# The booking flow

Booking a meeting on 42min is a four-step flow. This is what your invitees see — you
don't configure it directly; it's shaped by your [event type](/help/event-types/overview),
[schedule](/help/schedules-availability/schedules), and (if used) a
[routing form](/help/routing-forms/overview).

## The four steps

1. **Pick an event type.** From your [booking page](/help/booking-pages/your-booking-page),
   the invitee chooses which kind of meeting they want — unless you sent them a direct
   event link, in which case they skip straight to step 2. If you sent them a routing
   form, they answer the questions first and the form forwards them to the right event
   type.
2. **Pick a date and time.** The invitee sees a calendar and the open slots for that
   event type — your schedule, minus your calendar's busy events, minus the event
   type's buffers, within its minimum notice and date range, on its start-time
   increment. Slots are shown in **the invitee's time zone** (auto-detected, and they
   can change it).
3. **Fill in the booking form.** Name and email always; plus any
   [custom questions](/help/event-types/booking-questions) you added, and — if the
   event type allows — additional guest emails.
4. **Confirm.** The invitee submits, sees a confirmation page, and gets a confirmation
   email with the calendar invite (and a Google Meet link if the event type uses one).
   See [Confirmations, rescheduling, and canceling](/help/booking-pages/confirmations-reschedule-cancel).

A [contact](/360/leads) is created (or matched) for the invitee, and the booking shows
up in [Meetings](/360/meetings) and on the host's calendar. For a
[round-robin](/help/event-types/round-robin) event type, the host is assigned at step 4.

## Common pitfalls (and what causes them)

- **"No times available."** Empty slot grid → the schedule has no upcoming hours, your
  minimum notice rules out the near term, the [date range](/help/event-types/duration-buffers-and-limits)
  is short, your calendar is full, or a [meeting limit](/help/schedules-availability/meeting-limits)
  is hit.
- **Slots in the wrong time zone.** Invitees see their own zone; if *your* hours look
  off, your [schedule's time zone](/help/schedules-availability/holidays-and-time-zones)
  is set wrong.
- **Invitee can't add guests.** Guests are a per-event-type toggle — turn on
  "allow guests" on the event type if you want it.