Not everything on your diary is a customer job. A supplier meeting, a viewing, the dentist, a catch-up with the accountant. Mucka keeps these as personal appointments: they sit on your Schedule alongside jobs, but they carry no client or engineer, and Mucka can remind you before they start.
Ask Mucka
The quickest way. Open Mucka and say:
"Remind me I've got a meeting with Priya Lomax at 4pm next Wednesday."
Mucka spots that this is an appointment (a specific person and time), pops it on your diary for that slot, and sets a reminder. Ask for the reminder you want:
"Remind me 24 hours before."
"Give me a heads-up the day before and an hour before."
Mucka reads that back so you know what's set. If you just say "remind me" without a lead time, you'll get a ping when it starts.
Time off works the same way, and one entry covers the whole stretch:
"I'm away the first fortnight of September."
"Book me off Monday to Friday, I'm on a gas course."
Mucka picks up the reason when you've already given it — that second one is filed as Training or course without being asked. It won't interrogate you for a category if you just say "block Tuesday out".
You can move or cancel one the same way, without going near the diary:
"Shift my three o'clock with the website lot to five."
"Delete the last appointment with the website designers."
Mucka reads back which one it means before it does anything, so two meetings with similar names do not get mixed up.
And it cannot skip the sign-off. If your workspace has "appointments need signing off" switched on, asking Mucka pencils it in and sends it for approval exactly as the form does, and Mucka will tell you it's waiting rather than booked. Same if you later ask it to change the dates — that sends it back round.
Appointment or to-do?
Mucka uses a simple rule so things land in the right place:
- A specific date and clock time ("meeting with James at 4pm Wednesday") becomes a diary appointment.
- A loose task or deadline ("remember to order the parts", "chase the wholesaler by Friday") stays a to-do in your notepad.
Both can remind you. A to-do with a due date can carry a timed ping too, if you ask ("remind me the morning it's due").
Or use the form
Head to the Schedule and add a new appointment. Fill in:
- Title (e.g. "Meeting with Priya Lomax")
- Who is it for — only shows if you run the diary and there's more than one of you. Leave it on yourself, or pick whoever it's actually for. See below.
- Starts — a date and a start time
- Ends — a date and an end time. Both dates start out on the same day, so an ordinary appointment is already filled in; change the second one for anything longer (see below).
Full day at the top of either time list fills in your working day from your business hours in Settings, for a day on a course or at the merchant's. Booking a Holiday is different: that blocks the whole day, midnight to midnight, and still does.
- Notes (optional)
- Remind me — tap any of When it starts, 1 hour before, 1 day before. Pick more than one if you want both.
Save, and it's on your diary.
Photos on an appointment
Open an appointment and there's a Photos section. Take a photo, or choose some from your phone, and they stay with that appointment. The slip from the tip, the ticket from the merchant, the MOT sheet from the van going in.
A brand new appointment has to be added first. Save it, open it again, and the Photos section is there.
Photos save as soon as they're taken, so you don't need to press Save afterwards. Tap one to see it full size, or the cross on it to delete it.
Who can see them is the same as who can change the appointment: whoever it's for, and anyone who runs the diary. Delete the appointment and its photos go with it.
Putting one against somebody else
Not everything on the diary is yours. The van going in for repair is Andrew's morning; a supplier wants to see Darren; you're loading in the days somebody has already had off.
If you're the one running the diary, the appointment form has a Who is it for box. Pick the person and it goes in their diary, holding the slot the same way anything else does — so nothing gets booked over it, and the AI receptionist won't offer that time to a caller.
A few things worth knowing:
- You can change it afterwards, as long as it hasn't started yet. Once an appointment is under way, moving it onto somebody else's diary would rewrite a day one of them actually took, so at that point the box goes.
- It needs permission to edit jobs. If you haven't got it you won't see the box, and anything you add goes on your own diary as before.
- You don't see it if you're on your own, or on your own Holiday screen, because there's nobody else it could be for.
- Whether it needs signing off depends on you, not them. If your account has appointment sign-off switched on and you can approve, what you book is booked.
- You can just say it. "Put Andrew down for the van going in on Tuesday morning", "book James off the first week of October" — same permission, same result, and Mucka reads the name back so you can hear which of them it picked. Moving it or calling it off works the same way.
- Reminders follow the diary, not you. A reminder on somebody else's appointment goes to them, because it is their day.
Something that runs for days
A week off, a two-day course, a trade show, an operation you're recovering from — these aren't one-day appointments, and squeezing them into one was the only option before.
There's nothing to switch on. Change the Ends date to the last day, set the start time for the first day and the end time for the last, and Mucka shows the appointment on every day in between — on the week view and the month view both, so a fortnight off looks like a fortnight off. Underneath, the form tells you how many days it comes to.
(There used to be a Runs over more than one day toggle in front of the end date. It's gone: booking a week off is the commonest multi-day appointment there is, and it was sitting behind a switch most people never spotted.)
Move the start date afterwards and the end date moves with it, keeping the same length. So a three-day trip pushed back a week is still three days; you don't have to reset the end.
The end has to come after the start. If it doesn't, Mucka says so and won't let you save it — usually because something finishing the next morning still has today's date in Ends.
Appointments that repeat
A weekly team meeting, a monthly catch-up with the accountant, the van's service every six months. Set it up once and Mucka puts every one in the diary.
