Manage appointment prep tasks

Create or attach preparation work, check ownership, and distinguish detaching a task from completing it.

5 min read · Video walkthrough · Instructions reviewed 27 October 2026

Before you start

Access: Appointments must be enabled for your dealership. The lead picker also requires lead access for Admin, Sales or Marketing. Appointment settings can be reviewed by staff; only an Admin can change them.

Confirm the correct customer, linked vehicle and staff member.
Agree the visit’s date, time and length before creating or moving it.

Where to go
Sidebar → Appointments → Schedule

Watch the walkthrough

25:27 · English narration · Fictional demonstration

Book and change visits, prepare the vehicle, manage reminders and follow the customer’s email and carvio.link experience. Includes outcomes, follow-up, My Day, calendar, settings and recovery. English captions are included in the picture; a selectable caption track is also available.

All 32 video chapters

Read the video transcript

0:04 · Appointments from booking to follow-up

Let’s book a visit in Carvio, prepare for the customer, and close it out properly. Our fictional customer, Jordan Taylor, wants to test drive the 2022 Honda Civic EX, stock DEMO-061. Alex will host the visit.

We’ll show every part of the appointment: its people, vehicle, time, preparation tasks and reminders. Then we’ll follow the actual email and carvio.link page Jordan receives, change the time, cancel a visit, and record what happened afterward.

These are fictional training records. A saved appointment, a delivered notification and a completed visit are separate things. At each stage, we’ll check the result you can actually see.

0:49 · Open Appointments and find the visit

From the sidebar, open Appointments, then choose Schedule. Upcoming groups appointments by date from today onward. Read the time, visit type, customer, vehicle, host initials and outcome before opening a row.

My Day is your assigned work, bringing appointments and tasks into one agenda. Unresolved is the separate queue for past appointments still waiting for an outcome. We’ll use both later. If more results are available, use Load more rather than assuming the first page is the complete list.

Appointments requires the scheduling feature to be available for your dealership. If the navigation is missing, ask your administrator to check access. Start with Book appointment when you are ready to create a new visit.

1:34 · Start a clear appointment

Choose Book appointment. Title and Date and time are required. Use a title that will still make sense on the schedule, such as Jordan’s Civic test drive. Add notes for the team when there is useful preparation or context.

For this example, we’ll note that Jordan is comparing the Civic EX and that Alex should confirm the route and both keys. Appointment notes are working context for staff; do not use them as a substitute for a customer message.

If you leave this new form with Cancel or close it, do not expect it to restore as a saved appointment. Finish the form and create it, or be prepared to enter it again.

2:14 · Choose the right visit type and length

Open Type. The choices are Test drive, Delivery, Vehicle pickup, Service and Appointment. Choose the purpose of this visit, not the status you expect afterward. A Delivery appointment by itself does not mark a vehicle delivered or finish a deal.

Check Duration. Carvio suggests the dealership’s length for that appointment type, and you can choose a different length for this particular visit. Before you choose a custom duration, changing Type can change the suggested length too. Once you have chosen a duration, check it again before saving.

We’ll use Test drive and forty-five minutes. Type is chosen when the appointment is created; the saved appointment drawer does not offer a type editor. Check it here while you can.

3:01 · Set the date and time deliberately

Open Date and time. Choose a displayed shortcut only if it is the time you have agreed. For an exact booking, use the date and time picker and review the resulting value in the form.

We’re booking Thursday, October twenty-ninth, at eleven in the morning. With a forty-five-minute duration, that is the visit Jordan should expect. Check the date as well as the clock time; a nearby shortcut can easily mean tomorrow instead of Thursday.

If Carvio warns that the time is outside working hours, confirm the arrangement with your team. That warning is a heads-up, not proof the time is available or an automatic block. The staff calendar and the customer’s online choices do not offer exactly the same editing controls.

3:48 · Link the customer, host and vehicle

Choose the correct Lead when the lead picker is available for your role. Search Jordan Taylor and confirm the intended record. Linking the customer matters: a customer-linked appointment can produce a confirmation and gives the customer their appointment page.

Set Host to Alex Morgan and choose the Civic EX, stock DEMO-061, under Vehicle. Host is the staff member for the visit, not the customer. You can leave a host unassigned when that is intentional, but review who will actually prepare for and attend the appointment.

The lead picker requires lead access as well as the scheduling feature. An appointment without a linked customer is still an internal appointment; it does not magically obtain a recipient from text in the title or notes. Check the linked person and vehicle before creating it.

