Duration and timing

Minimum advance notice required for bookings, Buffer time before appointments and Buffer time after appointments are marked Default for new services. A service can keep its own value for each of them on its own Duration & Timing tab. Booking Interval applies to the whole business.

When services keep their own value, an amber badge beside the field gives their number, followed by services use their own setting. Select it to see which services and the value each uses, and select a service to open it. Set all to, followed by the business value, opens Apply Default to Services, which updates the services you tick straight away.

When you publish a change that some services do not follow, Before You Publish lists them under Also update services in two groups. Services that were following the old value start ticked and change too. Services that have their own value start unticked and keep it. Untick or tick a group, or single services, before you publish.

Set how much notice a booking needs

The notice period is the gap between now and the earliest start a pet owner can book. Set it to 24 hours and a 9:00 AM start tomorrow stops being bookable at 9:00 AM today.

1. Open Duration & Timing.
2. Under Booking Notice Period, set the weeks, days, hours and minutes for Minimum advance notice required for bookings.
3. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

If no notice period has been saved on the account, Start with recommended settings sits at the top of the page. Apply recommended fills in 24 hours' notice, which you still publish. I will configure manually hides the offer.

The notice period only governs self-service booking. You and your team can still create a booking for any time. Petboost rounds the earliest start up to your booking interval.

Count notice only on days you are open

To stop a closed weekend using up the notice, switch on Count only days you are open under Booking Notice Period, then publish. Each day your Business Hours have closed, public holidays included, then adds a day to the notice. With a day's notice and a business closed on weekends, a booking made at 3:00 PM on Friday can start from 3:00 PM on Monday. The switch is off until you turn it on.

The switch applies to every service, and each service still uses its own notice period. It reads only your Business Hours: with no hours set, every day counts. It applies to online bookings only, and the cancellation notice period in Policies & Paperwork is not changed by it.

Choose the start times customers are offered

Allow Booking of Appointments Every: decides which start times a pet owner sees. On a 15-minute interval they see 9:00, 9:15, 9:30 and so on. A new account starts on 15 minutes.

1. Open Duration & Timing.
2. Under Booking Interval, choose 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour.
3. If an amber panel appears under Booking Interval, open it and read the sessions it lists.
4. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

The line under the field works out, from your interval and buffer time, the next start offered after a booking that ends at 11:10 AM. On a 15-minute interval with no buffer time, that is 11:15 AM.

Choosing 5 minutes shows A 5-minute interval shows a lot of options: a start time every 5 minutes is a lot to scroll on a busy day and can make booking clunky. The alert suggests 30 or 15 minutes unless you need 5-minute precision.

Petboost rounds every session start up to your booking interval. If that squeezes a team member's or a resource's session, the amber panel names each one, the time the session can start and the time left, with a link to the team member or resource. A service that no longer fits the time left is not offered online at all. To fix it, choose a smaller interval, or move those sessions onto the interval in Schedules & Sessions.

Add buffer time around appointments

Buffer time reserves time before and after each appointment for setup, cleaning or notes. It is held on the calendar, but it is not charged and is not shown to the pet owner as part of the service length.

1. Open Duration & Timing.
2. Switch on Advanced options.
3. Under Buffer Time, choose the Buffer time before appointments.
4. Choose the Buffer time after appointments.
5. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

The options are No buffer time, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours and 3 hours. Buffer time changes the next start the Booking Interval line works out.

When buffer time is set, Advanced options shows how many values are set and opens by itself.

Timing rules that live elsewhere

These rules shape when pets can be booked but are set on other pages. Other timing rules on this page links all four.

Related

• Booking Engine
• Booking Configuration
• Booking Rules Spectrum
• Scheduling fundamentals
• Pets at a time vs daily total