeting in person on a general booking
• Send meeting invite, when the calendar invite failed and needs another try
• Attendees: everyone on the booking, marked Primary or Additional
• Guest notes and Booking form answers from the form
• Guest research answers when AI research collected them
• Cancellation details for canceled bookings, and a small history of when the booking was requested and confirmed

Action buttons for everything the booking currently supports sit along the bottom.

Confirm a booking

Confirming is the moment everything real happens. Choose Confirm booking and the dialog explains what follows: confirming moves the episode out of pending status, creates or updates the calendar event with the attendees, and emails each attendee a link to their guest portal.

In detail, confirming a booking:

1. Turns the pending episode into a draft, ready for show notes and prep
2. Creates the Google Calendar event with every attendee invited (when your calendar is connected), and asks Google to email each of them its invitation, so the recording lands in their own calendar whatever app they use. If the link's recording platform is Google Meet, the invite carries a Meet button; on any other platform it carries your recording link in the event's location and description instead. The invite lists the attendees and, when the guest filled in the "anything that will help prepare" box, what they'd like to cover
3. Sends each attendee a confirmation email with the recording link, labelled for the platform, and their personal guest portal link. When no link is set the email says the host will send joining details rather than pointing at a button that isn't there
4. Starts AI guest research, if the link collects research answers on a paid plan

On a General booking link, steps 1 and 2 are the same. There is no episode to move out of pending, the confirmation email carries the recording link but no guest portal link, and AI guest research is not available.

If the recording month is full

On an Episode booking link, when the recording month has no episode slots left on your plan, the confirm fails with an explanation and a View plans & episode packs button. The booking stays pending and your guest is never declined. Add capacity, or reschedule the recording into an open month and confirm again.

General bookings cannot hit this: they create no episode, so they use no slot.

Decline a request

Choose Decline booking on a pending request. The guest, and any additional attendees, are notified by email, and the slot reopens on your public booking page. Anything you type in Reason (optional) is shared with the guest in the decline email.

On an Episode booking link, if this was the only booking on its episode, the pending episode is removed with it. Declining from the episode's own page therefore takes you back to your episodes list, because the page you were on no longer exists.

The declined booking stays on the board in Declined & Canceled, so you keep a record of what you turned down. Remove it for good with Delete booking in the card menu.

Cancel a confirmed booking

Choose Cancel booking on a confirmed recording. The dialog is titled Cancel confirmed booking: the recording will not take place, all attendees are notified by email, and the calendar invite is removed from their calendars. The episode, and any prep work in it, is kept. Anything you type in Reason (optional) is shared with the guest in the cancellation email.

The card moves to Declined & Canceled and stays there until you delete it.

Reschedule

Choose Reschedule on a pending or confirmed booking. Pick a new date and time from the link's real availability, then confirm. Every attendee gets an email with the change, and the calendar invite moves with it: Google sends the updated invitation, so the entry shifts in their calendar app too.

Group bookings where several people booked the same slot can't be moved as a unit. Cancel the booking and invite the guest to rebook at the new time instead.

Record outcomes

When a confirmed booking's time passes, it lands in Date Passed with an Awaiting outcome badge. From the card menu or detail sheet:

• Mark completed stamps the recording as done
• Mark no-show records that the guest didn't turn up

Outcomes apply immediately and are reversible: switch between them, or choose Clear outcome to return the booking to awaiting outcome.

Delete a booking

Delete booking in the card menu permanently removes the booking record. No email is sent. If it was the only booking on its episode, the pending episode is removed too. Deleting is available for pending requests and for bookings already in Declined & Canceled; it cannot be undone.

The calendar view

The Calendar tab lays the same bookings out on a calendar with four layouts, switched from the control above the grid. Your choice is remembered on this device; on a phone, Schedule is the starting layout until you pick another.

• Month shows a full month grid. Each booking is a colored chip matching its status; busy days expand via the "+N more" link.
• Week and Day show a time grid with each booking placed at its slot. Overlapping bookings sit side by side, and a red line marks the current time on today's column.
• Schedule lists the month's bookings day by day with times, guest names, and statuses, which is the quickest way to scan what's coming up.

Use Today and the arrows to move between periods (months, weeks, or days, depending on the layout), and click any booking to open its detail sheet. Clicking a day number in the Month or Week layout jumps straight to that day. The legend at the bottom covers every status color: Pending, Confirmed, Completed, No-show, Canceled, and Published.

Guest Network invites

The Invite from Guest Network button at the top of the hub takes you to the Guest Network to find guests. Invites you send appear in the board's Sent lane with a status of Awaiting reply, Accepted, Declined, or Expired.

When an invitee books through your link, their invite card gains a Booked badge and a View booking shortcut to the real booking on the board. The card menu also offers View network profile and Copy booking URL.

What's Next?

• The Guest Booking Experience: what your guest sees at each step
• The Guest Portal: where confirmed guests collaborate
• Automation: send reminders and follow-ups triggered by bookings