4:40 · Stage preparation work before saving

Under Prep tasks, add the work that must happen before the visit. We’ll add Check both keys and Clean the Civic. Keep these titles specific enough that another colleague can act on them.

These are staged task titles while the appointment form is open. After creation, open the saved appointment and check that each task exists. You can then review its owner, due date and other task details rather than assuming a short title assigned the work to the right person.

If a task was added by mistake before saving, remove that staged item. Preparation work and the visit outcome are separate: completing a cleaning task does not mark the customer as having arrived.

5:24 · Create once and verify the saved record

Review the title, customer, host, date, time, duration, vehicle and prep tasks. Choose Create appointment once and wait for the result. The saved appointment should appear in the schedule. Open it to verify the details and linked preparation work.

For a linked customer, creation sends the appointment confirmation through the available notification channels. A successful save is not proof that a particular email or text was delivered or read. Check the contact information and messaging availability if the customer cannot find it.

If Carvio says the appointment was created but a prep task could not be added, keep the appointment. Open it and add only the missing task. Creating the whole appointment again would leave you with a duplicate visit.

6:14 · Read the saved appointment

Select the appointment row. The drawer shows its title, type and Outcome, followed by Details, Prep tasks and Reminders. Confirm that this is Jordan’s Civic visit before making changes.

In Details, review Host, Date and time, Duration, Lead or Contact, and Vehicle. Linked records can take you to the customer or vehicle when you need more context. Read the actual saved value, not only a success toast that has already disappeared.

There is no single Save button for all changes in this drawer. Editable fields save as you finish each edit. Keep an eye on errors and confirm the new value before moving on.

6:55 · Edit saved details without losing context

Select the title or notes to edit them. Finish the edit using the field’s visible controls or by leaving the field, then check the saved text. A title cannot be blank; notes can be cleared when no longer needed.

Use the Details controls to change Host, Duration, Lead or Vehicle. Choose the correct result in each picker and confirm it in the drawer. Unassigning a host and removing a vehicle are different actions from cancelling the visit.

Changing the linked customer affects who the appointment belongs to and who receives its notices. Confirm the person before doing that. A previous customer’s link should not be reused as a handover to somebody else. If you selected the wrong association, correct it and check the resulting record.

7:44 · Manage preparation and after-visit tasks

Prep tasks is the place to review work linked to this visit. Choose Add to create another task, or Attach existing to search for a task already in Carvio. For our Civic, we’ll attach Clean the Civic and confirm it joins Check both keys.

If a search result says On another appointment, attaching it moves that task to this appointment. Check the task first. Open a linked task to review its owner, due date, checklist and status. Complete the actual work there, then return to the visit.

Remove from appointment only detaches the task. It does not delete it or complete it. Work created after a completed visit is shown separately under After the visit. Use that section to find follow-up without confusing it with preparation.

8:33 · Review reminders for the host and customer

Open Reminders and review the rows already present before adding anything. New appointments normally include customer reminders one day and two hours before, plus a host reminder fifteen minutes before, when those times are still ahead. A near-term booking can have fewer defaults.

Choose Remind me to open Remind the host. That reminder goes to the appointment’s host. Choose Customer for a customer reminder when the appointment has a linked lead or contact. Pick a displayed future interval or choose a custom time before the visit.

Check the saved row’s actual date, time and Host or Customer label. Remove an unwanted reminder using its remove control. A reminder row records the scheduled reminder; it is not a receipt proving the customer read anything.

9:24 · Resolve customer reminder warnings

Read the reachability notice beside customer reminders. If it says Email only, do not promise a text reminder as well. If it says reminders cannot reach this contact right now, review the customer’s contact details and the dealership’s available messaging setup.

The notice describes what is reachable at the moment. Saving another reminder does not repair an unavailable phone number, missing address or messaging restriction. Keep host reminders separate from customer reachability.

After correcting the contact through the appropriate customer workflow, return and recheck the notice. If the visit is close, use an available, appropriate way to confirm the arrangement with the customer. Do not bypass a do-not-contact restriction.

10:12 · Move an appointment as staff

Open the saved appointment and choose Date and time. The drawer warns that changing the time emails the customer when a customer is linked. Agree the new arrangement, choose the exact date and time, and check the updated value after saving.

In our example, we move Jordan’s visit to Friday, October thirtieth, at two in the afternoon. The appointment remains Scheduled. Review Duration separately; changing a staff date and time is not the same control as changing the appointment length.

