Adding Staff Availability Flow
Going through the Add Staff Availability flow makes it really simple to add a day, a date range, or a regularly available schedule to any of your staff members availability for offering service-based appointments. While you cannot modify existing availability through this flow, it is a nice tool to use if you need to add new availability as it breaks everything down on a step by step basis.
Please note: this flow is specifically for adding staff availability for offering service appointments. Setting up availability for class-based appointments can be done under the Schedule tab of the class profile.
To get to the Add Staff Availability flow, click on the "Add Staff Availability" button under the Settings → Time screen:
This will take you to the first screen of the Add Staff Availability flow where you will have to determine which staff you want to add appointments for and which type of schedule you want to add:
As you'll see in the schedule type options in the screenshot above, you can choose to add:
- Schedule for a single day: this would allow you to setup availability for just 1 date in the future. Say you are only taking appointments on December 4th and don't want to add availability for appointments for any other date than that, choose this option to go through the add staff availability flow. Learn more
- Schedule for a date range: this would allow you to set up availability for yourself for certain days of the week between 2 dates. So say between December 1st 2014 and December 31st 2014 you are available on Mondays and Tuesdays to take appointments, choose this option to go through the add staff availability flow. Learn more
- Schedule that repeats every week: this would let you set up availability for an indefinite period of time. You could always modify it later and put an end date on it. This is great if, say, it's November 2014 and starting on January 1st, 2015 your schedule changes for the new year. This schedule change will last until you feel like changing it again. Choosing the reguarly available schedule option will let you add in a schedule of availability that extends without an end date. Learn more.
- Schedule that repeats every 2 weeks or more: this would let you set up availability that repeats every other week, every 3 weeks, every 4 weeks, etc. It will also let you set yourself up for a schedule that repeats every month, every other month, every 3 months, etc. Perfect for if you visit a location on a patterned basis but not every single week. Learn more
Click on the links above to walk through the Add Staff Availability flow to add that specific schedule type.
Adding availability for a single day will set you up to add hours for one date that you're available to accept appointments. This is useful if you typically work just Monday through Friday but you are planning to be available for appointments one Saturday afternoon. It's also useful if you're not someone who has a regular schedule but is just available a few days of the month to have appointments.
To set up this type of schedule for appointments, select the schedule type "Availability for a single day" from the first page of the "Add Staff Availability" flow and click "Continue":
Next you'll choose which single date you are adding availability for. Let's say that you typically work Monday through Friday taking appointments but you are adding availability for a Saturday coming up in May where you'll be accepting appointments. Select that date and then click the "Continue" button:
Next, on the Working Hours tab, customize the hours during the day that you're available to take your Service-based appointments. In this scenario, I'm going to be available between 10:00am-2:30pm to take appointments for my services:
That means that if a client is trying to book a service that has a duration of 1 hour, appointments could be made from:
- 10:00am-11:00am
- 11:00am-12:00pm
- 12:00pm-1:00pm
- and 1:00pm-2:00pm
No appointment could be made between 2:00pm-2:30pm because the half hour that is available is not enough time to fit in the hour long service. This is just something to consider as you add in your hours of availability. After you have added them in, click the "Continue" button to move forward to the Confirmation page.
On the Confirmation page, you will see a summary of everything you just added. If it all looks correct, click "Submit":
After submitting the new staff availability, you will be directed back to the main Time screen. If you added availability for a staff who didn't previously have availability, then you'll see that they now have a row under the Current Staff Availability table.
Adding in availability for a date range is great if you have a varying schedule. Let's say over the summer months you have a different schedule than you do in the spring or fall season. Starting on June 1st through September 1st your schedule changes from being Monday - Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm to Monday - Thursday 8:00am - 2:30pm:
To add availability for a date range, you will select the staff to whom this new schedule would apply and select the schedule type "Availability for a date range" from the first page of the "Add Staff Availability" flow and click "Continue":
One the next page, you'll first enter in the date range that you're setting up availability for and then you'll select what days of the week during that date range that you'll be available. In this use case it will be starting June 1st, 2015 and going through August 31st, 2015 and be available on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday. After entering those criteria, I'll press "Continue" at the bottom of the screen:
For the Working Hours step, I will add in what hours I'm available to take appointments on each of these days. I can customize this by adding breaks or I can just leave it so that I'm available for a straight period. For this example, I will not add breaks and just say I'm available between 8:00am-2:30pm each of those days:
That means that if a client is trying to book a service that has a duration of 1 hour, appointments could be made from:
- 8:00am-9:00am
- 9:00am-10:00am
- 10:00am-11:00am
- 11:00am-12:00pm
- 12:00pm-1:00pm
- 1:00pm-2:00pm
No appointment could be made between 2:00pm-2:30pm because the half hour that is available is not enough time to fit in the hour long service. This is just something to consider as you add in your hours of availability. After you have added them in, click the "Continue" button to move forward to the Confirmation page.
