With more businesses having their own ways to manage appointments, we offer various types of availability settings to empower your online booking like never before, granting flexibility to suit business needs and your operational rhythm.
Say goodbye to manual scheduling headaches!
Set up available staff for Online Booking
You can enable/disable staff for Online Booking by checking or unchecking the checkbox before the staff’s names. When the staff is disabled for online booking, clients will not see the option for the disabled staff on the booking page.
💡 By default, all staff shown on the calendar are available for online booking. But you may update it by:
- Go to Online Booking > Settings> Availability.
- Click on the checkbox before the staff names.
Disable staff selection for Online Booking
Sometimes businesses may want to assign staff members to Online Booking requests instead of allowing customers to choose. In such cases, you can choose to disable the staff selection page display by:
- Online Bookings > Settings > Availability > Date and Time Preferences > Staff Selection
2. Toggle the <Display Staff Selection Page> option.
Availability type 1 - By working hours
The appointments won't be overlapped or double-booked.
*By-working-hour type is available for both salon and mobile businesses.
Option 1: Sync to shift management
You can sync up your staff's working hours with your online booking schedule. You will be able to select the specific groomers you want to sync with online booking with the tab on the left. Click here to know more about shift management.
- Go to Online Booking > Settings > Availability, and choose < By working hour > in the Availability type
- Click on < Sync > to sync to the staff’s working hour
- Click on < Set up shift management > to quickly jump to set it up
- Add booking limit(optional)
Option 2: Manually set up the working hour
1.Go to Online Booking > Settings > Availability, and choose < By working hour > in the Availability type
2. Click on the checkbox before the day of the week to set up the working date
- Unclickable checkbox: the staff is not working on this day of the week, which is set up by the general working hours under the shift management.
- Clickable checkbox: click on the day to enable the staff for online booking, and unclick on the day to disable the staff for online booking.
3. Set up the working hour specifically, click on the add icon to separate the working period if needed. Please select the time within the staff’s working hour
4. Click on the duplicate option to copy time and time to any day of the week (optional)
5. Add booking limit(optional)
Date and time preference
- How soon can your client book: the earliest available time for your client to make a booking
- How far can your client book: the maximum advance booking period allowed for your client
- Only show next 1 available each day for each staff: once toggled on, it displays only the immediate next available appointment for each staff every day, so clients can only book for the earliest slots of the day selected. This will greatly reduce gaps between appointments.
- Time slot: This is to offer flexibility for traffic or delays. You can decide how the slots are displayed and it will show for the notification in online booking as well. Please note that this is different from the arrival window for auto messages and reminders that will show x minutes before the start time + x minutes after the start time.
- Arrival windows
You can set buffer time intervals before and after the service start time separately. For instance, the arrival window of 15 minutes before and 30 minutes after the 11:00 AM slot will be displayed as 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM.
- Exact times (E.g. 10:30 AM, 11:00 AM, 11:30 AM)
- Date only (Let clients choose the available days without a specific time)
5. Fake it filter: make your business look more "busy" so clients will be more eager to book the "remaining" slots. Set up your availability as :
- Off - Do not apply any filters to your availability
- Slightly busy - take off 25% of your openings
- Moderately busy - take off 40% of your openings
- Extremely busy - take off 50% of your openings
Availability type 2 - By slot
Different customers can choose the slot repeatedly up to the limit you set, even drop off in groups!
*By-slot type is available for salon businesses only.
1.Go to Online Booking > Settings > Availability, and choose < By slot > in the Availability type
2.Click on the checkbox before the day of the week to set up the working date
- Working hour conflicts: the staff is not working on this day of the week, which is set up by the general working hours under the shift management. But it can still be saved with conflicts shown.
- Click on the day to enable the staff for online booking, and unclick on the day to disable the staff for online booking.
3. Set up each slot specifically, and click on the add icon to separate the working period if needed.
4. Click on the duplicate option to copy time and time to any day of the week (Optional)
5. Add booking limit (Click here to know more about booking limit)
Date and time preference
- How soon can your client book: the earliest available time for your client to make a booking
- How far can your client book: the maximum advance booking period allowed for your client
- Time slot: This is to offer flexibility for traffic or delays. You can decide how the slots are displayed and it will show for the notification in online booking as well. Please note that this is different from the arrival window for auto messages and reminders that will show x minutes before the start time + x minutes after the start time.
- Arrival window
You can set buffer time intervals before and after the service start time separately. For instance, the arrival window of 15 minutes before and 30 minutes after the 11:00 AM slot will be displayed as 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM.
- Exact times (E.g. 10:30 AM, 11:00 AM, 11:30 AM)
- Date only (Let clients choose the available days without a specific time)
Availability type 3 - Disable select time option
Providing an accurate representation of your true availability, you will have more control over your customers’ bookings to accommodate breaks, meetings, or special occasions. Once the "Disable select time option" is applied, clients are not allowed to select booking time online.
Customers will submit a request without having to choose an exact date and time. You can schedule it later in the booking request list.
*The disable-select-time option is available for both salon and mobile businesses.
Go to Online Booking > Settings > Availability, and choose < Disable select time option > in the Availability type.
How different types look like when booking online
1.Availability type 1 - By working hours
2.Availability type 2 - By slot
3.Availability type 3 - Disable select time option
Set up booking limits
Please note that booking limits are to set up the max acceptable pet number for specific pet sizes/types/breeds. No restrictions on other sizes/types/breeds.
- Go to Online Bookings > Settings > Availability
- Choose the Staff that you want to add a booking limitation to
- Click on < Add booking limit > on the day you want to add a booking limitation to
- Click on < Add limitation >
Option 1: Limiting the Pet Size
Set up the max acceptable pet number for a specific pet size. No restrictions on other sizes.
- Select < Pet Size > under Type
- Select the size you want to limit, and click on < Edit Pet Size > to edit the size range according to your need.
- Input the maximum number you are willing to take for this pet size.
Option 2: Limiting the Pet type and breed
Set up the max acceptable pet number for specific pet types(Cat or Dog) and breeds. No restrictions on other types and breeds.
- Select < Pet type and breed > under Type
- Select the type and all the breeds under the type you want to limit.
- Input the maximum number you are willing to take for this pet size.
Option 3: Adding Multiple limitations
- If you want to set multiple limitations, you can click on < Add limitation> and set up another one.
- Click < Save > when all the limitations are set.
Option 4: Rejecting the pet
- Select < Pet type and breed > or < Pet Size >
- Select the types/breeds/sizes under the type you want to reject.
- Input 0 in the max amount.
For example, Lily does not do cat grooming or bathing, therefore she wants to set up limitations for cats to her online booking availability. On each working day, she adds a limitation for Cat > all breeds, and a maximum booking amount of 0.
How to troubleshoot booking availability
The online booking available time slots are defined by a set of settings:
- Staff available time is not available / no staff for certain services
- Closed dates / Closed holiday
- Block on the calendar / Existing appointments on the calendar
- Booking limits on the pets
- For mobile businesses with "smart scheduling", the availability will also be defined by your smart scheduling parameter setting, as well as how far the new appointment to your existing appointments
- For mobile businesses with a "certain area for certain dates", the availability will also be defined by your settings of certain areas for certain dates. If you are not going to a certain area on certain dates, that date will not be available for your customers to select from
Frequently asked question
Q1. Do the date overrides apply to online booking by slot？
The setting of override does not affect by slot result at all. Only block and business closed dates can reject online booking requests when clients book by slot.
Q2: Which plan gives you access to use these features?
All plans can turn on “Sync with staff working hours” in online booking.
MoeGo team is always here 24/7 for you if you have any further questions.
