Offer private viewing slots on your listing

Publish a window of bookable time slots for one listing, let NLS agents book their own appointment, and see every booking on your card and in your calendar.

A private viewing is an open house by appointment. Instead of everyone arriving at once, you publish a window of time and other agents book a slot that suits them. Each slot can be booked once, so you know who is coming and when.

You can let The NLS manage the slots, or point bookers at your own Google Calendar appointment schedule. Both are set up from My Open Houses.

1. 1

   Add a private viewing

   In the Listings menu choose My Open Houses and click Add Private Viewing, next to the button for adding an open house.

   Choose how visitors book: NLS booking slots, or your own Google booking page.

2. 2

   Set the window and slots

   Pick the property and the date. Set the start and end of your window and the slot length. The window must divide into whole slots, so 10:00 to 13:00 with 30-minute slots gives six. The bookable slots are listed underneath before you publish.

   For today's date the window has to start later than now.

3. 3

   Using Google Calendar instead

   If you chose your Google booking page, paste your appointment schedule link into Google Calendar booking link. In Google Calendar the link comes from Create, then Appointment schedule, then Share. The link must start with https://calendar.google.com/calendar/appointments/ or https://calendar.app.google/.

   Visitors then book in Google's own window. Those bookings stay in Google. The NLS does not see them, sends no confirmation for them, and counts only how many times Book was pressed.

   Note If you want bookings on your NLS card and in your dashboard alerts, use NLS booking slots.

4. 4

   Invite agents

   Use Invite Agents as for an open house: search by name or agency and tick the agents you want. Invitations go out over the next few minutes with a button to book.

   Each member can send one round of invitations every 20 hours, across all their open houses and private viewings. Inside that time no invitations are sent and the page tells you roughly when you can send again.

5. 5

   Publish

   Click Publish Private Viewing. Add the whole window to your own Google Calendar from the confirmation so your diary is blocked.

   Your viewing is listed under Open Houses on the Private viewings tab, with the free slots counted. It is posted once to the Live Feed on the Network tab, and scheduled viewings in the coming week appear in the weekly email, labelled as by appointment.

6. 6

   See the bookings come in

   When an agent books an NLS slot, they see the booking confirmed straight away with Add to Google Calendar and Download .ics. A confirmation email follows in English and Spanish with the calendar file attached, and you are copied in, so you get one email per booking.

   Back in My Open Houses, each booking shows on your card with the agent's details, and in Alerts on your dashboard.

7. 7

   Change or cancel

   Use Edit or Cancel on the card. Until someone books, you can change anything. Once a slot is booked, the booking method, property, date, times and slot length are locked. Notes, contact details and the newsletter option can still change.

   Cancelling takes the viewing off the Private viewings page and marks its Live Feed post as cancelled. Agents who booked are not emailed automatically, so let them know yourself.