Unsent automatically added reminders follow a reschedule. Reminders you add from this drawer keep their selected date and time, even if you chose a before-visit shortcut. Check every displayed reminder after the change. The customer receives the updated arrangement through available channels. Review the resulting email and appointment page rather than assuming the old notice is still current.

11:11 · See the actual customer email

Here is the actual appointment confirmation template, filled with our fictional Jordan, Alex and Civic. The email gives the appointment type, date, time, host and dealership details. Its appointment link takes Jordan to carvio.link. The email address does not accept replies; use the dealership’s contact details for questions.

When the appointment is moved, the reschedule email shows the new arrangement. The message should match the saved record: Friday at two, the same customer and vehicle. Check the visit length on the appointment page. If you are comparing notices, use the latest one.

Confirmation, reminder, cancellation, no-show and thank-you messages serve different purposes. Their wording follows the action recorded in Carvio. Do not record an outcome just to trigger a message; first make sure it is true.

12:04 · Read the customer appointment on a phone

Jordan opens the appointment link on a phone. The page shows the visit, its date and time, the dealership, the host when assigned, and the associated vehicle when present. Read the dealership’s local time shown on the page.

Jordan can review Where and use the dealership contact details. A map or call link opens the phone’s corresponding action; this walkthrough does not place a real call. Missing photos or a missing host do not mean the page has guessed those details.

For an eligible upcoming appointment, the page offers Reschedule and Cancel appointment. Those are the customer’s controls. The customer cannot use this page to change the host, vehicle or visit type. Contact the dealership for those changes.

12:51 · Choose a different time on carvio.link

Jordan chooses Reschedule. Pick a new time shows the current appointment, a choice of days and the available times for the selected day. Check the local-time note before choosing, especially if you are travelling.

Choose the day, then an available time. The button changes to Confirm with the selected date and time. Review that button before submitting. The current time is labelled Current rather than offered as a new booking.

Jordan chooses Friday, October thirtieth, at two in the afternoon. Selecting the slot alone has not moved the visit. Choose Confirm and wait for the confirmation. Avoid making a second change while the first is still saving.

13:34 · Check the customer reschedule result

The page confirms You’re rebooked and repeats the selected day and time. Choose View appointment to check the updated appointment itself. The confirmation email should describe the same visit.

After a customer reschedules, review the appointment’s displayed length as well as its start time. Online changes use the dealership’s current length for that type. In this illustrative branch, the dealership now uses thirty-minute test drives, so the updated page shows thirty minutes rather than the earlier forty-five.

That is a change you can see and confirm with the team. It is not a promise that every dealership uses the same duration. Staff should re-open the saved visit and check the actual time, length and reminders after a customer change.

14:22 · Cancel from the customer page

From an upcoming appointment, Jordan chooses Cancel appointment. A confirmation expands on the page. Keep it returns without cancelling. Yes, cancel it is the action that actually cancels the visit.

After confirming, check the appointment page for its cancelled status. The team is notified and the customer gets a cancellation confirmation through the available notification channels. Cancelling the visit does not delete the customer or their vehicle record.

If the customer changes their mind, this page does not offer a new booking flow. They should contact the dealership to arrange a new time. Staff can then review the cancelled record and choose the appropriate next action.

15:07 · Understand closed and unavailable links

A completed visit, a no-show and a cancellation each have their own message on the appointment page. A past visit that is still Scheduled can also stop offering online changes. Read the status and use the dealership’s contact action when a new arrangement is needed.

An unavailable link is different from a cancelled appointment. Open the full link from the latest message. If it is still unavailable, ask the dealership to check the current appointment and recipient. Do not guess another link.

The appointment page is intended for its recipient. Keep it with that customer rather than forwarding it as a general booking invitation. It shows and can manage one particular appointment.

15:52 · Recover when online times are unavailable

If the page says Nothing open in the next few weeks, choose Look further ahead when offered. Back to the soonest dates returns to the nearest dates. If nothing suitable is offered, contact the dealership.

Times are arranged by phone is a different answer. Use the displayed dealership contact details to arrange the change. Repeatedly selecting dates will not turn that message into an online booking.

If a time was just taken, the page shows the latest openings. Choose a new available time and confirm it. If a change takes too long to confirm, check the refreshed appointment before trying again. A slow response is not proof that nothing changed.

16:36 · Cancel an appointment as staff

Open the correct appointment and choose its Outcome control. Choose Cancelled. In the drawer, Carvio asks you to confirm Cancel appointment. Back leaves the visit as it was. Confirm only when the cancellation is intended.

