Every pet care business has several services within their offering, and not all will necessarily fit under the definition of a service in BusyPaws. Some offerings may be combinations of services, memberships, packages, or series. This article will walk you through understanding what a service is on the platform, and how you can use it to keep track of your clients and schedule.
Use this guide to help build your understanding of services in BusyPaws.
What is a Service?
Put simply, a service would be anything that your client would want to book with you on a specific date for for a specific period of time, and that you'd like to track independently. i.e. Puppy training, a small dog groom, or a meet-and-greet.
What doesn't fit as a Service?
Services that wouldn't fit here would be add-on services, like a nail trim, or a package which might continue over several sessions. Likewise, group classes spanning multiple weeks do not always work as a single service. While open enrollment classes can be set up as group training services, classes with set enrollment schedules (i.e. the same group of students starting and ending at the same time) need to be grouped into series after being set up as a service.
Locating Your Services
All of your services can be found on your main Services page. To get there, click or hover your mouse over the ellipses in the left-hand menu bar, then select "Services" from the menu.
Note that you can also get to your Services page by clicking the gear icon at the bottom-left corner of the page.
Then selecting "Services" from the "Product Configuration" section.
If you have created one or more services, they will be listed on your Services page. If you have more than one facility set up on your account, you can filter the list by facility or choose to view your full list of all services by making a selection from the purple drop-down menu at the top of the page.
Services are organized by their type and listed alphabetically within each section. Training and Other type services will also be sorted into Individual and Group subsections. Each service is listed with its name, a "Publicly Listed" toggle, buttons to copy its direct link and code for its website integration, a settings icon, and a trash can icon.
When a service's "Publicly Listed" toggle is turned on (purple), it will be included on the service list in your Public Booking Portal and Private Client Portal, allowing your clients to self-book appointments/classes for that service. Turning this toggle off (grey) removes the service from your public list, preventing clients from seeing it.
Services that are not publicly listed (i.e. their toggle is turned off) can still be self-booked by clients if you provide them with its direct link/website embed or if the client has access to the service through an active membership subscription. This allows you to provide restricted access to services that you want to have more control over.
Clicking the trash can icon for any listed service deletes it from your services list.
Setting up a Service
To create a service, select the "Actions" button at the top-right corner of the page, then select "New Service" from the drop-down menu.
There are a few Service Types that can be selected, each with different functionality. These designations will also help to categorize and organize your services within the menus elsewhere around the site.
Training | Allows you to create individual or group bookings. Group services of this type can also be used to set up series or open enrollment classes. |
Boarding | Allows you to create multi-day bookings with check-in and check-out times. These services have their own interface to view current bookings. Boarding bookings will display on the main calendar and on the Boarding calendar. |
Grooming | Allows you to create bookings for individual clients. |
Daycare | Enables group bookings with the option of having drop-off and pickup times to be assigned to client registrations. |
Other | A flexible service type which can be used for individual or group bookings. |
Each service type will prompt a specific set of fields to populate in the "Details" section for the new service you are creating.
Service Name | This will be displayed to your clients when they are registering for this service and will be used to identify the service throughout the software, including when adding or viewing bookings on your calendar, checking service credits, and adding items to invoices. |
Description | This will be displayed to your clients when looking at your services list within the Public Booking Portal and in the Private Client Portal. |
Group Service | If you are building a service that can accept multiple clients at the same time, turn this toggle on (purple). This toggle is available only for Training and Other type services. |
Default Pet Limit (For Group Services) | This will populate a default pet limit when adding a group booking. It can be modified when you are adding bookings to your calendar. |
Default Price | This will be used to set the default price for your client bookings. It can be modified when you are adding bookings to your calendar. For Boarding services, this price is charged per night. |
Default Duration (Training, Grooming, Daycare, Other) | Similar to the default price, this is used to set the default length for the service's booking time slots, but can be modified on a per-booking basis. |
Charge Daily Rate (Boarding only) | A toggle controlling whether bookings of the boarding service are charged per night (default) or per day. When disabled (grey) the service will be charged nightly, if enabled (purple) the service will be charged daily. |
Default Checkin Time (Boarding only) | Sets the default check-in time (populates when manually scheduling bookings). Can be manually modified on a per-booking basis. |
Default Checkout Time (Boarding only) | Sets the default check-out time (populates when manually scheduling bookings). Can be manually modified on a per-booking basis. |
Facilities (if more than one available) | This setting will only populate if you have more than one facility listed on your account. Use the checkboxes to select the facilities at which the new Service will be available. |
Editing the Settings for an Existing Service
To edit the settings for an existing service, select either its name or the gear icon at the right side of its line entry on the Services page.
