Availability in Sign In Scheduling is another word for your working hours. When you're available in Sign In Scheduling, your customers can book appointments with you.
This guide will walk you through Sign In Scheduling’s availability tool and how to set up your working hours.
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
Each bookable staff member within your account will have their own individual calendar of availability under ‘Setup’ > ‘Availability working hours’.
A given staff member's permissions will determine whose availability they can change.
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 working hours’ and select the name of the staff member from the staff selection bar at the top of the screen.
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 click on the current date range and pick a day from the mini calendar.
Then, click to edit the day. 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.
You have full control over your availability and how this is organized throughout the day. You can make yourself available for the whole day, or split your availability into separate periods.
To split your availability into separate periods (e.g. from 9:00-12:00 and 15:00-18:00), add the 9:00 slot first, then click the '+ Add' button again to create the 15:00 slot.
These slots will be saved once you scroll down and click 'Apply'.
Note: new periods of availability will be marked temporarily by a yellow border.
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 you select ‘Every week’, you can select the particular days you'd like to apply your working hours to.
When you select ‘Multiple days’, you can pick 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 in the 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 one.
Advanced settings
When customizing your availability, you'll see an 'Advanced settings' drop-down menu in the sidebar. 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 toggle your availability between public and private. By default, Sign In Scheduling will mark your available hours as public, but you’re free to change this.
Private availability will only be visible to your colleagues within Sign In Scheduling, 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 Sign In Scheduling – 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 time slot. Any number higher than 1 will mean that more than one customer can book that time slot.
For example – putting '3' in this box would mean that three separate customers could book appointments at this time.
If you want 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 made for groups 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 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 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 on the right.
How to add service-specific availability
When you add your available hours in ‘Setup’ > ‘Availability working hours’, 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 bookable at any of these locations during this time.
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’
With Sign In Scheduling you are able to take bookings at your clients'/customers' own addresses. This 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, head to ‘Setup’ > ‘Services’ and click on the desired service. Then select ‘At client’s address’ within the ‘Location’ section.
Note: this location option can only be applied to regular 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 location to use as a center point of your radius. To do this, head to ‘Setup’ > ‘Sites’ > ‘Set your address’ and then 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 the radius, head to 'Setup' > 'Availability working hours'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
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 working hours', click on the first day of your holiday/unavailable time, then select 'Multiple days' in 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. Your customers will not be able to book with you on these days.
If you didn't want to completely remove your availability, 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 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: Sign In Scheduling 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.