This guide will explain how to turn on booking intervals for individual staff, so the appointment screen and Online Booking follow each team member's preferred appointment rhythm.
In this Article
What is a Booking Cadence?
A booking cadence is a set interval, between 5 and 60 minutes, that reflects how a staff member prefers their day to be scheduled. When it is turned on, markers appear on their column on the Appointments screen showing the times they prefer to start new appointments. This replaces workarounds such as adding notes or blocking out time with fake breaks.
It suits staff who work to a predictable rhythm, such as starting a new client every 45 or 60 minutes. It also helps front desk staff, who can see that rhythm directly on the appointment screen instead of relying on memory or handwritten notes.
What Does it Look Like?
When enabled, a staff member's column changes to visually show their booking cadence.
Online Booking will only show timeslots that match the staff member’s booking cadence.
Setting Up a Booking Cadence
Go to Manager > Staff Members, and click on a staff member to open their profile.
Change the Enable Booking Cadence setting to Yes, then select the preferred Booking Interval (minutes).
Strict Adherence
Strict Adherence controls whether your team can create appointments outside the cadence in the appointment calendar.
Online Booking only offers appointment times that match the staff member’s cadence, whether Strict Adherence is enabled or disabled.
When Strict Adherence is Disabled, a team member may be able to create an off-cadence appointment manually after seeing a reminder. When it is enabled, off-cadence appointments are blocked.
When it is Enabled, off-cadence appointments are blocked.
How Do Rostered Hours and Breaks Affect Booking Cadence?
Booking cadence starts at the beginning of the staff member’s rostered hours. It continues at the selected interval throughout the day and doesn’t reset after lunch or any other calendar break.
Breaks prevent appointments from overlapping them, but they don’t shift or restart the booking cadence. This applies to both paid and unpaid breaks.
For example, if a staff member has:
- Rostered hours of 8:45 AM–3:00 PM
- A paid 'day setup' break from 8:45–9:00 AM
- An unpaid lunch break from 12:15–1:00 PM
- A booking cadence of 45 minutes
In this example, the cadence points are calculated from 8:45 AM:
8:45 AM, 9:30 AM, 10:15 AM, 11:00 AM, 11:45 AM, 12:30 PM, 1:15 PM, 2:00 PM, and 2:45 PM.
The 8:45 AM slot is unavailable because it overlaps the 'day setup' break. The 11:45 AM and 12:30 PM slots are unavailable because a 45-minute appointment would overlap the lunch break. The 2:45 PM slot is unavailable because the appointment would finish after the roster ends.
Assuming there are no other appointments or availability restrictions, Online Booking would offer:
- Before lunch: 9:30 AM, 10:15 AM, and 11:00 AM
- After lunch: 1:15 PM and 2:00 PM
There is no supported cadence offset or reset after break setting. For example, a 9:00 AM start would not align with a 45-minute cadence anchored at an 8:45 AM roster start. To align the cadence with 9:00 AM starts, the roster would need to begin at 9:00 AM, or booking cadence would need to remain disabled.
What Happens to Existing Appointments?
Enabling booking cadence does not move, cancel, or change existing appointments.
Existing appointments can still affect the availability returned by Online Booking. An appointment that does not match the new cadence may occupy time that would otherwise be available, so fewer appointment times may be shown.