The setting options available for the selected service will vary slightly depending on the type of service selected and whether it is an individual or group service. All services however will have the same basic options listed.
Service Details | Settings chosen when first creating the service. This includes the service's name, type, description, default duration, default price, and assigned facility/facilities. For boarding services this section also includes whether the service charges per night or per day. |
General Settings | Toggles to control the public listing status and whether the service's bookings appear on the calendar with a custom colour. For group services this section also includes a toggle controlling whether or not a waitlist is available for the service. |
Service Image | Allows you to assign a photo to the service, to be displayed with the service description in your booking portal.
Recommended ratio for photos is approximately 700px x 510px. |
Links and Integrations | Buttons to copy the embed code and direct link for the selected service. These can be used to provide clients with direct access to book appointments for this service. Use these direct options to provide select clients with access to book or to customize the booking page on your website. |
Client Self-Booking Settings: Payments | Options to control the payment settings for clients self-booking the service. Selecting "Required" means customers have to pay in full to confirm their booking, "Require Package/Credit" means the customer must have available service credits or purchase a package to book the service, "Optional" means an invoice is automatically generated at the time of booking so customers may choose to pay right away or wait, and "Deposit" means the customer must pay a certain percentage of their booking fee/package price to confirm their booking registration.
Note: These settings are available only after Stripe has been set up on your account. |
Client Self-Booking: Access & Registration Restrictions | Information and settings regarding booking limitations. This includes a limit for the number of pets that can be selected by a client during self-booking, any memberships to which the service has been assigned, and tag-based booking restrictions for pets. |
Client Self-Booking Settings: Sorting & Onboarding | Allows you to assign an intake form to the service, add a booking note request, and/or assign a custom category. Assigning a form here results in that form being presented to clients for completion during the self-booking process. Setting a booking note request prompts client to provide that information every time they self-book, to be saved as a note on their booking. Assigning a category results in the service being listed under that category in the booking portal instead of its default. |
Client Self-Booking Settings: Custom Overrides | Options for customizing the booking window and cancellation settings for the service. By default, all services will be subject to your account's global settings. Toggles in this section allow you to override the global settings and choose service-specific settings for the minimum/maximum booking window and cancellation policy. |
All of the settings listed under "Client Self-Booking" (i.e. Payments, Onboarding, and Custom Overrides) apply only to appointments that are self-booked by clients. When clients are scheduled/registered manually by users, these functionalities will also need to be handled manually. This includes manually generating/sending invoices, applying service credits, sending assigned intake forms.
There are a few other options that may also appear in the Client Self-Booking Settings section on this page, depending on the type of service you have selected.
Schedule (Daycare) | Allows you to configure a default schedule for your daycare service. When enabled, the system automatically populates bookings for the service on your calendar from the chosen start date. |
Check-In & Check-Out (Daycare) | Allows you to enable drop-off and pickup time selection during client self-booking. Note that, when enabled, clients will be required to select check-in and check-out times to proceed with booking. Selectable times are controlled by the Check-In and Check-Out timeframes set for the service. |
Self-Booking Availability (Boarding) | Options for setting up fixed duration boarding including the length of the booking and available drop-off days, as well as ranges for available drop-off and pick up times. |
Time Slots (Grooming, Individual Training, Individual Other) | Options for controlling whether clients can choose their provider (if more than one are assigned to the service), what time intervals are available to select from, and whether/how much time is blocked off before/after appointments. |
Kennels (Boarding) | Allows you to assign kennels to the boarding service. Assigned kennels allow the system to check for available spaces and control the capacity of your boarding services overall.
At least one kennel must be assigned to a boarding service for it to be available for client self-booking. |
Rooms (Grooming, Individual Training, Individual Other) | Allows you to assign rooms to the service. Clients self-booking this service will have their appointments assigned to that room automatically. If the assigned room is already at capacity, that time will be marked as unavailable for clients looking to schedule a booking, even if the chosen provider is available. |
User (Grooming, Individual Training, Individual Other) | The schedule(s) that have been assigned to the service, controlling which dates and times as well as which provider(s) are available for clients to self-book with. These schedules, combined with existing bookings, the available booking window, and any blocked times, control which appointments clients can choose from.
At least one schedule must be assigned to an individual grooming, training, or other type service for it to be available for client self-booking. |
To edit the name, description, default duration, default price, and/or assigned facilities for the selected service, click the "Edit" button under "Service Details". Note that the service type cannot be edited for any existing services.
For more information on adjusting the settings for your services to best suit your needs, check out our guides for Configuring Self-Serve Bookings and Assigning Schedules to Services.
Once you have created one or more services, you can perform many actions within BusyPaws. Check out the rest of our Getting Started and Building Your Service Offerings help guides for more information on a variety of available functionalities for setting up your account.