On the confirmation page, you can review all the information to make sure it is correct before clicking "Submit":
After clicking submit, you'll be directed back to your main Time page where you can click to view & edit the availability you just entered.
You can also check out what this looks like on your client facing scheduler to see that availability shows Monday-Thursday in June - August...
but back to Monday - Friday come September:
Adding a regularly available schedule is great for when your availability extends indefinitely without an end date. Let's say it's November 2014 and you have availability set up between now and December 31st, 2014. Starting the first of the year, however, your schedule changes and you're going to stick with that schedule for at least the foreseeable future.
To add this type of schedule, select the staff who you are adding the schedule for and select the schedule type "Regularly available schedule" from the first page of the "Add Staff Availability" flow then press "Continue":
Next you'll select what date this new schedule is set to start on and the days of the week you'll be available. In this case, starting January 1st, 2015, I will be available on Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays for appointments:
On the Working Hours page, I will define what hours I'm available to accept service based appointments on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays starting January 1st. On Mondays & Wednesdays I'll be available from 8:30am-12:30pm and then from 1:30pm-5:00pm. I will use the "Break" button to add in the "off" period between 12:30pm-1:30pm. On Fridays I will just be available from 8:30am-1:30pm and will not take any breaks:
This means that if, for instance, a client is trying to book a service that has a duration of 1 hour on a Monday or a Wednesday, appointments could be made from:
- 8:30am-9:30am
- 9:30am-10:30am
- 10:30am-11:30am
- 11:30am-12:30pm
- 1:30pm-2:30pm
- 2:30pm-3:30pm
- and 3:30pm-4:30pm
No appointment could be made between 4:30pm-5:00pm because the half hour that is available is not enough time to fit in the hour long service. This is just something to consider as you add in your hours of availability. After you have added them in, click the "Continue" button to move forward to the Confirmation page.
Once on the confirmation page, review everything to make sure it is the availability that you want and press "Submit":
This will take you to your Staff Availability tab where you can see the new availability you just added:
You'll also see this availability on the client facing side starting in January:
Adding a schedule that repeats every 2 weeks or more is great for clients who set appointments with you every so often. Let's say that you plan to accept appointments every 2 weeks for September and October 2015, but from November to December 2015 you plan to only be able to accept appointments every 3 weeks.
To create a schedule for accepting appointments every 2 weeks, first select the staff member that would like to add the schedule for, and then select the schedule type "Schedule that repeats every 2 weeks or more" from the first page of the "Add Staff Availability" flow then press "Continue":
Next you'll select what date this bi-weekly schedule is set to start on and the days of the week you'll be available. In this case, starting September 1st, 2015 through October 30, 2015, I will be available on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays for appointments:
On the Working Hours page, I will set what times I will be able to accept service based appointments on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays from September 1st - October 30th. On Mondays, Tuesdays, & Thursdays I'll be available from 9:00am-1:00pm and then from 2:00pm-6:00pm. By using the "Break" button, I can add in the "off" period between 1:00pm-2:00pm. On Fridays I will only be available from 9:00am - 1:00pm and will not take any breaks.
This would mean, for instance, if a client is trying to book a service that has a duration of 1 hour on a Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday appointments could be made from:
- 9:00am-10:00am
- 10:00am-11:00am
- 11:00am-12:00pm
- 12:00pm-1:00pm
- 2:00pm-3:00pm
- 3:00pm-4:00pm
- 4:00pm-5:00pm
- 5:00pm-6:00pm
After you have added your hours of availability, click on the "Continue" button to move forward to the Confirmation page. Once on the Confirmation page, you can review the information you;ve entered and if everything looks well you can press "Submit":
You will be directed to your Staff Availability tab where you can see the new availability you've added. You could also see this availability from a client's point of view starting in September:
All Saturdays during the month of September are highlighted and some Thursdays and Fridays, but this because I already had availability scheduled for those dates. You can still see that I have availability scheduled every 2 weeks for the days and hours I've just set.
Now for the months of November and December, I would be able to add a schedule that repeats every 3 weeks for these months by going back through the Staff Availability Flow through first selecting the staff member I'd like to add the schedule for. Next, I'll select the schedule type "Schedule that repeats every 2 weeks or more", and from there click "Continue".
When on the Available Dates page, I will set my schedule to repeat on a "Weekly Basis" and choose "3 weeks" for the repeating frequency.
Once I've done this, I'll continue to fill in the rest of my information for the Available Dates, Working Hours, and Confirmation pages. Just like my bi-weekly repeating schedule, I can also view this availability from a client's perspective starting in November:
If you have any further questions on adding availability for your staff members, please contact our support team and we'll be happy to answer them.