--- title: "Booking assistant" description: "The optional AI chat on your client portal: it answers catalog, availability and price questions in your customer's language, can send a booking request, and lets customers ask about an item, edit or unsend their messages and chat with your team." canonical_url: "https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/online-booking/booking-assistant" --- # Booking assistant > The optional AI chat on your client portal: it answers catalog, availability and price questions in your customer's language, can send a booking request, and lets customers ask about an item, edit or unsend their messages and chat with your team. The **booking assistant** is an AI chat on your [client portal](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/online-booking) that customers can ask about your catalog, what is free on which dates, what a booking would cost, and how pickup and return work. It can also put together a booking and send it to your team as a request. It is the customer-facing sibling of the [Requiply Assistant](https://requiply.com/docs/en/ai/requiply-assistant) your team uses inside the app, and of the [AI web widget](https://requiply.com/docs/en/ai/mcp) you can embed on your own website. All three draw on the same [AI credits](https://requiply.com/docs/en/ai/ai-usage). Switch it on with **Chat with visitors** and **AI assistant answers first** on the General tab of [Portal settings](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/online-booking/portal-settings#chat). The assistant needs the **Advanced** plan, and answers use AI credits. Without it, the portal chat can connect customers with your team instead, see [Chat with your team](#chat-with-your-team). ## Where customers find it While the switch is on: - An **Ask the assistant** card appears on the portal entry page, next to **Start from items** and **Start from dates**. - The chat itself lives at `portal.requiply.com//chat`. With the switch off, neither exists and the entry page shows the two booking paths only.
![The portal booking assistant in dark mode. A Chats panel on the left holds a New chat button and one saved conversation titled Two Person Podcast Set with its time. In the thread, the customer asks for a two person podcast set for next weekend. The answer opens with a collapsed line reading Checked the business details, the catalogue, availability, prices, then a heading, a bulleted kit list where every item name is a link with its quantity, a timing line with the pickup and return days, a table of Item, Qty and Price, a total of 129 dollars, and an offer to turn it into a booking request. Copy and retry buttons sit under the answer, a Scroll to latest button above the composer, which reads Ask about items, dates or prices, and a footnote saying the assistant can make mistakes and the team confirms prices and availability](https://requiply.com/docs/assets/client-portal/assistant/chat.png)
One question, one worked answer. Item names are links straight to their pages on your portal, and the assistant offers to turn the kit into a booking request.
## What a conversation looks like An empty chat greets the customer with **Ask {your organization}** and four suggested questions to click instead of typing: - *What can I rent for a weekend?* - *Is anything free next Saturday?* - *How much does a two day booking cost?* - *How do pickup and return work?* While the assistant works, it says what it is doing in plain words: *Searching the catalogue*, *Checking availability*, *Working out the price*, *Preparing the booking request*. Once the answer is ready those steps collapse into a single line above it, for example *Checked the business details, the catalogue, availability, prices*, which the customer can expand to see what was looked up. Answers stream in as they are written and are formatted properly: headings, lists, and tables of items with quantities and prices. Item names are links to their pages on your portal, so a customer can open one and add it to the booking. Under each answer sit a copy button and a retry button, a **Scroll to latest** button appears when the thread runs past the screen, and **Stop** interrupts a long answer. The composer reads **Ask about items, dates or prices**, and a footnote reminds the customer that the assistant can make mistakes and that your team confirms prices and availability. The assistant answers in the language the customer writes in, and a message in Russian gets a Ukrainian answer. When a message shows no language (only a name, a number, a link or an emoji), it answers in the language of the portal. It quotes prices in your currency and links to item pages on your own portal rather than sending customers elsewhere. ### What it knows
It can see It cannot see
Your bookable catalog, with prices and price types Supplier names, supplier costs, or margins
Live availability for the dates asked about Other customers' bookings or contact details
Your pricing tiers and deposits Anything about your team, accounts, or settings
Your business details: contacts, locations, working hours Data from another organization
Who the customer is, when they are signed in, so it does not ask for their details again
### Chats are remembered A conversation survives moving around the portal and reloading the page. A signed-in customer also gets a **Chats** panel with their earlier conversations, each given a title of its own from what was discussed (for example *Two Person Podcast Set*) plus the time it was held, and a **New chat** button above them. The panel can be collapsed out of the way. For a visitor who is not signed in, a hint offers sign-in as the way to keep the thread. Each chat holds up to **10 questions**. From the eighth the composer says how many are left, and when the chat is full it offers **Start a new chat**. ## Asking about an item While the portal chat is on, item pages show an **Ask about this item** button. It opens the chat with the item attached above the composer: a card with *Asking about*, the item name and its picture, and an **×** button (**Remove item**) to drop it. After sending, the card sits above the customer's message and links back to the item page. Whoever answers knows which item the question is about: - the AI assistant is told the item and answers about it, - in the [inbox](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/conversations/inbox#shared-posts-stories-and-items) your team sees the *Asking about* card in the message, and the bar above the thread shows the **Catalog item** with an **Open item page** button. ## Editing and unsending messages Customers can change their own messages in the portal chat. Hovering a message shows a pencil (**Edit**) and a trash can (**Unsend**); on a phone or tablet the two buttons are always shown. - **Edit** opens the message in place, with **Save** and **Cancel**. Editing is possible for **15 minutes** after sending; after that the customer sees *Messages can be edited for 15 minutes after sending.