Blocking Off Your Availability

There are many reasons that you or one of your team members may need to block off time on your calendar. Whether for statutory holidays, booked vacation days, or any other time away, the Blocked Time Calendar can help you manage those periods of time when you don't want your clients to be able to be able to self-book online.

First thing's first, let's navigate to the main calendar page. Do this by hovering your mouse over the Schedule icon in the left-hand menu then selecting "Calendar".

The easiest way to add a blocked time is to then simply click any time on the weekly or daily view of your calendar, then select "Add Blocked Time".

Alternatively, select the " Block Time" button in the menu bar at the top of the page.

That will open the Block Time Calendar. This calendar displays a simplified view of all of your current bookings in addition to all of your set blocked times.

You can then click the "Block Time/Date" button at the top of the page.

There are several fields on the New Blocked Time page that allow you to customize the calendar exception.

For example, if your facility shuts down over the December holidays, you could block that time off to prevent clients from scheduling any appointments during that time. Choose "Block by Provider/Service", set the User field to "All Users", make sure the Associated Services toggle is set to "Block all services", then set the From and Until dates to your desired start and end dates for the break. Adding the short description "December Holidays" to the Notes section ensures all of your team members will know why the time is blocked off on the calendar.

After entering all the needed information and clicking the "Update Exception" button, the block will be listed on the calendar in red. If you need to make any changes, just click on the block where it's listed on the calendar to open the Edit Blocked Time page.

It's important to note that Blocked Times will completely prevent client self-booking within that period but it will not prevent you and your team from scheduling bookings manually. Any dates chosen within a scheduled Time Block will raise a warning message at the bottom of the New Booking page, but will be allowed on the calendar if you choose to go forward with the booking anyways. Any group bookings scheduled during blocked times however will not allow for clients to self-register.

The process is the same when blocking time for specific users, services, or rooms/kennels, differing only in the selection made for the User, Associated Services, or Room(s) & Kennel(s).

This time, since the block only covers part of the day, it will be displayed similarly to any scheduled booking, as a block of time rather than a bar across several days. As before, clicking on the time block allows you to edit it.

Once that time slot is set as unavailable, the online booking portal will not show those dates/times to clients (provided no other team members offer the same Service during that time).

As before, the time block prevents clients from self-booking in that period, but bookings may still be added manually. Ignoring the warning message on the New Booking page allows you to book within any window, even if it has been blocked off.

Note that the availability for individual team members can also be edited directly through the Staff Schedules page. For more information, check out our guide on Staff Schedules & Availability. The main differences between Blocked Time and simply changing the Staff Schedule on a specific day are as follows:

That's it! You now know everything you need to integrate Time Blocks into your Booking Calendar. For more information on creating new service bookings, check out our guide on Adding Bookings to Your Calendar.