What Approving an Appointment Email Does¶

Purpose¶

Approvals do not just close a queue row. An approved request changes the appointment itself, and that change is what the yard and inbound planning work from.

Who does this¶

Office staff who approve appointment requests that arrived by email.

Before you start¶

You have the right account (see Permissions and Access).
The record and date you are working on are correct.
Words you do not know are in the Glossary.

Access¶

Shipping > Email Approval

Three different things¶

Keep these apart. They are not interchangeable:

	Values	What it means
Request type	new, reschedule, cancel/no-show, inquiry	What the email is asking for. Taken from the email.
Your choice	Approve, Reject, Delete	What you decide to do with the request.
Outcome	approved, confirmed, alternative proposed, rejected, manual contact, error, ignored	What the system recorded as a result.

A reschedule you approve can end as confirmed (the time you asked for was free) or as alternative proposed (the next free slot was offered instead). Check which one you got.

An inquiry cannot be approved. If the customer only asked a question, it has to be answered, not approved.

What each outcome changes¶

Request	Approving it does this
New appointment	Creates the appointment, scheduled, with the agreed date and time. It then appears on the planning board.
Reschedule	Moves the appointment to the agreed time. If that time is not free, the next available time is proposed instead.
Cancel	Cancels the appointment. If the email says the vehicle did not arrive, it is recorded as a no-show instead.
Inquiry	Not possible.
Reject	Refuses the request and sends the customer one reply. The appointment is left exactly as it was.
Delete	Takes the row out of your queue without answering. It does not cancel an existing appointment.

Reject and Delete are not the same¶

Reject answers the customer. It applies to every open row in that email, and it leaves the appointment alone.
Delete just clears the row from your queue. No reply goes out, and any appointment already in place stays in place.

If you need the appointment actually cancelled, approve the cancel request. Deleting the row does not do it.

The customer reply¶

The reply is sent after your decision is recorded, not before. So:

If the decision worked but the reply failed, the appointment is still changed. Check Sent before resending, and do not approve it a second time — that can move a reschedule twice.
Approving several rows at once can partly succeed. Reload and see which ones landed.

Where the approved appointment goes¶

An approved new or moved appointment appears in Inbound Planning, on the board for its date.

Approving is not check-in. The vehicle has not arrived, nothing has been unloaded, and no one has been assigned to it. Check-in and planning are separate jobs done in Inbound Planning — see Planning inbound deliveries.

If something goes wrong¶

Situation	What you do
Approve will not work on an inquiry	It is a question, not a request. Answer it.
The reschedule came back as an alternative	The time you asked for was not free. Read the proposed time before accepting it.
The row disappeared but nothing changed	Reload the queue and check the appointment itself, not just the row.
The reply failed	Check Sent, then resend. Do not repeat the approval.
You approved several and some did not change	Reload. Approving again can move a reschedule twice.
The appointment is not on the planning board	Check the appointment date. It is filed under the date it was agreed for.
The cancel did not cancel anything	Check whether the email said the vehicle did not arrive. That is recorded as a no-show instead.

Who owns the next step¶

Office owns the appointment. Inbound planning owns check-in, assignment and unloading — see The working day, step by step.