# Qualification

The **Qualification** tab of the event-type editor holds rules that read what someone
typed on your [booking form](/help/event-types/booking-questions) and decide whether
they get the meeting at all. If a rule matches, no booking is created: the person sees
a message you wrote, or lands on a URL you picked. Open an event type from
[**Event Types**](/360/events) and pick the **Qualification** tab.

Until you add a rule, the tab reads "No qualification rules yet. All bookings are
accepted." That is the default for every event type.

## What it is

An ordered list of up to **20 rules**. Each rule has:

- **Conditions**: between 1 and 5 of them. A condition is a booking-form question, an
  operator, and a value. The **AND / OR** chip at the top of the rule decides whether
  every condition has to hit or just one.
- **An action**, one of two:
  - **Show message**: the text you write (up to 2,000 characters) replaces the booking
    form.
  - **Redirect to URL**: an `http://` or `https://` address the person is sent to. You
    can drop an answer into the link with `{{Question label}}`, which is substituted
    and URL-encoded, so `https://example.com/pricing?size={{Team size}}` works.

Rules are checked **top to bottom, and the first one that matches wins**. Everyone who
matches nothing books normally.

<Screenshot
  src="/help/screenshots/event-types/qualification.png"
  alt="The Qualification tab of the 42min event-type editor holding one rule: a Condition row with an AND chip, the Team size question, the 'is any of' operator, and a checkbox per dropdown option with 'Just me' ticked, then an Action set to Show message with the message text in a box below it"
  caption="One rule on the Intro call event type. The AND chip decides how conditions combine, 'is any of' turns the question's own options into checkboxes, and the Action underneath sets what the person gets instead of the booking form."
/>

The operators you get depend on the question's type:

| Question type | Operators |
|---|---|
| Radio, Dropdown, Checkboxes | is, is not, is any of |
| One line, Multiple lines, Number, Phone number | is, is not, contains, does not contain |

For a choice question the value is a picker of that question's own options, and
**is any of** is a real multi-select. For the rest you type the value.

## When to use it

- Screen out the segment you can't help: free-tier only, a country you don't sell to,
  a job title that never buys, and send them a help article instead of a call.
- Keep a "Book a demo" link public while quietly routing solo founders to self-serve
  pricing.
- Cut spam and junk bookings on a link you've published widely.

If you want to send people to *different* places rather than turn them away, use a
[routing form](/help/routing-forms/overview) instead. A routing form asks its questions
before the booking page and picks a destination; qualification runs after someone has
already filled in the booking form for this one event type.

## How to do it

1. Add the question first on the **Booking Form** tab. Qualification can only test
   questions that already exist on this event type.
2. Switch to the **Qualification** tab and click **Add Rule**.
3. Pick the **question**, the **operator**, and the **value**. Click **Add Condition**
   for up to five, and use the **AND / OR** chip to say how they combine.
4. Choose the **Action**: **Show message** and write the text, or **Redirect to URL**
   and paste the link.
5. Add more rules if you need them, and use the arrows to order them. The first match
   wins, so put the most specific rule above the general one.
6. Save. The rules apply to that event type's booking page immediately.

## What the person booking sees

Nothing about a rule, a condition, or the word "disqualified". They either get your
message on a card styled like your booking page, or they land on the URL you chose.
They are not told a booking was blocked, so write the message you'd actually want them
to read.

<Callout type="tip">
Give people a next step in the message. A link to pricing, a help article, or a
different booking link turns a dead end into something useful.
</Callout>

## Reviewing what was turned away

Nothing is thrown out. Every submission a rule stops is saved with its answers and a
record of which rule matched, and you can still take the meeting.

- The event type's owner gets an email about it, capped at 20 per event type per day.
- The submissions show up in two places: the **Needs review** status on
  [**Meetings**](/360/meetings?status=disqualified), and the **Needs review** tab on
  [**Leads**](/360/leads). The
  [Meetings guide](/help/workspace/meetings#needs-review) covers the queue in full.
- **Approve** turns the submission into a real booking, with the confirmation emails
  and calendar invitation that normally follow. **Delete** removes it.

Approving is a replay of the original request, so the slot has to still be free and
still be in the future. If someone else booked that time in the meantime, the approval
fails and the row stays in Needs review.

## How matching works

- **Case and spacing are ignored.** "Enterprise", "enterprise", and " Enterprise " all
  match the same value.
- **Checkboxes answers**: the positive operators (is, is any of, contains) hit when
  *any* box they ticked matches. The negative ones (is not, does not contain) hit only
  when *every* box avoids the value.
- **An unanswered question never matches**, including with "is not" and "does not
  contain". A blank answer is not treated as "not Enterprise".
- **Number and phone questions** compare digits, so an answer typed in Arabic-Indic or
  Persian numerals matches the same rule as Western ones.

## Common pitfalls

- **A turned-off question makes its rule inert.** If you disable a question on the
  Booking Form tab, conditions using it stop applying, and the tab shows a warning on
  that condition. Deleting the question outright blocks the save until you fix or
  remove the condition.
- **Rule order is the logic.** A broad rule sitting above a narrow one swallows it.
  Read your list top to bottom and check the specific cases come first.
- **"contains" with a short value is greedy.** A condition on `contains "ai"` also
  matches "email" and "Ukraine". Prefer "is" on a choice question where you can.
- **[Single-use links](/help/booking-pages/single-use-links) skip qualification.** A
  link you sent to one named person books without being screened, which is usually
  what you want.
- **Managed event types are read only.** When an event type is pushed to you from a
  [template](/help/team-and-admin/templates), only its Schedule tab is editable, so
  qualification has to be set on the template.
- **This is not access control.** Anyone can retry with different answers. Qualification
  filters honest answers; it doesn't keep a determined person out.