The following platform policies apply to the Appointments End-to-End integration.
API terms and conditions
Last modified: October 22, 2021
By using this API, you consent to be bound by the Google APIs Terms of Service ("API ToS").
Merchant and service eligibility
Please read through the following merchants and services eligibility criteria before beginning an integration. If you have a specific use case that you think should be evaluated for an exception, please reach out to your Google business development contact.
Merchant eligibility criteria
For a merchant to be eligible for the Actions Center, they need to meet two main requirements:
The merchant's business must have a physical location with an address that matches one in the Google Maps database, or be a service area business that is part of the Google Guaranteed or Google Screened programs.
Its services must be bookable as defined by the standard service definition or its waitlist queue must be joinable as defined by the waitlist service definition.
Some criteria is industry-specific. For details on supported and unsupported services, see the following:
Supported services
The following services are supported:
- Appointments
- Reservations
- Classes
- Activities
- Consults and evaluations
- Sign-ups and trials
Unsupported services
The following services aren't supported unless functionality is explicitly identified in the vertical specific policy pages:
Services that are membership-based, subscription-based, or have recurring billing.
Services that require insurance, or have unique legal requirements, such as dentists, healthcare, childcare, or adult entertainment, or regulated goods or services such as medicine.
Services that take appointments for law firms or other legal services.
Services that are "on demand", "mobile-based", or "in-home" such as mobile haircuts, cleaners, or locksmiths, if the business offering the service is not part of the Google Guaranteed or Google Screened programs.
Services that require additional steps in the booking flow, such as the need to fill out a waiver to complete the booking, or contact merchants directly to complete the booking.
Services that require custom fields related to the user. This includes any fields beyond first name, last name, email address, and phone number. User addresses can also be requested by businesses that are part of the Google Guaranteed or Google Screened programs.
Supported Wellness and Fitness Services
The following wellness and fitness services are supported:
- Consults and evaluations
- Sign-ups and trials
- Appointments
- Reservations
- Classes
- Activities
- Retreat center
- Meditation
- Reiki
Unsupported wellness and fitness services
The following wellness and fitness services aren't supported:
- Any service provided by a covered entity or any other entity that handles protected health information, as such terms are defined under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (or local legal equivalents)
- In-home trainers
Supported spa and beauty services
The following spa and beauty services are supported:
- Consults and evaluations
- Sign-ups and trials
- Appointments
- Reservations
- Classes
- Activities
- Massage
- Spa
- Hair removal
Unsupported spa and beauty services
The following spa and beauty services aren't supported:
- Any service provided by a covered entity or any other entity that handles protected health information, as such terms are defined under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (or local legal equivalents)
- A stylist that comes to your workplace
- Mobile spa services
- Services where multiple individuals are operating out of a single shared space (such as booths that they rent)
Supported financial services
The following financial services are supported:
- Services that are consultative in nature (Eg. "Mortgage consultation")
- Non transactional oriented services
Unsupported financial services
The following financial services are not supported:
- Services that have the intention of completing a transaction (Eg. "Open a new account" or "Complete a wire transfer")
- Services that are stages of a transaction (Eg. "Signing of documentation for a loan")
Access criteria
Even within these approved categories we might block certain merchants. This is most likely for cases where the partner-provided appointment isn't what the user expects. We might hold our approval on those categories until we have an appropriate method to address the issue.
As we review new merchant categories, we reserve the right to include or exclude them as we deem appropriate. Our goal is to enable as many merchants as possible, if they fit our criteria. Not every merchant fits our criteria.
Supported Countries
The following table lists the countries supported by the Actions Center. This list is updated periodically, check back here to stay up to date.
Legend:
- ‘Non-payments’ support include any reservation or booking that does not require payment to complete.
