# Assigned to No One - Invalid Order

When bookings appear as "Assigned to: No one" in Sesami, it means the selected time slot became unavailable before the order was completed. This guide explains why this happens and how to fix it.

## Why this happens

There might be cases where Sesami receives an invalid order from Shopify. This means the selected date and time is no longer available by the time Sesami received the order information.

### Common causes

1. **Another customer booked the same slot** - While the first customer was going through checkout, another customer completed a booking for the same time slot
2. **Team member became unavailable** - After the customer selected the slot, the team member's availability changed due to:
   * Availability schedule changes
   * An event added to their synced Google Calendar
   * Manual blocking of time slots
   * Team member being disabled or removed

## What to do

When you see a booking assigned to "No one", you have two options:

### Option 1: Reschedule the appointment

1. Navigate to **Sesami > Bookings**
2. Find the booking assigned to "No one"
3. Pick an available slot on behalf of the customer
4. Reschedule the appointment
5. The customer will receive an email with the new appointment details

### Option 2: Cancel and refund

1. Navigate to **Sesami > Bookings**
2. Find the booking assigned to "No one"
3. Cancel the booking and process a refund in Shopify
4. Ask the customer to book a new appointment
5. The customer will receive a cancellation email

## How to prevent this from happening

Enable these two important settings to prevent invalid bookings:

1. Open **Sesami** in your Shopify Admin
2. Navigate to **Settings**
3. Enable both:
   * **"Reservation period"** - Reserves the time slot for a customer while they complete checkout
   * **"Validate appointments in cart"** - Checks if the slot is still available before allowing checkout

{% hint style="success" %}
**Recommended**: Enable both settings to significantly reduce "Assigned to: No one" bookings caused by timing conflicts.
{% endhint %}

## Understanding these settings

### Reservation Period

When enabled, this temporarily reserves the selected time slot for the customer while they go through the checkout process. The slot won't be available to other customers during this time.

### Validate Appointments in Cart

When enabled, Sesami checks whether the selected slot is still available when the customer proceeds to checkout. If it's no longer available, the customer is prompted to select a new time before continuing.

## Related

* [Reservation Period](/booking/availability/reservation-period.md) - Configure reservation timing
* [Cart Verification Script](/apps-integrations/shopify/online-store/cart-verification-script.md) - Cart validation setup
* [Quickstart Guide](/get-started/quickstart.md#troubleshooting) - Setup and troubleshooting


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://help.sesami.co/get-started/onboarding/troubleshooting/troubleshooting-assigned-to-no-one-caused-by-invalid-order.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.