If you have recently created an Online Booking website and are unable to find any available appointment times, there are a few common items that may require some additional setup or alteration. The big one is Employee & Resource Schedules. Two less common items are the Booking Preferences section and the Service Listing for your site. These instructions will help you explore and correct all three of these so you can start booking appointments online.
Employee & Resource Schedules
To start booking online, it's essential that your website and your software both know the hours your employees are working and available. This applies to your Resources as well if they are linked to services that people will be booking online. The times your clients can choose to book correspond precisely with your employees' and resources' working hours. If you're unsure how to add working hours, follow the steps below.
Click the Schedule icon at the top of your software.
Double-click on the square next to the employee or resource and under the date that you would like to modify.
Select if the employee or resource will be working or not in the Status section.
Enter the start and end times in the Working Hours section and then click the Add button.
If an employee will be taking a scheduled break in the middle of the day, you can include that by entering multiple start and end times for the first and second halves of the day when the employee will be working.
To copy this schedule to other days, you can click the Recurring button. Click the Add Multiple Dates button and set your preferences for adding the recurrences.
When finished, click Test in the lower left to see the dates you'll be modifying. Click OK.
Click OK if finished.
Click OK on the Recurring Dates screen if you're finished.
Click OK one more time to apply the changes to the employee's schedule.
If you have multiple employees or resources working the same schedule, you can quickly copy an existing schedule to multiple employees using the Copy Schedules button on the left.
Your employees and resources will have Off blocks on the appointment book when not scheduled to work and the columns will be white when available.
Booking Preferences
A less common obstacle than employee schedules are the settings in the Booking Preferences section. If you're attempting to request an appointment that falls outside any of the selections here, you will not be able to find any times. This section explores each option and its effect on your bookings.
To find Booking Preferences, go to your Online Booking website and click Website Options in the Navigate pane on the left. Click Booking Preferences in the Set Your Preferences section here. (If you cannot see the Navigate pane, then you need to log in to your Online Booking website. Click the Manage Site link at the bottom of the page to log in.)
Appointment Requests Require Approval: this is an important setting. It determines whether or not you approve or reject requests made on your site. If you turn this option off, every appointment is automatically accepted.
Appointment Time Interval: these are the intervals that can be selected when booking. For example, choosing 60 minutes will only allow clients to book at the top of each hour.
Time Booked in Advance: this is the minimum time in advance a client can book. If you accept same day appointments, then you will want to consider lowering this setting since 1 Day is the default.
Max Time Booking in Advance: this setting determines how far out your clients can book appointments. Keep in mind, if you don't have schedules entered for a year out, select a lower setting than 1 year.
Time Booked in Advance when Offline: this setting determines how much notice you need for an appointment that's requested when your database is unreachable by your website to determine availability. We recommend leaving your computer running at all times to allow clients to book real-time appointments.
Max Time Booking in Advance when Offline: this setting determines how far out a client can book an appointment when your database is unreachable.
Allow Clients to Enter Address: this allows clients to enter their address. If you select Yes for this setting, you are shown an additional option to require this information when a client books.
Include Filter by Service Category: this displays or hides a service category pull-down menu that allows your clients to easily narrow their search. This is useful if you have lots of services that can be booked from your site.
Include Time of Day Preference: this setting displays an option to allow your clients to narrow their search to a specific clock of hours during the day. Options include Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.
Service Listing
If you do not have any services set to be displayed on your site, then your clients won't be able to book anything with you. While it's common not to show ALL the services you offer on your site, you will definitely want to choose the ones you would like your clients to book online.
From the Website Options page for your Online Booking website, click on Service Listing. The checkboxes all the way to the right determine whether or not a service can be booked using your site. You may have several pages to go through, so be aware that if your service list is big, you will have to visit each page. Additionally, you can quickly set all services to Show or Hide using the pull-down in the upper right.
If you have followed all the previous steps and are still unable to find any available time slots for booking, you may want to use the Manual Sync option. We store a copy of the information shown on your site on our server. It's routinely updated automatically, but you can force this if needed. This option will refresh the connection and data stored on our service if you have recently made changes to your database information. On the Website Options page, click the Manual Sync button and then Sync Now. When the routine finishes, attempt to book another appointment from your website. Please contact support by phone, e-mail, or live online chat if you have tried every step in this article and still cannot book.