On the form, tick This appointment repeats and pick how often: daily, weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, yearly, or Custom... for something like every three weeks on a Tuesday, or a set number of times. Underneath, it tells you how often it repeats and how many that puts in the diary.
Or just ask: "Put the team meeting in every Monday at 8, ten times" or "Remind me about the van service every six months."
Each one is its own appointment. It blocks out the time, gets its reminders and goes onto your phone's calendar like any other. On the form, a daily or weekly repeat runs for three months, every 2 weeks for six months, and a monthly or yearly one for a year; pick Custom... to end it on a different date or after a set number. Ask Mucka without saying when it stops and it books a year ahead.
Changing or deleting one. Open it and save, or tap delete, and Mucka asks Just this one or This and all after. Dragging one to a new time on the diary only ever moves that one. Changing how it repeats always applies from that one onwards, and unticking This appointment repeats clears every one after it.
Worth knowing:
- One that runs over several days (Friday to Sunday, say) repeats from the day it starts. Leave just that day ticked: each repeat covers the rest by itself, so on Custom... the days it already covers are greyed out.
- "Never ends" books a year ahead, three years for yearly ones, and doesn't top itself up. When it runs out, open the last one and tick repeat again.
- "10 times" means ten appointments in all, the first one included.
- If time off needs signing off, a repeating request goes as one request. Approving or declining it covers every one of them.
Say what it is
The What is it dropdown is optional and there for the things you would want to look back on. Leave it blank for the dentist; set it for Holiday, Meeting, Admin, Sickness, Medical appointment, Bereavement, Training or course, Family or dependants, Jury duty or Unpaid leave.
Pick Other and a box appears for you to say what it is in your own words — "Moving house". That word is what shows on the diary, not the word "Other".
Nobody outside the person's own diary sees what an appointment actually is. To the rest of the team it still just reads as Personal time, category or no category.
Setting it to Holiday is also what makes it count against that person's holiday allowance. See Holiday allowance and booking time off for how days are worked out and where everyone sees what they have left.
Getting time off signed off
Off unless you turn it on. Go to Settings → Work → Diary and switch on Appointments need signing off.
With it on:
- Anyone without permission to sign off gets their appointment pencilled into the diary and sent to you. It is shaded, the same way a pencilled-in job is, and marked Awaiting sign-off.
- It holds the slot while it waits. Nothing gets booked over it, your AI receptionist will not offer that time to a caller, and booking a job over it warns you first. That is deliberate — somebody who has asked for next Tuesday off probably is not working next Tuesday, and the cost of holding a slot you end up giving back is a lot smaller than the cost of sending an engineer to a job he is not there for.
- A card lands in your action inbox saying who has asked for what, and you get a notification. Approve settles it on the diary; Decline takes it straight back off and gives the slot back.
They are told either way, three ways. A card in their own action inbox with a single Got it button, a WhatsApp message, and a push if they have the app. That is not belt and braces for the sake of it: declining takes the appointment off the diary completely, so if nothing reached them their diary would simply go back to looking as though they never asked. Nobody notices an absence.
Decisions made late at night are held until the morning rather than dropped, so nothing is lost and nobody is woken up.
Anyone who can sign off books their own straight in. You are never asked to approve your own dentist appointment, and a queue full of your own self-approvals is how a real request gets skimmed past.
Who can sign one off
Set per role in Settings → Team → People → Roles, under Approve appointments. Owners and Managers can already. Tick it on any other role — a custom "Office" role, say — and that person can handle the rota without being made an owner.
Changing it after it is approved
Change the dates or the category of an appointment that has already been signed off and it goes back round for approval. That is on purpose: the approval was for a specific stretch of time for a specific reason, and neither of those survives being rewritten.
Fixing a typo in the title, or adding a note, does not send it back.
Changed your mind before it is decided
Open it and delete it. The request comes off the diary and off whoever's list it was on.
Getting the reminder
When the time comes, Mucka sends the reminder as a push notification to your phone. Reminders come through even during your quiet hours, because you set the time yourself.
You can turn appointment and to-do reminders off in Settings → Mucka → Notifications under Reminders if you'd rather not get them.
They block out your time
An appointment holds its slot exactly like a job does — and one that runs for days holds every one of them. While it's on your diary, that time is taken:
- Book a job over it and Mucka warns you first, the same way it does when an engineer is already out on another job. You can still go ahead if you mean to.
- Your AI receptionist will not offer that time to a caller, so nobody gets booked in on top of it.
- Anything in a connected Google or Microsoft calendar counts the same way, so a meeting you put in Outlook still holds your diary here.
Nobody sees what the appointment actually is. To everyone else it just reads as Personal time — enough to know you're busy, nothing more.
On your phone's own calendar too
Connect your Google or Microsoft calendar and your Mucka appointments sync straight to it, reminders and all. That means they show on your phone's calendar and lock screen next to everything else, not just inside Mucka. If you haven't connected one, Mucka will offer to set it up when you make an appointment.
Common gotchas
- No lead time given. If you say "remind me" but don't say when, you get a reminder when it starts. Ask for "a day before" or "an hour before" to change that.
- Changed your mind. Tell Mucka "actually remind me a day before too" or open the appointment and adjust the reminder chips.
- Microsoft calendars show one alert. Outlook events carry a single reminder, so if you set several, the earliest one shows on Outlook. Mucka still sends the finer ones itself.