* An edited message shows *edited*, and the assistant reads the new text from the next answer on. - **Unsend** asks first: *Unsend this message? The team will see that it was removed.* Unsending has no time limit. In the inbox the message is replaced with *The client unsent this message*. - If a change fails, the customer sees *Could not change the message. Try again.* Edits and unsends show up in the [Conversations inbox](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/conversations/inbox#when-a-client-edits-or-unsends) too. ## Booking through the assistant When a customer settles on items and dates, the assistant prepares a preview of the booking, asks them to confirm, and only then sends it. Afterwards it tells them the booking number, says your team reviews and confirms it, and passes on a payment link if one was created. Those bookings are different from portal checkouts in two ways your team will notice:
Portal checkout Assistant
Status on arrival Your Default status for new bookings ( New by default), holding the stock Your Status for booking requests ( Request by default), waiting for staff approval, no stock held until you move it on
Origin Booking page AI assistant
Both statuses are chosen under [Booking creation](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/settings/bookings/booking-creation#choosing-the-starting-statuses). So an assistant booking always passes through a human. Approve it in [Manage bookings](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/bookings/manage) by progressing it out of the request status, which is the moment the stock is actually held. See [Booking statuses](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/settings/bookings/statuses). ## Handing over to your team With the [Conversations inbox](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/conversations/inbox) on, a customer can ask for a person at any point. The assistant passes the chat on, the customer reads that their message went to the team, and the conversation appears in your inbox marked **Booking page**, with a short summary of the request. Your team's replies show up in the same portal chat, under *{name} from the team* with the team member's picture, so the customer never has to switch to another app. When a team member edits a reply in the inbox, the portal shows the new text with an *edited* label. A reply the team deleted disappears from the customer's chat. Which situations lead to a handover, and the settings that control it, are described in [AI assistant and handoff](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/conversations/ai-and-handoff). ## Chat with your team When the assistant is off, or your plan does not include it, and the Conversations inbox is on, the portal chat connects customers with your team directly: - The entry page card reads **Chat with the team**: *Ask a question and the team replies in the chat.* - The chat opens with *Write to {your organization}* and *Ask about items, dates or prices. The team replies right here.*, without suggested questions. - After sending, the customer sees *Your message went to the team. Their reply will appear here.* Replies appear in the chat as they come, with the team member's name, picture and any files they attached. - A customer who is not signed in is reminded: *To be sure you get the reply, sign in or add your phone or email to the message.* Your team answers these chats in [Conversations](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/conversations/inbox), on the web or in the mobile app. ## When the assistant cannot answer Every failure is one short line to the customer, never a technical error:
The customer sees What it means for you
The assistant is not available right now. Please try again in a moment. Most often your AI credits have run out. Top them up and it answers again.
Too many messages. Please wait a minute and try again. Rate limiting, a burst of questions from one visitor.
No connection. Please check your network and try again. The customer's own connection.
The answer was cut off. Please try again. The stream ended early. The question can simply be asked again.
Your message was not sent. Please try again. In a chat with your team, the message did not reach Requiply, for example because the connection dropped while sending.
The booking system is having trouble right now. Please try again in a moment. A booking could not be prepared and the assistant had no explanation to give. Nothing was created. When the booking is refused for a known reason, such as a closed day or a time outside working hours, the assistant says so in its own words instead and suggests another time.
Inside the preview on [Portal settings](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/online-booking/portal-settings) the chat is shown but does not answer, with a note saying it is a preview. ## Common scenarios ### Trying it as a customer would Switch **AI chat bot** on, save, then click **Open booking page** and use the **Ask the assistant** card. The preview frame will not answer, so test on the live portal. ### The assistant stopped answering overnight Check the credit balance under [AI usage](https://requiply.com/docs/en/ai/ai-usage). Credits are shared with the Requiply Assistant and the web widget, so heavy internal use can drain what the portal needs. ### Requests pile up unapproved Assistant bookings wait in your request status (*Request* by default) and hold no stock, so the items stay on offer to everyone else until you approve them. The second counter on the **Manage bookings** entry of the sidebar shows how many are waiting. Filter [Manage bookings](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/bookings/manage) by that status once a day, or add the **Origin** column to spot them. ## Tips and cautions **Tip:** The assistant is only as good as your catalog. Real names, descriptions, and codes on your item groups, plus correct working hours, are what make its answers useful. **Heads up:** an assistant booking is a request, not a confirmed booking. Nothing is held until your team moves it out of the request status, so two customers can request the same item on the same dates. This relies on the request status having **Release availability** on, as the default *Request* status does. **Tip:** Watch what customers ask. Repeated questions about pickup rules or deposits usually mean the answer belongs on your own website, not just in the chat. ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](https://requiply.com/docs/sitemap.md) for all pages.