You can set up availability to have greater control over when clients can request sessions. Availability can set up for one-off days or on a recurring basis.
- Adding Availability for One-on-One Services
- Adding Availability for Group Services
- Setting up Recurring Availability
- Removing Availability
Adding Availability
Either press and drag an area on the calendar to define a time range or click the Fast Action Button in the bottom-right corner to set up a new availability period.
- To set up your availability go to My Schedule > My Availability
- Select a time slot on a day you’re available to see clients, click the starting available time and drag your cursor.
Set the start and end time for your availability slot. Use the Time zone field to set up availability in another time zone if you'll be traveling during a specific period or if you're setting up availability as an assistant from another time zone. By default, the time zone will be set to the time zone you set up for your account.
Decide if this availability recurs. If so, does it recur daily, weekly or monthly and until when? Click the This time slot recurs checkbox to enable recurring/ongoing availability. You can set an optional end date by entering a date in the Ends field:
- Tailor your availability to offer select services within this time slot. Click the toggle to the right of the service name to allow sessions to be requested for the service.
For example, between 1 pm and 5 pm on Mondays + Wednesdays, you only offer discovery calls and initial consultations.
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You can further restrict how sessions will be conducted during this slot by setting up service-method and location restrictions. For example, on Tuesdays, your Initial Consultation sessions are only available in-person at your primary location.
Setting up recurring regular business hours
Let's say you want to set up availability on Mondays-Fridays from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on an ongoing basis.
1) Create an availability slot on Monday from 9 AM -5 PM
2) Enable the This time slot recurs checkbox and set the recurrence option to "Repeats - Weekly" and "Repeat every - 1 week".
3) Select the days you'd like your availability to repeat from the Repeats on field:
Removing Availability
You can remove availability from your calendar either for one day or for the entire recurring period.
Deleting an Instance
1) If you've set up a recurring availability slot and want to remove availability for a specific day, select the slot from your Availability Calendar on the specific day you want to become unavailable.
2) Click the Delete button in the bottom-left corner:
3) Select This instance only from the options provided.
4) If at any point you want to reinstate the deleted availability, open the availability slot either from the left navigation menu or from another instance of the availability in the previous week.
Click the trash can button next to the deleted instance under the Excluded Dates section:
Deleting a Series
Similar to deleting an instance, you can delete the entire series by clicking the Delete button in the bottom-left corner of the availability popup and select Entire series from the options provided.
Comments
11 comments
Thanks for this. I currently have a client who was unable to find how to book a session, we’ve been using acuity and trying to transition to using practice better only, Can you help?
I can help just need more information on what steps your client took.
Hello, is there any literature or videos that discusses the client experience regarding how they interface with "my availability"? Could they see it, client-side, the updates I make?
Hello PracticeBetter Support,
I would also like to know how I can share my availability with my clients so they can schedule a session with me at their own convenience.
Thanks,
Briana
Hey Briana,
I got int touch with them and they confirmed:
"And yes, when you set up availability for your services clients will be able to request appointments from the Client Portal and from your Bookings Page."
I've confirmed this to be the case with clients viewing the availabilities I enter and it being an option for them in their client portal to select from.
Hi Robert,
Thank you for your response. I have spent days trying to figure out how to send my clients a simple link to my availability so they can book an appointment with me, but cannot figure it out. At this point, if it's taken me this long to figure out, there's no way my clients will have the time to do this and I'm now looking at other options. Very disappointed in PracticeBetter so far. This seems like a critical component to client management that they have simply overlooked. There also doesn't appear to be any way to get in touch with support either. I was really hoping this would be the solution and I could refocus on clients now, rather than researching software. Thank you again for your help. Wish PracticeBetter did the same.
I did hear back from Support and they have shown me how to do this. Not very intuitive, but will work for now.
I am having trouble with my availability calendar.
I have made changes to my initial calendar and have it set up in your site (I can see my altered calendar, with the dates and times deleted from my initial set-up), but when I click on the button in my website to book an appointment, the page transitions to practice better however the dates and times are still from my initial calendar.
Is it possible that I need to re-set the code-passage in my website after I've changed my calendar?
Can someone help me with putting buffers in between sessions? I though I had set this up but it is not doing it in the calendar that the client sees. Thanks...
Also, I set up my calendar and looked at a couple days in the future, when I have the whole day free. When I request a mock appointment, the calendar gives me only two time options, when I it would be possible to book five sessions that day, any reason why?
Aloha! I have problems with my availability, trying to set up. How to add services to complete setting up? Trying again and again, help tutorial did not help. Thanks. Disappointed.
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