What It Prevents
- The same agent being booked for overlapping appointments
- The same customer booking overlapping services on the same day
- Different visitors selecting a time slot already held in another cart
- Conflicting appointments slipping through during checkout
Main Features
No Agent Double Bookings
If an agent is already selected for an 11:00–12:00 appointment, another item in the same cart cannot use that agent during the same time.
No Customer Time Conflicts
A customer cannot book overlapping appointments, even when selecting different agents.
Back-to-back appointments remain available:
Temporary Slot Holds
When a customer adds an appointment to their cart, the slot is temporarily held for other visitors.
The default hold duration is approximately 20 minutes and can be adjusted in settings:
WP Admin → Latepoint Alaena → Cart Slot Guard
There you’ll find:
- Cart hold duration (minutes) — how long a slot stays blocked for other customers while it’s in someone’s cart
- Allowed range: 1–240 minutes (default 20)
Holds are automatically removed when the order is completed or when they expire.
Multiple Validation Points
The add-on checks appointment availability throughout the booking process:
- After the datepicker step
- Before adding an appointment to the cart
- During checkout verification
- While displaying available calendar times
The entire cart is checked again before checkout, ensuring that no conflicts have slipped through.
Datepicker → Agents Support
For booking flows where customers select the date and time before selecting an agent, the plugin validates the appointment without silently removing agents from the next step.
This keeps the booking form working correctly while still preventing invalid combinations.
Lightweight and Safe
- No LatePoint core edits
- Uses official LatePoint hooks
- Small dedicated database table for temporary holds
- Automatic hold expiration
- Compatible with multi-item cart booking flows
- Configurable hold duration
LatePoint Cart Slot Guard keeps every multi-item booking accurate, no overlapping customers, no double-booked agents and no cart-slot conflicts between visitors.
