Making a booking, from one dog to a nineteen-night stay

A second walk on the same day would not go on, and three siblings would not go on one daycare booking. In both cases the form looked like it was offering to merge rather than add, and it was not: a booking holds a card per pet, and one switch decides who picks the time.

One card per pet

A booking is not one pet and one service. It is a card per pet, and each card holds every service that pet is having.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Appointment.
2. Under Pet, find and choose the pet.
3. Under Services for, which names the pet, pick every service that pet is having.
4. For the household's next dog, select Add Sibling, or Create & Add Pet for a dog with no record yet.

Add a second service by picking it under Services for on that pet's card, not by starting another booking. Add Sibling puts the household's next dog on the same booking with its own services, and Create & Add Pet does the same for a dog you have no record for yet.

Turn the check off to force one in

Magic Availability Check sits at the top of the form, beside the date. On, it offers only the times the booking engine says are free; off, you type a start and an end and it saves what you typed.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Appointment.
2. Beside the date at the top of the form, switch off Magic Availability Check.
3. Choose the pet and its services, then set Start Time and End Time on each service.
4. Answer Notify customer?, then select Create Appointment.

Turn it off when you have already agreed a time with the client and want it in the book regardless, then read the line that appears underneath before you save. The appointment is created without an availability check, so nothing warns you that the room is full or the groomer is already on a dog. A plain New Appointment opens in whichever mode you used last, while editing an appointment or dragging on the calendar always opens with the check off.

A stay is a date range

Boarding does not use the appointment form. A stay has its own three-step form, and the middle step is where the nights are set.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Stay, which appears once you have a stay service.
2. On Pets & Services, choose the pet and pick its stay under Service for, then select Continue.
3. On Timing, set Check-in Date and Check-in Time, then Check-out Date and Check-out Time, and select Continue.
4. On Review, answer Notify customer?, then select Book Stay for, which names the pets.

Check-in Date and Check-out Date hold the whole stay, so nineteen nights is the same amount of work as one. The times are not decoration: they set the billed duration, and a check-in outside the window you configured raises an amber warning before you save. When the nights are not all free, the last button reads Force Book Without Check instead.