- ‘Accepting payments’ support indicates that payments may be accepted to reservations for merchants in that country.
| Country | Country Code | Non Payments | Accepting Payments1 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aland | AX | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Andorra | AD | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Anguilla | AI | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Argentina | AR | Supported | Supported |
| Aruba | AW | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Australia | AU | Supported | Supported |
| Austria | AT | Supported | Supported |
| Bahrain | BH | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Belgium | BE | Supported | Supported |
| Brazil | BR | Supported | Supported3 |
| British Virgin Islands | VG | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Bulgaria | BG | Supported | Supported |
| Canada | CA | Supported4 | Supported4 |
| Cayman Islands | KY | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Chile | CL | Supported | Supported |
| Christmas Island | CX | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Colombia | CO | Supported | Supported |
| Cook | CK | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Croatia | HR | Supported | Supported |
| Curaçao | CW | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Czech Republic | CZ | Supported | Supported |
| Denmark | DK | Supported | Supported |
| Estonia | EE | Supported | Supported |
| Falkland | FK | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Faroe Islands | FO | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Finland | FI | Supported | Supported |
| France | FR | Supported | Supported |
| French Polynesia | PF | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Germany | DE | Supported | Supported |
| Gibraltar | GI | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Greece | GR | Supported | Supported |
| Greenland | GL | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Guam | GU | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Hong Kong | HK | Supported | Supported |
| Hungary | HU | Supported | Supported |
| India | IN | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Indonesia | ID | Supported | Supported |
| Ireland | IE | Supported | Supported |
| Isle of Man | IM | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Israel(*EN UI only) | IL | Supported5 | Not Currently Supported |
| Italy | IT | Supported | Supported |
| Japan | JP | Supported | Supported |
| Latvia | LV | Supported | Supported |
| Lithuania | LT | Supported | Supported |
| Luxembourg | LU | Supported | Supported |
| Malaysia | MY | Supported | Supported |
| Malta | MT | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Martinique | MQ | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Mexico | MX | Supported | Supported |
| Montserrat | MS | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Netherlands | NL | Supported | Supported |
| New Caledonia | NC | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| New Zealand | NZ | Supported | Supported |
| Niue | NU | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Northern Mariana Islands | MP | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Norway | NO | Supported | Supported |
| Panama | PA | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Peru | PE | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Philippines | PH | Supported | Supported |
| Poland | PL | Supported | Supported |
| Portugal | PT | Supported | Supported |
| Puerto Rico | PR | Supported | Supported |
| Russia | RU | Supported | Supported |
| Saint Helena | SH | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Saint Pierre and Miquelon | PM | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Samoa | WS | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| San Marino | SM | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Singapore | SG | Supported | Supported |
| Sint Marteen | SX | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| South Africa | ZA | Supported | Supported |
| South Korea | KR | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Spain | ES | Supported | Supported |
| Svalbard | SJ | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Sweden | SE | Supported | Supported |
| Switzerland | CH | Supported | Supported |
| Taiwan | TW | Supported | Supported |
| Thailand | TH | Supported | Supported |
| Tokelau | TK | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| Turkey | TR | Supported | Supported |
| Turks | TC | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| United Arab Emirates (*EN UI only) | AE | Supported | Supported |
| United Kingdom | GB | Supported | Supported |
| United States | US | Supported | Supported |
| Uruguay | UY | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| US Virgin Islands | VI | Supported | Supported |
| Vatican City | VA | Supported | Supported |
| Vietnam | VN | Supported | Supported |
| Wallis | WF | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
Notes and exceptions
- Accepting payments is subject to the Actions Center's payment policy.
- We recommend you check with the Actions Center support team prior to planning to launch payments in a country as there may be country specific requirements.
- CDF (Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas) or National Identification payments are not supported in Brazil at this time.
- For merchants and services that are operating in Quebec, all text must be localized in both English and French.
- For Israel, price must be in local currency (ILS). Item price must be in increments of 0.10 (eg. 50.10, 50.20, 50.30) and not be in other increments (eg. 50.12, 50.22).
- Financial Services is only allowed in US and CA.
Data Access, Ranking, and Termination
Overview of Actions Center data access
We collect information from our users when users submit reservation requests via Google. The information we collect may include contact and other transaction details. Our Privacy Policy provides more detail on the information we collect, why we collect it, and how users can update, manage, export, and delete user information. For purposes of fulfilling a user order or other user requests, we may share such information with the partner, to be used in accordance with the privacy policy. Usage metrics may also be shared with the partner and their merchants for the respective integrations.
