How Availability Affects Scheduling and Online Booking

Availability: all plans

Declared working days and time off are information for the people who schedule, and they are what online booking uses to offer customers a time. They flag problems rather than block work, so a job can still be booked outside someone's declared hours when the business needs it. This guide explains where the declared hours show up.

Before you start

Technicians declare their own days under My Availability, and administrators can change anyone's under Team Availability.
A technician with no declared days is listed as Not declared yet. Hours are only as useful as they are complete.

What declared hours do

Team Schedule. Appointments that fall outside a technician's declared hours are marked Outside declared hours, and the page lists them under Appointments outside declared hours. Each technician's lane shows a band for the declared hours, so an appointment outside it is visibly outside.
Technician Workload. Utilization is worked from declared hours. With no declared hours there is nothing to measure against, so the page shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Team Availability and My Availability. After any save that leaves booked jobs outside the new hours, the page lists them. Nothing is cancelled or moved automatically.
Online booking. When a location has Turn on selected under Let customers pick a time online, customers choose from hours where a technician works that day, has no time off, holds the required trades, and has the whole job inside their hours. Without it, online booking asks the customer for a preferred time and holds nothing. See the online booking availability guide for the full rules.

Steps

To check a location before turning on customer-picked times:

Open Schedule, then Team Availability.
Under Let customers pick a time online, read the line for the location. It shows how many technicians have a declared pattern and lists any blockers in amber.
Anyone named after No working pattern needs hours set. Use Set hours under Who works when.
When the blockers are gone, select Turn on. Select Turn off to return to preferred times.

Turning customer-picked times on or off needs permission to manage team availability.

Tips

After changing someone's hours, check Team Schedule for appointments marked Outside declared hours and move them.
Time off applies only to its date. Remove the exception to restore the usual hours on that day.
Reasons for time off are for your team and are never shown to a customer.

If something goes wrong

If Turn on is greyed out, its tooltip reads "Resolve what is blocking this first". Fix the blockers listed beneath the location.
If a customer sees no times on a day, check that someone works that day, has no time off and is not already booked, and that the service's required trades match your technicians.
If Technician Workload shows a dash for someone, they have no declared hours yet. Ask them, or an administrator, to set them.

Declaring Your Own Working Days and Time Off — Every technician can record when they work. You set the days you normally work and the hours you start and finish, and you add dated exceptions for time off, a half day or an extra shift. These…
Viewing and Managing Your Team's Availability — The Team Availability page shows every schedulable technician's working days for one location, plus upcoming time off. People who schedule work can read it. People with permission to manage…
Letting Customers Pick a Time You Can Deliver — By default, online booking asks a customer for a preferred date and time and holds nothing on your calendar. You can instead let customers pick an arrival hour from times your team can actually cover…
View Team Availability — The Team Availability page shows when each technician works, so a dispatcher can schedule against real hours instead of guessing. It lists the technicians at a location with the days and hours each…