# Updating a booking when an agent reschedules

Customers often ask a human agent to move or cancel an appointment mid-conversation. Two automation actions keep the calendar in step with what your agent agreed, so nobody has to fix the Schedule by hand:

* **Reschedule appointment to attribute** moves the customer's current booking to the date and time held in a date-type custom attribute.
* **Cancel appointment** releases the customer's current booking.

Both act on the appointment already linked to the contact — the one your AI agent booked in chat or the customer made through your booking page.

## Before you start

* A [calendar](/calendar/setting-up-a-calendar) with bookings on it.
* An AI provider connected under **Settings → Integrations → AI Providers**, so the AI can read the new time out of the conversation.
* The reschedule flow works in conversations your AI agent has handled — that is where the appointment was booked and where the AI reads the confirmation from.

## Step 1: Add a date attribute for the new time

The reschedule action reads the new time from a custom attribute, and the AI fills that attribute from the conversation.

1. Go to **Settings → Custom Attributes** and click **Add Custom Attribute**.
2. Set **Applies to** to **Conversation** and **Type** to **Date**.
3. Give it a **Display Name** such as *Reschedule to*.
4. In **Description**, tell the AI what to look for — this is the instruction it follows. For example: *The most recently confirmed appointment date and time in this conversation, as a full date and time including the +08:00 time zone offset, e.g. 2026-09-04T17:00:00+08:00. Later messages override earlier ones. Leave empty if none.* Use your own time zone offset.
5. Tick **Enable AI extraction** and click **Create**.

![Add Custom Attribute dialog for a date attribute with AI extraction enabled](../../.gitbook/assets/guides/custom-attribute-reschedule-to.jpg)

If you have picked specific **AI Columns** under **Configure Columns** for the agent, add the new attribute there too so it is refreshed along with the others.

## Step 2: Create the automation rule

1. Go to **Settings → Automation** and click **Create Automation**.
2. Choose the **Message Created** event.
3. Add conditions that match your agents' confirmation — for example **Message Type** equal to **Outgoing Message**, and **Message Contains** *Reschedule Appointment on*. Ask your team to use that phrase whenever they confirm a new time, such as *Reschedule Appointment on Friday 4/9, 5pm*.
4. Set the first action to **Regenerate AI Attributes**. This reads the new time out of the conversation into your date attribute.
5. Click **Add Action**, choose **Reschedule appointment to attribute**, and pick your date attribute. Keep it below **Regenerate AI Attributes** — actions run from top to bottom.
6. Click **Create**.

![Automation rule that regenerates AI attributes and then reschedules the appointment](../../.gitbook/assets/guides/automation-reschedule-appointment.jpg)

## What happens when the rule runs

* The booking moves to the new time. The old time is freed, appointment reminders from your [message sequences](/campaigns/message-sequences) follow the new time, and the customer's manage link keeps working.
* The change is recorded against the agent who last replied in the conversation, so the Schedule shows who moved it.
* The conversation gets an activity line, such as *Appointment moved to Friday, 4 September 2026, 5:00 PM (was Thursday, 3 September 2026, 3:00 PM) by Rebecca*. Activity lines are for your team only — the customer never receives them.

## When the booking stays put

The rule never double-books or guesses. In each of these cases the current booking stays where it is, and the activity line tells your team why:

* The new time is already taken or falls outside the calendar's business hours.
* The attribute is empty, or the AI could not make out a date and time from the conversation.
* The new time is in the past.
* The contact has no active appointment — nothing was booked, or it was already cancelled.

If the new time is the same as the current booking, nothing changes and no line is added.

## Cancelling an appointment

Add **Cancel appointment** to a rule in the same way — for example on **Message Created** when an outgoing message contains *Cancel Appointment confirmed*. It releases the customer's current booking, frees the time, and records who cancelled it: *Appointment on Thursday, 3 September 2026, 3:00 PM cancelled by Rebecca*.

## Related

* [Setting up a calendar](/calendar/setting-up-a-calendar)
* [Booking pages and the Schedule view](/calendar/booking-pages-and-the-schedule-view)
* [Labels, attributes and automation](/settings/labels-attributes-and-automation)
* [Message Sequences](/campaigns/message-sequences)

---
Source: https://help.mampuai.com/calendar/agent-rescheduled-appointments