Reschedule or cancel a Fresha team member's appointments when they are out

1. Record the absence in Fresha under Team > Scheduled shifts: click Add, select Time off, choose the team member and Type of absence, set the dates, tick Approved and Save.
2. Open Calendar in Day view, press and hold each of the absent team member's appointments and drag it to a colleague's column or a new time, then confirm in the window that shows schedule conflicts and client notification options.
3. For a move to another day, open the appointment, select Actions (three dots) > Reschedule, browse the calendar for a slot and confirm.
4. For clients who cannot be moved, open the appointment, choose Cancel from the Appointment status menu, pick a Cancellation reason, check the Payment policies, decide on the Notification and click Cancel appointment.
5. The Fresha time off article does not say that adding time off touches the bookings already in the calendar, so every appointment is handled one by one, and a missed one is a client at the door with nobody to serve them.

Sam is sick tomorrow. Block his day, move his clients to another stylist at the same time where someone offers the service, and list the ones you could not place before cancelling anything.

1. 01

   Close the gap first

   The agent finds Sam with list_team_members and blocks his hours with add_blocked_time, titled with your absence type, so no new client books into the day while the agent works. Recording it as Time off under Team > Scheduled shifts stays a step for you in Fresha.

2. 02

   Build the list of affected visits

   list_appointments for Sam and tomorrow returns the day. Appointments already Cancelled or marked No-show are skipped. Each remaining one is sorted by whether the services can go to a colleague at the same location, because Fresha cannot move an appointment to another location.

3. 03

   Same time with a colleague, else another day

   For each client the agent runs find_available_slots for the same services without a team member filter and prefers a start at the original time. A same-time handover changes only the team member. If no colleague is free, it looks at Sam's next working days instead.

4. 04

   One plan, then one OK per change

   Before any write the agent shows the full plan: who moves where, who goes to a later day, who cannot be placed. reschedule_appointment then runs per client after your OK, and a slot taken in the meantime sends the agent back to find_available_slots rather than retrying the same time.

5. 05

   Cancel last, with your reason

   Only the clients you choose to cancel go to cancel_appointment, with a reason from your own Cancellation reasons list and notify_client on. For a repeating series the agent cancels this occurrence only unless you say otherwise.

Blocked: Sam, Thu 15 Oct, 09:00 to 18:00 ("Sick leave")
8 appointments affected
Same time, new stylist: Anna Smith 10:00 Haircut to Priya, Leo Grant 11:30 Beard trim to Tom, Ruth Diaz 15:00 Blow dry to Priya
Moved to Sam, Sat 17 Oct (asked for Sam only): Ivy Chen 10:00 Colour, Omar Haddad 13:00 Haircut
Cancelled after your OK, reason "Team member unwell", client notified: Dan Mills 17:00 Balayage (no 3 h slot this week)
Not touched: Mark Ellis 12:00, already cancelled by the client

• Fresha sends no client notification when a reschedule leaves the start date and time unchanged, so a same-time handover to a colleague reaches the client silently unless you tell them.
• Fresha cannot move an appointment to a different location; the help center says to cancel it and book again at the new location.
• Fresha keeps the payment policy attached to a rescheduled appointment, so a client who paid upfront does not pay again, while cancelling an upfront-paid appointment asks you whether to refund or keep the deposit.
• Fresha cancels only appointments dated today or later, and a past visit can only be marked as a no-show, which keeps its reports accurate.
• Fresha does not let a client cancel an upfront-paid appointment online, so that client has to contact you, while a card-confirmed client can cancel online and pay any applicable fee.

reschedule_appointment and cancel_appointment ask for your OK by default. To run it on a schedule without you, switch confirmation off for those tools in your dashboard.

Sources: Fresha Help Center: Reschedule appointments · Fresha Help Center: Cancel appointments · Fresha Help Center: Manage time off for your team · Fresha: AI-powered Intelligent Scheduling (Dynamic Reassignment)

curl https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/fresha/reschedule_appointment \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"appointment_id":"ap_90311301","start_at":"2026-10-15T10:00:00+01:00","team_member_id":"tm_5530"}'

{
  "appointment_id": "ap_90311301",
  "status": "Booked",
  "start_at": "2026-10-16T10:00:00+01:00",
  "end_at": "2026-10-16T10:45:00+01:00",
  "team_member": "Sam"
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the tool is fresha_reschedule_appointment. Example data.

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