Clearly communicating your availability is key to making appointments happen. That’s why 10to8 has a simple, intuitive availability tool designed to help you configure and display your working hours.
Your available time within 10to8 determines your bookable periods. This guide will walk you through 10to8’s availability tool and how to use it.
SECTIONS:
How to Delete Your Working Hours
How to Add Availability for Class Bookings
How to Add Service-Specific Availability
How to Add Availability for Multiple Locations
How to Use ‘At Client's Address’
How to Add Holidays and Unavailable Time
How to Add Your Working Hours
10to8’s availability tool is used to add available/working hours for bookable staff members. You’ll need to let your customers know when you’re available – 10to8 streamlines this process for you!
Each bookable staff member within your 10to8 account will have their own individual calendar of availability under ‘Setup’ > ‘Availability’.
Staff members with admin permissions can add and change their own availability and that of other bookable staff members. Staff without admin permissions will only be able to add or change their own.
Staff permissions can be reviewed and amended under ‘Setup’ > ‘Staff’ > ‘[Staff Name]’ > ‘Permissions’. For more information on staff permissions, click here.
Availability can be customized in line with the following criteria:
- Date & time
- Visibility
- Service type
- Location
To add your working hours, follow the steps below:
1. Head to ‘Setup’ > ‘Availability’ and select the name of the staff member whose availability you’d like to add. This will take you to that particular staff member’s availability calendar.
Note: clicking the ‘Options’ drop-down will expand an extra menu from which you can select other dates from a mini monthly calendar, as well as change/select the timezone and the distance units (these apply when using ‘At Client’s Address’).
2. Find the day you’d like to edit. If that day isn’t currently displayed on the screen, use the navigation arrows in the top-right to scroll through time, or expand the ‘Options’ menu and select the day from the mini calendar.
Then, click ‘+ Add Availability’. This will bring up a sidebar to the right. Click ‘+ Add’ to begin setting up a block of available time.
3. Use the fields within the sidebar to add your available hours. You’ll need to select a location for each period of availability from the drop-down menu.
10to8 gives you full control over the way in which you configure your availability – you can, for instance, add a simple start and end time if you’d like to make yourself available throughout a whole working day, or alternatively you can split your availability into separate periods throughout the day, so that you’re only bookable during specifically defined timeslots.
If you’d like to split your available hours (for example, if you’re available from 9:00-12:00 but then unavailable until 15:00), add the initial timeslot of availability first, then click the ‘+ Add’ button again to create a new, separate instance of availability within the same day.
Note: when you add a new period of availability, 10to8 will temporarily highlight it with a yellow border to help with navigation.
Repeat as necessary. When you’re done, be sure to scroll down within the sidebar and click ‘Apply’, as availability does not save automatically.
Note: before clicking ‘Apply’ and saving, you can opt to apply these working hours to multiple days, if you like. This feature saves valuable time if your available hours tend to repeat!
You’ll see the option to apply the changes to that particular day, every week, or to multiple days.
When selecting ‘Every week’, you’ll then be able to select the particular days to which you’d like to apply your weekly available hours.
When selecting ‘Multiple Days’, you’ll be able to select specific days from a mini monthly calendar.
Once you’ve clicked ‘Apply’, you’ll see your available hours within your availability calendar!
How to Delete Your Working Hours
To delete your working hours, click on the availability you’d like to delete, then click the red ‘Delete Availability’ button within the right-hand sidebar.
Again, you can choose to delete only the selected period of availability, or apply the deletion to multiple weeks/days.
If you’ve added more than one separate period of availability to the selected day, you can choose which specific available period you’d like to delete – there’s a separate ‘Delete Availability’ button for each.
Advanced Settings
Within the right-hand sidebar when customizing your availability, you'll see an 'Advanced settings' drop-down menu. Here you'll find options to edit the visibility of your availability and set your preferences for simultaneous bookings.
Public vs. Private Availability
With this setting, you can control the visibility of your availability. 10to8 gives you the option to decide whether or not your availability is visible to the public. You can toggle your availability between public and private using the switch.
By default, 10to8 will set your available hours as public, but you’re free to change this with a single click.
Private availability will only be visible to your colleagues within 10to8, which is handy for events like internal meetings.
Public availability will be visible to the public and to your customers via your online booking page. Private availability will not count as bookable time, so make sure that all of your availability for customer bookings is marked as public!
Note: your customers will never see your availability page within 10to8 – they do not have access to this. They will instead see your availability reflected in your bookable slots via your public booking page.
Simultaneous Bookings
The ‘Simultaneous Bookings’ box allows you to decide how many customers will be able to book the same timeslot. Any number higher than 1 will mean that multiple different customers can book separate appointments at that same time.
For example – inputting the number 3 in this box, within your own availability, would mean that you would be able to have a maximum of three appointments with different customers at the same time during this timeslot.
If you wish to completely avoid double bookings, make sure the number in the box is never higher than 1!
How to Add Availability for Class Bookings
Class services are those that can accommodate a group of customers. The process of adding availability for class bookings is a little different. In order for available slots to become bookable, you must manually book the class into your 10to8 calendar first.
