📝 Overview
If you recently created an Online Booking website and cannot find any available appointment times, a few common settings may need additional setup. The most common cause is Employee & Resource Schedules. Two less common causes are your Booking Preferences and the Service Listing for your site. This article walks you through checking and correcting all three so you can start booking appointments online.
👥 Check Employee & Resource Schedules
To book online, your website and your software both need to know the hours your employees are working and available. This applies to your resources as well if they are linked to services that clients book online. The times your clients can book match your employees' and resources' working hours exactly.
Click the Schedule icon at the top of your software.
Double-click the square next to the employee or resource, under the date you want to modify.
In the Status section, select whether the employee or resource is working.
Enter the start and end times in the Working Hours section, then click Add.
✍️Note: If an employee takes a scheduled break in the middle of the day, enter multiple start and end times for the first and second halves of the day when the employee is working.
To copy this schedule to other days, click Recurring. Click Add Multiple Dates and set your preferences for adding the recurrences.
When you are finished, click Test in the lower left to see the dates you are modifying. Click OK.
Click OK if you are finished.
Click OK on the Recurring Dates screen if you are finished.
Click OK one more time to apply the changes to the employee's schedule.
Your employees and resources have Off blocks on the appointment book when they are not scheduled to work, and their columns are white when they are available.
💡 Pro tip: If you have multiple employees or resources working the same schedule, use the Copy Schedules button on the left to quickly copy an existing schedule to multiple employees.
⚙️ Review Booking Preferences
Your Booking Preferences settings are a less common obstacle than employee schedules. If you try to request an appointment that falls outside any of these settings, you cannot find any available times.
Go to your Online Booking website and click Website Options in the Navigate pane on the left.
✍️Note: If you cannot see the Navigate pane, you need to log in to your Online Booking website. Click the Manage Site link at the bottom of the page to log in.
Click Booking Preferences in the Set Your Preferences section.
Each setting and its effect on your bookings:
Setting | What It Does |
Appointment Requests Require Approval | An important setting that determines whether you approve or reject requests made on your site. If you turn this option off, every appointment is automatically accepted. |
Appointment Time Interval | The intervals that can be selected when booking. For example, choosing 60 minutes only allows clients to book at the top of each hour. |
Time Booked in Advance | The minimum time in advance a client can book. The default is 1 Day, so if you accept same-day appointments, consider lowering this setting. |
Max Time Booking in Advance | How far out your clients can book appointments. If you do not have schedules entered for a year out, select a lower setting than 1 year. |
Time Booked in Advance when Offline | How much notice you need for an appointment requested when your website cannot reach your database to determine availability. We recommend leaving your computer running at all times so clients can book real-time appointments. |
Max Time Booking in Advance when Offline | How far out a client can book an appointment when your database is unreachable. |
Allow Clients to Enter Address | Allows clients to enter their address. If you select Yes, an additional option appears to require this information when a client books. |
Include Filter by Service Category | Displays or hides a service category drop-down menu that lets your clients narrow their search. This is useful if you have lots of services that can be booked from your site. |
Include Time of Day Preference | Displays an option that lets your clients narrow their search to a specific block of hours during the day. Options include Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. |
📋 Check Your Service Listing
If you do not have any services set to display on your site, your clients cannot book anything with you. It is common not to show all of your services on your site, but make sure the services you want clients to book online are set to display.
From the Website Options page for your Online Booking website, click Service Listing.
Use the checkboxes on the far right to choose whether each service can be booked on your site.
✍️Note: If your service list is long, you may have several pages to go through. Make sure to visit each page.
To quickly set all services to Show or Hide, use the drop-down menu in the upper right.
🔄 Run a Manual Sync
If you have followed all the previous steps and still cannot find any available times, use the Manual Sync option. We store a copy of the information shown on your site on our server. It updates automatically on a routine basis, but you can force an update if needed. A manual sync refreshes the connection and the data stored on our server if you have recently made changes to your database information.
On the Website Options page, click Manual Sync.
Click Sync Now.
When the sync finishes, try booking another appointment from your website.
If you have tried every step in this article and still cannot book, contact support by phone, email, or live online chat.