If you or your customers are unexpectedly seeing no available slots or can't see particular slots, don't panic!
There are a number of things that could be causing this behind the scenes, which can be easily fixed.
This guide will address the things that could be affecting your availability for 1-1 services, and provide troubleshooting steps for each.
SECTIONS:
Check which staff are assigned to the service
Check for conflicting bookings
Check your visibility
In order for your availability to produce bookable slots, it needs to be public. To check this, head to 'Setup' > 'Availability' to view your working hours. Each block of availability will show either public or private.
Private availability is useful for internal bookings, but is not visible to your customers and therefore isn't bookable by them.
To change private availability to public, click on the day you'd like to edit and then click the 'Private' switch in the sidebar to change it to 'Public'.
Then, make sure you scroll down and click 'Apply' to save your changes.
Check your available time
Head to 'Setup' > 'Availability' to view your working hours. You'll need to make sure you have enough working hours during the day to accommodate bookings. For instance, if you wanted to take a 60-minute appointment, you'd need at least 60 minutes of availability set for that day.
To add more availability, navigate to the day you'd like to edit and click '+ Add Availability', then click the '+ Add' button at the top of the sidebar.
For more detailed instructions on setting up your availability, click here.
Check your locations
Under 'Setup' > 'Availability' you'll notice that each block of available time is tied to a location. This location will need to match the location of the services you want to be bookable at that time.
For instance, if you had a full day of availability tied to your business address but your services were set to take place at 'Online/Phone', no available slots will show for those services.
In that case, you'd need to either:
- change the pre-existing location within your availability to match the service
- change the service's location to match your availability
- create an additional block of availability tied to the service's location
To change the location within your availability, click on the day you'd like to edit and then select a different location from the drop-down in the sidebar. Scroll down and click 'Apply' to save the changes.
To change a service's location, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and click on the service you'd like to edit. Then scroll to the 'Location' section and select the desired location.
To add an additional block of availability tied to another location, head to 'Setup' > 'Availability', navigate to the day you'd like to edit, then click '+ Add Availability'.
Click the turquoise '+ Add' button at the top of the sidebar and use the options to set up the hours, select a different location from the drop-down, then scroll down and click 'Apply'.
The new block of availability will then appear in the same column as the pre-existing availability.
Check your notice period
To check the notice period tied to your services, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and click on the service you'd like to look at.
Scroll to the 'Online booking' section where you'll find your current booking settings and notice period. By default, notice periods are set to 24 hours, meaning that customers can't book appointments that would take place less than 24 hours later.
Customers trying to book outside of the permitted notice period won't therefore see any available slots.
You can change the notice period by clicking on the drop-down and selecting another option, which are as follows:
- no notice
- 1 hour notice
- 6 hours notice
- 12 hours notice
- 2 days notice
- 1 week notice
When changing the notice period, make sure you're allocating enough time for yourself and your customers.
Check your buffer time
Buffer time can be added at the beginning and end of your services, to give you some extra time between bookings.
It's important to note that buffer time increases the overall appointment length when it comes to your availability. For example, a 60-minute appointment with a 20-minute period of buffer time will require 80 minutes of your availability. If you don't have enough time to accommodate that, customers won't be able to book the appointment.
Moreover, other appointments won't be bookable during other appointments' buffer time. So if your last booking ended at 12pm and had a 30-minute buffer at the end, no more appointments could take place until 12:30pm.
To check and change your buffer time, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and click on the service you'd like to view. Navigate to the 'Buffer/travel time' section and review your preferences. You can remove buffer time by clicking the checkboxes to un-tick them.
Your changes will be saved automatically.
Check which staff are assigned to the service
In order for staff members to host bookings, they must be assigned to the bookable service(s). To check this, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and click on the service you'd like to view.
Scroll to the 'Staff' section to review the staff members assigned to that service. To add another staff member, either type their name into the bar and select them when they appear, or click on the drop-down arrow to select them from the list. To remove a staff member from the service, click the 'X' next to their name. Changes are saved automatically.
You can also check this under 'Setup' > 'Staff', within the staff member's profile. Click on the 'Services' tab to review the services currently assigned to that staff member. To add any that aren't there, click the 'Select a service to add' drop-down.
Check for conflicting bookings
By default, 10to8 prevents double bookings, meaning that only one appointment can occupy each timeslot within the calendar. If an appointment is already booked for the particular time that a customer wants, they won't see that timeslot when they come to book.
It is possible to override this with the simultaneous availability setting. Click here for more information.
Otherwise, check your calendar to make sure that nothing else is booked at the time that the customer is wanting to book.
Need More Help?
We hope this guide has been helpful! If you have any questions, reach out to our support team who will be happy to assist.