We also collect data from our partners to enable their merchant services on the Actions Center. The information we collect includes merchant and service listings and descriptions, availability, location, pricing, and other information relevant to the service. We may use this information to improve Google products and services.
Ranking
How provider ranking works
The Actions Center strives to create the easiest way to make appointments or reservations online and ensure a great end-to-end experience for users. Google works with reservation providers to achieve this goal.
When multiple restaurant reservation providers offer the same services for a given merchant, we present all partners to the users at the time of the booking, allowing users to select which reservations provider they prefer. The ordering of the partners is arbitrary. However, for other appointment services outside of restaurant reservations, only services from the first partner who sends us a matched merchant with appointment availability will be shown to users.
In order to avoid duplication of services offered via the Actions Center, specifically between End-to-End integrations, Redirect, and Business Link integrations, the Actions Center will remove some duplicative Place Actions links if End-to-End integrations from the same partners already exist. Some exceptions may apply to specific partners due to technical reasons.
How providers referral ranking works
Actions Center refers eligible Business Profile merchants to sign up with Actions Center partners when appropriate. The list of partners shown to each merchant may be limited to a subset that fit on screen and are randomized. Merchants can select an expanded view to see the full list of partners.
Grounds for termination
We will restrict, suspend, or (where a policy is violated) terminate a partner due to errors. Such errors may include high technical error rates, failing health checks, high booking server error rate, high latency, and poor data quality.
Partners can also be suspended from the platform if they are not adhering to a policy or have a significant number of merchants/services violating a policy. In such instances, we may disable the entire integration instead of on a service by service or merchant by merchant basis.
Marketing and email policy
This page details our marketing and email policies.
General email and SMS policies
Both the Actions Center and its partners might communicate with the user after a booking is made.
Emails sent by the Actions Center
Actions Center might send the following emails to the user:
- A confirmation after the booking or purchase is made.
- A reminder 24 hours before the appointment or event start time.
- A feedback request after the appointment or event end time.
Users may also opt-in for Actions Center marketing notifications related to promotions, new partners, and upcoming classes or events. These notifications are optional and not required for users to complete their booking.
Partner Marketing Opt-ins
Users can opt in for partner marketing and promotions during their booking on Actions Center. Partners will need to implement the Marketing Preferences changes on their side to enable this feature for their bookings.
After enabling this feature, the customer’s remarketing preferences must be respected, meaning:
If the user OPTS IN for remarketing, the partner is free to use the user’s contact details for remarketing purposes.
If the user OPTS OUT or the remarketing checkbox is ‘OFF’ at the time of booking, the partner may only communicate:
- For any reasonable purpose related to managing, administering, or reminding users about the booked service.
- Once per booking, after the booked service has been rendered, for example to solicit a user review.
If the partner can trace the user information of the booking to an existing user account stored on the partner side, the user’s marketing preferences stored on the partner side may supersede the value the user indicated in the remarketing checkbox in the Actions Center flow.
Partners must include an unsubscribe link at the bottom of all emails.
Partners must honor any opt-out requests from users.
If a specific country or territory requires double opt-in per regulations, partners are responsible for the second opt-in required after the initial opt-in via the Actions Center flow.
Any violations of this policy can result in removal from the Actions Center program.
Account matching and creation policy
This policy describes when and how partners can match or create accounts in their system based on data from Actions Center bookings.
General Policy
Partners should process Actions Center transactions as “Guest Checkout” transactions when possible, meaning that a user can make the requested booking without a permanent account being created in the partner’s system on behalf of a user.
Account Creation Exceptions and Guidelines
Certain exceptions permit partners to use the customer’s information to create accounts within their own system including:
- A partner’s own public-facing product does not support guest checkout
- The customer has opted in to remarketing from the partner via the Actions Center flow
If a partner does create a new account, the customer must be made aware that they now have an account.
