Daycare services are unique in that they often occur on a regular weekly schedule, and may not have one specific provider associated with them. To reflect this, BusyPaws allows businesses offering daycare to configure those bookings slightly differently from other types of group service options. The two main differences for daycare-type services are:
Bookings may be scheduled without an assigned provider.
A default schedule may be configured to auto-populate bookings.
In this guide we will take a closer look at the second point listed above, exploring how to set up automated bookings for regular daycare services.
Each daycare service's schedule is managed on its dedicated settings page. To configure a schedule for one of your daycare services, start by navigating to your Services page.
Then locate the service on your main Services list and select either its name or the gear icon at the right end of its line entry.
The Schedule settings are found just above the service's Client Self-Booking Settings. This section is available only for daycare services and allows you to set a default schedule for the service. Once set to "Active", the system uses the assigned schedule to automatically generate daycare bookings on your calendars for which customers can register.
If you have more than one facility on your account each facility will have its own schedule.
Use the time fields to set the start and end times for each day of the week for your default daycare schedule. Leave the field blank for any day on which the daycare service is unavailable.
If you have one or more rooms set up on your account, an additional field will populate above the service schedule. Use this field to choose the room to which the automated bookings will be assigned.
The "Start Date" field at the top of the schedule allows you to set the date from which the schedule will apply. If you wish to configure a start date, first click "Set a Future Start Date" to populate a date-selection field.
Clicking the date field opens a drop-down menu from which the start date may be selected.
When the date for an active schedule is pushed back (i.e. from 1 April to 1 May) the system will remove any bookings prior to the new start date with no registered pets. Any bookings with registered pets will remain.
When you are ready, click the "Update Schedule" button to save your changes.
Switching the "Active" toggle on (purple) prompts the system to generate bookings for the service according to the set schedule. Turning the toggle off (grey) removes those bookings from your calendar, with the exception of those bookings with existing registrations.
Keep in mind that changes can take a few minutes to populate on your calendar. It is best to give the system some time after activating a schedule to make any additional changes, including adjusting the start date, altering start/end times, or deactivating the schedule.