Availability Calendars and Scheduling Settings

Availability calendars

Open Availabilities in the sidebar. You can have up to 5 availability calendars, shown as tabs, for example one for office days and one for a summer schedule. One of them is the default and new events use it. An event can pick another one in its Timing step.

The large table shows every day of the month with the hours open on it. Green days are open, gray days are unavailable, amber days are closed all day and red days are holidays from your Holidays page. Past days are gray and cannot be changed.

New calendar asks for a name. The gear opens the calendar settings, where you can rename it, make it the default or delete it. The default calendar cannot be deleted, so make another one the default first.

Weekly hours

Weekly hours opens a dialog with the seven days. Set the hours for each day or mark it unavailable. Times follow your 12 or 24 hour preference, and the week starts on the day set in your settings. The dialog checks that every end is after its start.

Changing a single day

Select a day in the table to give it hours of its own, with one or more windows, or to mark it unavailable. A change replaces the weekly hours for that date only. A day shows up to three windows in its box, and a More link opens the full list.

The rules of an event

In the event editor, the steps Timing, Groups and Approval set how this event can be booked:

• Minimum notice: how soon before a time it can still be booked. Choose No notice, 15 or 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours, 1 or 2 days, or 1 week. New events use 2 hours.
• Booking window: how far ahead people can book. Choose 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 180 or 365 days. New events use 60 days.
• Start times: how often a slot starts. Choose Right after each booking, or every 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. With Right after each booking, slots follow each other by the length of the meeting plus the padding.
• Padding: free time kept after each booking before the next one can start. It spaces the times you offer. It does not block time before or after a booking that already exists. For example, a 30 minute meeting with 15 minutes of padding gives a slot every 45 minutes: 9:00, 9:45, 10:30.
• Ask for my approval first: every booking is a request until you approve it, and the time is held meanwhile. For an event that charges, the card is only held when the booker asks and is charged when you approve. See Approving booking requests.
• Bookings per day and Bookings per week: the most meetings you accept, with Count bookings of deciding whether only this event counts or all your events.
• Other lengths people can pick: more lengths besides the main one, such as 45 minutes or 1 hour. The person booking chooses a length first and then sees the times for it. Not available for an event that charges, because the price is for one length.
• Booker can cancel and Booker can reschedule: how late before the start a booker may still change their booking on their own, from 1 hour to 1 week, or any time. You are never held to it.
• Refund when canceled (events that charge): a paid booking is refunded in full, automatically, when the booker cancels more than this many hours before the start. New events use 24 hours.
• Availability calendar: which of your calendars the hours come from.
• Group or class event, Repeating bookings, Waitlist and Ask for my approval first: see What do these options mean? below.

A booker only sees times that follow all of these rules, and the same rules are checked again when they confirm, so two people cannot take the same time.

Bookers are told the cancel and reschedule rule before they book and on their booking page. Once a cutoff has passed, the booking page hides that button and tells them to contact you.

While you edit a saved event, the preview next to the form shows the real times people would be offered with the settings you have now, and says so when nothing can be booked. In a new event that is not saved yet, the preview shows sample days and times and says so under the calendar.

Field by field

The question mark next to a field in the editor opens a short explanation and links here. Each field has what it does, what the booker sees and what is good to know.

Availability calendar

What it does. Chooses which availability calendar the open hours of this event come from: its weekly hours, the changes you made to single days, and your holidays. Without a pick, the event uses your default calendar.

What the booker sees. Only days and times inside those hours appear on the booking page.

Good to know. Changing the hours of a calendar changes every event that uses it. Give an event its own calendar when it needs different hours, for example evening calls only. You can have up to 5 calendars.

Duration

What it does. How long each booking lasts. It sets the length of the time slot, of the calendar entry and of the meeting.

What the booker sees. The length shows on the booking page next to the event name, and again in the confirmation and the emails.

Good to know. Changing it later affects new bookings. Bookings already made keep their times. With padding, the time between two offered slots is the length plus the padding.

Other lengths people can pick

What it does. Offers more lengths besides the main one on the same event, for example 45 minutes or 1 hour.

What the booker sees. The person booking chooses a length first and then sees the times for it. If you pick none, only the main length is offered.

Good to know. The main length is never listed twice. Not available for an event that charges, because the price is for one length.