- For example, an email must be sent at the time of booking informing a user of the new account, or asking a user to take additional steps (“Set up a password for your new ___ account”).
Any newly-created account must respect the user’s remarketing choices.
- If the user did not opt-in to remarketing, this desire must also be expressed in the partner’s backend.
Account Matching Guidelines
If a user account matching the email given already exists in the partner’s backend, this “existing account” may be used to service the booking. The existing account may only be enriched with any new contact information submitted by the customer during the Actions Center booking with separate user consent (eg via the remarketing checkbox). However, the partner must use the information provided by Actions Center (first name, last name, phone number …) when communicating with the user (even if they differ from the information they have registered in their own database).
The existing account holder must know this has happened. For example, a confirmation email must be sent to the contact information for the existing account holder (if different to what was submitted during the Actions Center booking).
Payment instruments held “on file” with the existing account may not be used to service the transaction. Only payment instruments collected upfront during the Actions Center booking flow may be used. This clause includes, but is not limited to: late fees, payment method, no-show fees, booking fees, cancellation fees, the cost of the booking. Payment information can not be held or added to an existing users account.
Content Quality Standards
Partners must maintain good merchant and service data quality content. The Actions Center may turn off the service, merchant, or integration if we find errors in the quality that would negatively degrade the user experience.
Merchant Name & Address
- Merchant name must accurately reflect the legal business name the merchant is operating under.
- Merchant address must accurately reflect the place in which the merchant conducts the service and holds ownership of (no booth renters).
Services Name & Descriptions
Service names must clearly indicate the type of services the user is booking.
Service descriptions must be descriptive, and accurately reflect the service the merchant is providing. The service description should not conflict or be duplicative of any other data in the integration.
Service
nameandlocalized_descriptionmust follow proper capitalization and punctuation per local grammar.- Full capitalization, use of emoji or emoticons is not allowed.
- Use of vulgar or offensive language is not acceptable.
- Not allowed in name or description:
- Promotional content, URL, email address, or phone number
- Payment method
Structured fields (e.g.
cancellation_policy,price) should always be leveraged and should not be included in thenameordescription.Services must be bookable by the general public. Services cannot require purchasing a membership, or belonging to an organization to book.
Partner Brand
- Partner brand name must accurately reflect the legal business name the partner is operating under.
- Partner logo must be the one that officially relates to the brand name.
- Partner must not provide brand names or logos that could mislead end users of their relationship with the merchant.
Support and Maintenance Guidelines
The following guidelines apply to Support and Maintenance.
Integration Maintenance and Support
Partner is committed to the following support functions and standards:
Emergency Alert and Emergency Technical Support: Partner will provide high priority support for technical issues which result in the integration being disabled or non-functioning, being degraded beyond service health expectations, greatly impacting the user experience, or any other emergency issue. To ensure a positive user and merchant experience, Partner will use commercially reasonable efforts to respond to and resolve any emergency issues within 1 business day.
Non-Emergency Technical Support: Partner will provide standard support for non-emergency technical or production issues which do not disable the integration. To ensure a positive user and merchant experience, Partner will use commercially reasonable efforts to respond to any non-emergency issues within 2 business days.
Post-Launch Integration Health: Partner's integration health should meet the following expectations such that the end user experience is not degraded.
User Support
Partner will provide the following support functions:
Direct User Support: Partner will provide direct support to users who contact Partner regarding issues with a booking made via Partner.
Google Escalated Support: Partner will provide support for situations where Google reaches out to Partner regarding a user issue (including, but not limited to: booking is not honored as described, the user has requested a refund, or user wishes to change/modify their booking).
Partner Takedown Reasons and Issue Descriptions
The Actions Center may disable your integration or inventory as necessary in order to maintain user expectation and experience. We will attempt to send a notification to you prior or at the takedown time and work with you to resolve the issue.
This following issue types describes the root causes of inventory takedowns and the associated policies and guidelines.
Failing health check
This error is encountered when your HealthCheck booking server route is not returning a successful status code (200 OK) consistently.
Our system auto-disables your integration after repeated HealthCheck failures and will auto-restore your integration once the HealthCheck returns successful status code (200 OK) consistently.
