2 important settings in your services are:
Online Personnel Selection
Time Selection mode
"Online Personnel Selection" determines whether your clients can choose a staff member when booking appointments online whereas "Time Selection mode" determines what time slots clients see as options to choose from.
Time slots work differently for group events, see here for more info.
For a quick overview of time and personnel selection, watch this video:
Online Personnel Selection
Options include:
No Personnel Selection
If you don't want to allow clients to choose who they book with (e.g. to control the assignment of staff to bookings), choose this option.
In this case, either you will need to assign a staff member to the appointment or the system will do it automatically (depending on your “Time selection mode" setting, see below).
Personnel Selection
If you want to enforce that clients select a staff member when booking online, choose this option.
No preference + Personnel Selection
If you want to allow clients either to choose a specific staff member or none, choose this option.
If the client selects “No preference”, the assignment of staff will either be done by you or the system (depending on your “Time selection” setting).
If your service's 'Online Personnel Selection' setting is set to "Personnel Selection", the time slots shown to clients will be based on the chosen staff member's availability (see here to understand what determines staff availability).
See here to understand what determines the time intervals of the time slots.
The date/time slots shown to clients are affected by the chosen staff member's “Show availability online” setting. If it's disabled, the date/time slots will not take into account the staff's availability; instead, clients will be prompted to submit up to 5 availability slots within your business open hours (see 'Ask client's availability').
If your service's 'Online Personnel Selection' setting is set to "No Personnel Selection", the time slots shown to clients will depend on the service's' Time Selection mode' setting (see below).
Time Selection Mode
There are 4 options:
Ask client’s availability
Display time slots without availability check
Display time slots with automatic dispatch
Display time slot with automatic dispatch (resource)
See this table to understand the different options and their use cases.
Time Selection Mode | Result | Use case |
1- Ask client’s availability | Clients will be prompted to submit up to 5 available time slots (within your business open hours); the request will then be sent to your account to confirm a date/time and assign a staff member. | Instead of showing available time slots, you prefer to let clients submit availabilities, then pick an option that best suits you. |
2- Display time slots without availability check | Clients will be shown date/time slots corresponding to your business open hours, IGNORING staff and resource availability. The request will then be sent to your account to assign a staff member.
*Note: be careful with this option since it can lead to double-booking.
| Staff and resource availability don't matter, let clients choose any time they want (within business hours).
This can be useful if you are flexible enough to meet demand on the fly (e.g. you own a service shop, and have access to a list of on-call staff that can come in to provide appointments). |
3- Display time slots with automatic dispatch | Clients will be shown date/time slots corresponding to the combination of all eligible staff availability.
Booxi will automatically assign the booking to an available staff member and resource (if applicable).
*Note: For the booking to be possible, at least 1 assigned staff member and resource (if applicable) must be available and active.
*Note: If multiple staff members are available at the chosen time, the member with the least amount of bookings that day will be chosen); the same rule applies to resources. | It doesn't matter to you who the booking is assigned to as long as the need is met AND/OR you prefer to let the system take into account staff and resource availability to avoid scheduling errors. |
4- Display time slot with automatic dispatch (resource) | Clients will be shown date/time slots corresponding to the combination of all eligible staff availability. Booxi will automatically assign the booking to an eligible staff member and resource (if applicable); resource availability will be prioritized over staff availability. | You want the date/time slots to be aligned with resource availability. This is especially useful when staff availability begins before resource availability. |
For the difference between automatic dispatch and automatic dispatch (resource), see here.
If your service's 'Online Personnel Selection' setting is set to "No Preference + Personnel Selection", the time slots shown to clients will depend on whether the client chooses a staff member or no preference.
If the client chooses "No preference", date/time slots will be based on the service's 'Time Selection mode setting' (see above)
If the client chooses a staff member, date/time slots will be based on the chosen staff’s availability.
If your service's 'Time Selection Mode' is set to "Ask client’s availability", this is what clients will see:
If your service's 'Time Selection Mode' is set to "Display time slots without availability check", "Display time slots with automatic dispatch" or "Display time slot with automatic dispatch (resource)", this is what clients will see:
How resources affect time slots
Whenever at least 1 resource is assigned to a service, the date/time slots shown to clients will be based on the intersection of staff availability and resource availability. In other words, services with assigned resource(s) can only be booked if at least 1 assigned staff member and 1 assigned resource are active and available at the same time. To ensure booking remains possible, make sure that your personnel and resource availability overlap.
Services whose 'Time selection mode' is set to “Ask client availability” or “Display time slots without availability check” are not affected by the assignment of resources because they ignore resource availability.