Padding

What it does. Free time kept after each booking before the next one can start. It spaces the times you offer.

What the booker sees. Slots start later than they would without it. With a 30 minute meeting and 15 minutes of padding, slots are offered at 9:00, 9:45 and 10:30.

Good to know. It does not block time before or after a booking that already exists, and it does not make the meeting longer.

Start times

What it does. How often a new slot begins during your open hours.

What the booker sees. With Right after each booking, slots follow each other by the length of the meeting plus the padding. With every 15 or 30 minutes, slots begin on a fixed rhythm, so the times look tidy, like 9:00, 9:30 and 10:00.

Good to know. Choose Right after each booking, or every 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. Start times do not change how long a meeting is.

Minimum notice

What it does. How soon before a time it can still be booked. With 2 hours, nobody can book a slot that starts in less than 2 hours.

What the booker sees. Slots that start too soon do not appear, from the moment someone looks.

Good to know. Choose No notice, 15 or 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours, 1 or 2 days, or 1 week. New events use 2 hours. When you book for a client yourself, the notice does not hold you back.

Booking window

What it does. How far ahead people can book.

What the booker sees. The calendar shows days only up to the end of this window.

Good to know. Choose 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 180 or 365 days. New events use 60 days. A longer window opens more of your calendar to bookings, so keep your availability calendar up to date.

Seats per time

What it does. Turns the event into a group or class event: this many people can book the same time. You can set 1 to 500.

What the booker sees. With Show seats left on, the booking page tells how many spots remain. A time that is full is no longer offered, or can be waited for when the waitlist is on.

Good to know. Seats are counted for the whole time: a class with 10 seats takes 10 people in total. You cannot lower the number below the seats already booked in the busiest upcoming time.

Seats per booker

What it does. The most seats one person can reserve in a single booking. It can never be higher than Seats per time.

What the booker sees. The booking form lets a booker choose how many seats to take, up to this number.

Good to know. The default is 1. A booker who takes 3 seats uses 3 of the seats, and in an event that charges pays 3 times the price. Seats are not the same as guests, who are people a booker invites by email.

Cancel and reschedule

What it does. Decides how late before the start a booker may still cancel or reschedule on their own. There are two settings, Booker can cancel and Booker can reschedule. Each can be any time, or from 1 hour to 1 week before the start.

What the booker sees. Bookers are told the rule before they book and on their booking page. Once the time has passed, the page hides that button and tells them to contact you.

Good to know. The rule only binds the booker. You can always cancel or reschedule yourself. In an event that charges, the refund steps decide how much is paid back. The line under the settings, What bookers will read, is the exact sentence bookers see.

What do these options mean?

Three pairs of settings look alike. This is the difference.

Start times, Padding and Minimum notice

• Start times decide how often a new slot begins during your open hours.
• Padding adds free time after each booking, so the next slot starts later.
• Minimum notice is about now, not about the day: it hides slots that start too soon from the moment someone looks.

Group, Repeating, Waitlist and Approval

• Group or class event: several people book the same time, up to the Seats per time you set. Most seats one booker can take limits how many a single person can reserve, and Show seats left tells bookers how many spots remain.
• Repeating bookings: one booker reserves the same time on several dates in one go, for example every week. You set the most dates in one series, from 2 to 24.
• Waitlist: when a time is full, people can wait for it. If it frees up, the first person gets an email with a link that holds the time for them. You set how many hours the offer is held, from 1 to 72.
• Ask for my approval first: every booking is a request until you approve it.

What excludes what. Repeating bookings and Waitlist are not offered for an event that charges, and not while Ask for my approval first is on. A group event can be combined with a waitlist, which is how a full class gets a waiting list. Other lengths people can pick are not offered for an event that charges.

Seats and guests

Seats are places in the same time, and they are counted for the whole time: a class with 10 seats takes 10 people in total. A booker who takes 3 seats uses 3 of them, and in a paid event pays 3 times the price. Guests are people a booker invites by email to their own booking. You allow them with Allow guests in the Access section. Only seats are counted against the room in a group event.

When you book for a client

The slots you can choose when you use New booking on the Bookings tab are the same slots a client sees. The minimum notice does not hold you back, because you are the one deciding.

FAQ