Once you’ve created a class service under ‘Setup’ > ‘Services’, you can click the ‘Book’ button to schedule a booking for that class. Doing so will take you to your 10to8 calendar, where you can select and book your desired slot.
Alternatively, you can head over to your calendar yourself and click on a timeslot, then select the class service from the ‘Select a service’ drop-down menu at the top of the right-hand sidebar.
Once you’re happy with the booking, click the ‘Book’ button at the bottom of the sidebar.
Your class booking will then be scheduled within your calendar, and available slots for the class at that time will be available for customers to book via your booking page.
A booking link will also be automatically generated that you can send directly to your customers, if you like. When customers click this link, they’ll be taken straight to this service on your booking page so they won’t have to search for it themselves.
To find the booking link, click on the booking within the calendar. You’ll see the link within the sidebar that pops up on the right.
How to Add Service-Specific Availability
When you add your available hours in ‘Setup’ > ‘Availability’, these will be applied to all services by default.
If you’d like to limit your available hours to specific services, click ‘Specify Services’, then click the service selection drop-down menu to open your list of services. Click on the service(s) you’d like to apply to this period of availability, then scroll down and click ‘Apply’ to save.
The services you select will appear with clearly defined labels in their corresponding color. To remove a service from the selected block of availability, click on the 'X' beside it.
How to Add Availability for Multiple Locations
All of your availability must be applied to at least one location; you'll need to select a location before you can save your working hours. You can apply more than one location if you like, which means you'll be available during that time to host all bookable services taking place at those selected locations.
You can choose which locations you'd like applied to each block of your availability. When adding your hours, use the location drop-down to select the location(s) you'd like to apply.
Each location you select will be added to the location section clearly marked by a label in its corresponding color. To remove a location from the selected period of availabilty, simply click on the 'X' beside it.
Scroll down and click 'Apply' to save your changes. You'll then see your selected locations reflected in your availability calendar.
How to Use ‘At Client's Address’
This location option is great for those who need to move around between different addresses – such as mobile stylists, tutors, repair people and driving instructors.
To use ‘At Client’s Address’, you’ll need to create area-based availability within a particular radius.
To get started, you’ll first need to head to ‘Setup’ > ‘Services’ and click on your client’s address service from the list. Once the service settings menu is open, select ‘At Client’s Address’ within the ‘Location’ section.
Note: this location option can only be applied to 1-1 services. You can select this option as well as ‘Online/Phone’ if you like, but the option to host this service at your business premises will be unavailable.
Next, you’ll need to create a premise to use as a center point of your mobile availability radius. To do this, head to ‘Setup’ > ‘Locations’ > ‘Premises’ and click ‘+ Add Location’.
As you enter the address, the location will appear within a Google Maps drop-down. Select the correct address from the list.
Once you're happy with the location, click the 'save' button at the top-right. The staff members offering services at clients' addresses will now be able to tie their availability to a particular radius around this location.
To set this up, head back to 'Setup' > 'Availability' and select the name of the staff member whose availability you'd like to amend.
Click on the day you'd like to amend, then select the location you'd like to set as the central point from the location selection drop-down menu. Then select 'Available within radius' from the drop-down underneath.
Finally, input the number of miles/km within which you'd like this staff member to be available.
When customers book a service offered 'At Client's Address', they'll be required to provide their address before they're able to see any available slots.
Customers attempting to book from outside of the defined radius will not see any available slots for this service with this staff member. Only those attempting to book from within the available radius will be able to successfully make an appointment.
How to Add Holidays and Unavailable Time
Adding your holidays and unavailable time with 10to8 couldn't be simpler!
The easiest way to create periods of holiday and unavailable time is to remove your public availability across these periods.
For instance, if your availability usually covered 9:00-17:00 Mon-Fri and you wanted to make yourself unavailable for a working week, you'd head to 'Setup' > 'Availability', click on the first day of your holiday/unavailable time, then select 'Multiple Days' from the sidebar.
You'd then need to click on each of your unavailable days within the mini calendar, then click 'Delete Availability', then 'Apply' at the bottom.
Your availability for this period will then be deleted from your availability calendar. The empty days will then be shown with 'No working hours'. Your customers will not be able to book with you on these days. Your holiday/unavailable time will now be in effect!
Suppose you didn't want to completely remove your availability. In that case, you could switch your 'Public' availability to 'Private', as private availability is not visible to your customers and they cannot book with you during these times. Head back to the section on Public vs. Private Availability for instructions on how to do this.
Another way to add holidays and unavailable time without deleting your availability is to book this time manually into your 10to8 calendar. This will remove your availability for other bookings during these times (as long as your Simultaneous Bookings setting is set to 1). This way, your unavailable time will be specifically marked within your calendar, and your staff will be able to see this if their permissions allow them to do so.
Note: 10to8 also offers a generic 'Blocked Time' appointment preset which can be used for this purpose. To use this preset, select it from the service selection drop-down within the right-hand sidebar when booking an appointment into your calendar. By default, it has a duration of 30 minutes, but you are free to change this.
Need More Help?
We hope you’ve found this guide helpful! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our friendly support experts who will be more than happy to assist further.