Availability Windows are blocks of time in which reservations are available for booking. Availability Windows can be set on your any Bookable or Resource. In this article we will strictly cover the Availability Windows settings for Bookables, followed by a video tutorial on how to create Availability Windows on Resources.
Bookable Availability Windows
Availability Windows are required when creating a Bookable. You can select and manage availability from the main Bookable edit page.
Bookables only allow for one mode of availability at a given time, with three primary options.
- Regular Availability is the most popular option and creates recurring windows of availability every week.
- Book By Day is the same as Regular Availability, except by the day.
- Event Availability allows the creation of one or more windows of availability with a specific start and end date and time. These events can be independent of each other or connected under a single reservation. This functionality will be dictated by whether you create a Single-Segment Event or Multi-Segment Event.
Regular Availability
The interface for creating Regular Availability allows you to set the hours of recurring availability, the duration of each time slot, and the frequency a time slot is generated.
- Select Regular Availability as the Availability option
- Click and drag to draw Availability Windows
- Set the duration to dictate the length of each time slot availability for booking
- Set the frequency to determine how often a new time slot is offered (the frequency defaults to the same as the duration unless changed)
After clicking and dragging to add a time slot, you can optionally click on one of the availability windows to change the time with more granular times.
How Regular Availability displays to customers on the Booking Site using 1 hour duration and 1 hour frequency:
Book by Day
The interface for creating a Book by Day Bookable is very simple. The availability is recurring, much like Regular Availability, but by the day. Since the duration and frequency the only thing to do when using Book by Day is checkbox the days you would like to make available for booking.
The Date Restrictions setting is a way to limit availability for select dates.
How Book by Day displays to customers on the Booking Site without a Date Restriction.
Event Availability
When it comes to event availability there are two types of events : Single-Segment and Multi-Segment.
Single-Segment
A Single-Segment event is a one-off event, or time slot, with a specific start and end. Common use cases for this feature include special events, seminars, or a single week long event. These types of events are not recurring.
- Give the event a title
- Optionally, create a description for the benefit of both the staff and customers booking
- Select the start and end date & times for the event
How Single-Segment Events display to customers on the Booking Site.
Multi-Segment
A Multi-Segment Event is like a Single-Segment Event in that it is a one-off event with a specific start and end. However, this setting allows for multiple segments available for booking under the same Bookable.
How a Multi-Segment Event displays to customers on the Booking Site.