Check that the saved outcome is Cancelled. A customer-linked scheduled appointment produces a cancellation notice through the available channels. Preparation tasks are separate work; review them rather than assuming the cancellation completed or removed them.

The appointment remains a record of what happened. Cancelling it does not finish a deal, move inventory to Delivered or remove the customer. Check those other records through their own workflows when needed.

17:21 · Reopen or correct an outcome carefully

If plans change or the wrong outcome was chosen, open Outcome again. Reopen returns a closed appointment to Scheduled. Confirm the saved status, date, time, customer and host afterward.

Reopening keeps the appointment’s existing time. It does not automatically pick a new future slot. If the time is no longer suitable, change Date and time and verify the final arrangement. Reopening a customer-linked appointment can send a new confirmation.

You can also correct one closed outcome to another. Those corrections do not send another outcome notice to the customer. If a misleading message already went out, coordinate the correction with the customer through an appropriate available channel rather than assuming the outcome edit explained it.

18:10 · Close the Unresolved queue

Now imagine it is Saturday and Friday’s visits are over. From Appointments, choose Unresolved. This is your queue of past Scheduled appointments still waiting for an outcome after the dealership’s waiting period. An empty Upcoming list is not the place to conclude all past visits were closed.

Read the customer and appointment before choosing Showed, No-show or Cancelled. These quick actions record an outcome directly; the Cancelled quick action does not open the drawer’s confirmation dialog. Use the drawer when you need to inspect more detail first.

After saving an outcome, that visit leaves Unresolved. Work through the remaining rows and use Load more if present. Nothing left to close out confirms this queue is clear; it does not prove every staff member’s work is complete.

19:01 · Record a completed visit and check follow-up

Choose Showed for a visit that took place, or choose Completed from the appointment drawer’s Outcome menu. The saved outcome reads Completed. For a scheduled customer visit, the customer receives a thank-you email.

Carvio also creates next-day follow-up work when the appointment is marked completed. In the drawer, look under After the visit and open Follow up after Test Drive. Check the assigned colleague, due date, customer association and the task’s own reminder.

The follow-up is due after the outcome is recorded, which matters when you close an older visit late. Check that the task actually exists. If it is missing, create and assign the necessary follow-up without changing a truthful Completed outcome just to try to generate another task.

19:50 · Record a no-show or cancellation truthfully

Choose No-show when the customer did not attend. Choose Cancelled when the visit was called off. These outcomes are different from a completed visit, and the customer messages reflect that difference.

After a scheduled visit is marked No-show, the customer can receive the missed-visit message and contact the dealership about another time. The appointment link shows its closed status rather than offering an online change to the old visit.

If a colleague already recorded an outcome, read it before changing it. Correct mistakes directly, and check the finished status. Prep tasks and any earlier follow-up remain separate records that may also need a practical review.

20:34 · Plan your assigned work in My Day

Return to Appointments, Schedule, then My Day. This combines tasks and appointments assigned to you from today onward. Read each item’s type, time and status so a task deadline is not mistaken for the start of a visit.

Choose an appointment to open its appointment drawer. Choose a task to work on that task. An item marked Anytime has no specific time to follow. My Day is a personal agenda; it is not the dealership-wide schedule or a complete list of older overdue work.

If you expect an item here, check its assigned person and date. Nothing on your plate means there are no matching items in this view. It does not prove the entire team has nothing booked.

21:18 · Use Calendar for the wider schedule

Open Calendar from the sidebar. Use Month, Week, Day or Agenda, the Previous and Next controls, and Today to reach the period you need. Appointments and task deadlines appear together, so read each event before opening it.

Choose an appointment to open the same saved details. Choose New, then Appointment, to book from the calendar. Selecting an empty calendar slot also opens Add to the schedule with that date and time prepared. Review the form before creating anything.

On a pointer device you can move or resize an appointment in the calendar. A successful change saves the time or length; a failed change must be checked before retrying. Moving a customer-linked visit can notify the customer. For a precise or keyboard-based change, open the appointment and use Date and time or Duration.

22:10 · Review dealership appointment settings

Open your user menu at the bottom of the sidebar, choose Settings, then choose Scheduling under Appointments. Everyone with access can review these values; only an Admin can change them. Wait before flagging controls when an ended visit without an outcome appears in Unresolved. Saving a different wait also affects already booked appointments.

Appointment length lists a duration for each of the five appointment types. The generic Appointment option from the booking form is labelled Other here. These lengths are suggestions for new staff appointments and are used for online booking changes. They do not silently move or resize an already booked visit just because you save the settings.

