Book an appointment
Put a job on the schedule, confirm it with the customer, and turn it into a work order when the truck arrives.
A customer calls to bring a unit in next Tuesday — you book it here so the day doesn't overload, the tech knows it's coming, and the write-up is one click when the truck rolls in.
Open the schedule. In the sidebar, click Service → Schedule. You land on this week's calendar — one column per day, with each appointment shown as a colored chip. Use the arrow buttons or Today to move between weeks.
Start the appointment. Click New Appointment at the top right, or click the + on the day you want (an empty day also shows a dashed + Add button). The New Appointment form opens with that date filled in.
Name the job. In Title / Service, type what's being done — "PM service", "Brake job", "Estimate". This is the text everyone sees on the calendar chip.
Link the customer. In Customer Name, start typing. Matching customers appear in a dropdown — pick one to link the appointment to their record, which pulls in their phone number and vehicles. You can also just type a name free-form for a brand-new caller, but a linked customer makes the later conversion cleaner.
Pick the unit. If you linked a customer, the Vehicle field becomes a dropdown of their units; if they have exactly one, it's already selected. Otherwise type a description like "2020 Ford F-550".
Set the when and who. Choose Date, Time, and Duration (30 minutes up to all day), pick a Type (LOF, Repair, Estimate, Inspection, PM / Service, Pick Up, Delivery), and optionally choose a tech in Assign Tech. Click Create. The chip appears on the calendar.
Send the confirmation. Click the new chip to open its detail panel, then click Send Confirmation Email. Meridian emails the customer the date, time, and shop details, and marks the appointment "Confirmation sent". (The button only appears when the linked customer has an email on file.)
Track the day-of statuses. From the same panel you can move the appointment through Confirmed, Checked In, In Progress, Completed — or No Show / Cancelled when things go sideways. Need a paper copy of the day? Day Sheet at the top of the schedule prints today's list.
Convert it when the truck arrives. Open the appointment and click Create Work Order. Meridian opens a new repair order prefilled with the customer and vehicle and linked back to the appointment. From here, continue with Write a repair order.
What happens behind the scenes
An appointment by itself touches nothing financial — no inventory moves, nothing posts to your books. It's a promise on a calendar. When you click Create Work Order, Meridian creates a real service order at Open status, carries over the customer, vehicle, and appointment link, and from then on the appointment shows View Work Order with the ticket number so nobody converts it twice. The confirmation email is logged on the customer's record.
Troubleshooting
The button only shows when the appointment is linked to a customer record that has an email address. If you typed the customer's name free-form, edit the appointment and link the real record — or add an email to the customer first.
The search starts after you type at least two characters, and it matches name, phone, and account number. If they're genuinely new, you can book with a free-typed name and create their record at write-up time — see Add a customer on the fly.
It was already converted — clicking the button opens the existing ticket instead of creating a duplicate. If you meant to write a second job for the same visit, create a fresh ticket from Service → Tickets → New Ticket.
It should tell you now. Creating, rescheduling, declining, deleting and sending confirmations and reminders all report what the server actually said — including when it refuses — and the form keeps what you typed so you don't have to enter it twice. If you see no message at all, the click didn't register; try again.
Your shop may not allow booking into the past. That's a setting — Allow, Warn or Block per surface, under Settings, then Shop — and both Warn and Block refuse the save today. An owner or manager can change it. See shop settings.
Open the appointment and click View / Edit details to change the date, time, duration, tech, or notes. Delete appointment in the same panel removes it entirely.