Relevant Policy: Launch and monitoring
High booking server error rate or latency
This is encountered when one (or multiple) of your booking server routes are either taking too long to respond, or are failing too frequently. The exact thresholds are stated in the Launch and monitoring page.
Our system auto-disables your integration after spikes in error rates. Once you address the underlying issue, you may be able to re-enable the integration on the Accounts page of Partner Portal. If that button is not available, please contact the partner support team with the root cause, and the actions taken to resolve the issue.
Relevant Policy: Launch and monitoring
Partner unresponsive or SLA violation
This is encountered when the Actions Center team reaches out to your team with an issue (technical, user issue, data issue, etc.) and does not hear back within the time outlined in the Support and Maintenance Guidelines.
Alternatively, if the issues identified are not resolved within the timeline given, we may disable your integration. Once the issue is resolved and confirmed by our team, we will restore your integration. You can reach out to the partner support team with the email reference id you received for status updates or to inform us the issue has been resolved.
Relevant Policy: Support and Maintenance Guidelines
Unfulfillable by merchant
Any inventory offered on the Actions Center by a partner must be honored and fulfilled by the merchant as listed. If the merchant can not honor the service as listed, it is not eligible to be listed on the Actions Center. To resolve this issue, please work with your merchant to update the inventory to ensure it is accurate and that the merchant will honor any future bookings.
Relevant Policy: End-to-end Policy
Place Action policy violation
Actions Center requires that Place Actions link(s) must follow specific guidelines to ensure user and merchant expectation. For example, Place Actions link(s) must be actionable, lead to a dedicated landing page for specific merchants, and clearly denote that it is owned and operated by a platform provider.
Relevant Policy: Place Actions Policy
Pricing policy violation
The Actions Center requires that the price shown to the user is the ultimate price that they will pay (exclusive of any optional gratuity) and the cancellation and refund policies must be clear and accurate. Providing false, placeholder, or otherwise inaccurate information is not supported. Please work with your merchant to ensure that the values provided to the Actions Center are accurate and meet our Pricing Policies. Reach out to the partner support team once the issue is resolved.
Relevant Policy: Pricing Policies
Confusing or missing information
In order to ensure a great user experience, the Actions Center requires that all information is present and clear to the user. Partners should work with their merchants to ensure fields are accurately set and not conflicting.
For more information, review our Merchants and services eligibility criteria. Once you resolve this issue please reach out to the partner support team for review.
Relevant Policy: Merchants and services eligibility criteria, Data Quality Standards
Unsupported by integration
The Actions Center is only live in certain countries, merchant categories, and with specific feature sets. Please review our Merchants and services eligibility and the features currently supported by your integration to ensure you are only using those that are supported.
For example, if you have not completed an async integration, you can not offer async inventory. Please remove the unsupported portion of the inventory and reach out to the partner support team for a review.
Relevant Policy: Merchants and services eligibility criteria
Bad match or noncompliance of matching policy
The provided listing must be properly matched to the Google listing. Alternatively, if we don’t have sufficient information to ensure that the match is accurate, we will remove that inventory.
Please ensure that the match is in compliance with our matching policy. Once you take those steps please reach out to our partner support team for them to review.
Relevant Policy: Matching guidelines
Payments policy violation
To ensure a consistent experience for consumers, merchants, and partners using the Actions Center, inventory requiring payment must adhere to the appropriate guidelines. Failure to adhere to these policies will lead to suspension of your inventory or integration.
Relevant Policy: Payments Policies
Offers policy violation
To ensure a consistent experience for consumers, merchants, and partners using the Actions Center, inventory with Offers must adhere to the appropriate guidelines. Failure to adhere to these policies will lead to suspension of your inventory or integration.
Relevant Policy: Offers Policies
Online services policy violation
To ensure a consistent experience for consumers, merchants, and partners using the Actions Center, inventory for online services must adhere to the appropriate guidelines. Failure to adhere to these policies will lead to suspension of your inventory or integration.
Relevant Policy: Online services policy