Quiet time before closing affects the customer’s offered times. Use the day selector in Last start to review a day’s preview; it does not create a separate duration for each weekday. Choose Save to keep edited settings, or Cancel to discard the unsaved changes. Check the current working hours when the preview does not offer the expected day.

23:14 · Recover from loading and saving failures

If the schedule fails to load, choose Retry. Do not interpret a load error as an empty schedule. If an appointment cannot be loaded in its drawer, close it, refresh the view and reopen the correct row.

If a new appointment cannot be created, keep the form open, read the error and correct the problem before trying again. If the result is uncertain, check the schedule for that customer, date and time before creating another appointment.

For a failed field change, check the value that remained saved and retry that field when the problem is resolved. If current appointment settings could not be loaded, reload before editing them. Do not save over values you have never seen.

23:59 · Use the essential phone controls

On a phone, open navigation and choose Appointments, then Schedule or Unresolved. The selected appointment still gives you the saved details, preparation work, reminders and Outcome controls.

Open the exact field you want to change and verify its saved value before closing the drawer. Use the explicit date and duration controls when arranging a precise time. You do not need to drag a calendar event to reschedule a visit.

For the customer, the appointment link itself provides the visit details and any available Reschedule or Cancel appointment action. Keep the staff task and the customer action distinct when explaining what someone should do next.

24:42 · Check the finished appointment handover

Before leaving an appointment, check five things: the right customer and vehicle, the agreed time and length, the host, the preparation work and reminders, and the outcome when the visit is over.

Our example now has a clear visit record and a saved follow-up task for the team. Jordan’s email and carvio.link page reflect the appropriate appointment status. A reschedule, cancellation or no-show should be just as clear about what changed and what the customer can do next.

Use the written guides for the exact task you need, or jump to a chapter in this walkthrough. The goal is a saved arrangement the team can act on, a customer who knows what to expect, and an honest record of what happened.

Download English captions (VTT) · Open or download video

Add the work

Open Prep tasks
Watch 7:44
Open the saved appointment and find Prep tasks. Read the linked task titles before adding duplicates.
Open Prep tasks · Fictional training example Select image to enlarge.
Choose Add for a new task
Choose Add. Enter the task details, review its appointment/customer association, owner and due date, then create it. Check it appears in the appointment.
Use the full task guide for checklists, subtasks, reminders, files and status. Appointment notes are not a replacement for an assigned task.
Choose Attach existing for work already in Carvio
Choose Attach existing and search under Search tasks…. Select the matching task.
A result labelled On another appointment will move to this visit when attached. Check that association before choosing it.
Choose Attach existing for work already in Carvio · Fictional training example Select image to enlarge.

Do and review the work

Open the task and check who does it
Watch 7:44
Select the task title. Confirm its assigned staff member and due date. Work through its checklist or other requirements, then complete the actual task when finished.
Completing a prep task does not mark the appointment Completed.
Open the task and check who does it · Fictional training example Select image to enlarge.
Detach an incorrect task when appropriate
Use Remove from appointment on its row. Confirm it disappears from this appointment.
Detaching does not delete the task, change its completion status or erase its other work. Find it under Tasks if it still needs attention.
Review After the visit separately
Watch 19:01
A completed appointment can have system-created follow-up under After the visit. Open that task and confirm the customer, owner and deadline.
If the follow-up is missing, create the necessary work directly rather than toggling a truthful appointment outcome to generate another one.
Review After the visit separately · Fictional training example Select image to enlarge.

Expected result

Preparation tasks are linked to the correct appointment, assigned and dated deliberately, and their status reflects the actual work.

If something isn’t right

A prep task failed during appointment creation

Retain the saved appointment and add only the missing task.

An existing task moved away from another visit

Open the task, verify the intended appointment, and correct its association. Coordinate with the colleague responsible for the other visit.

Cancelling the visit left tasks open

Review the tasks explicitly. Cancelling an appointment does not complete the preparation work.

Book and manage appointments
Book a customer visit, prepare the team, check the customer’s confirmation and record the outcome afterward.
Create and assign a task
Record work to be done, give it an owner and deadline, and check the saved task.
Record appointment outcomes
Record an attended visit, no-show or cancellation, clear Unresolved and check next-day follow-up.

Manage appointment prep tasks

Before you start

Watch the walkthrough

Add the work

Open Prep tasks

Choose Add for a new task

Choose Attach existing for work already in Carvio

Do and review the work

Open the task and check who does it

Detach an incorrect task when appropriate

Review After the visit separately

Expected result

If something isn’t right

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