Using the calendar and opening hours

Schedule is a calendar, not an appointment list. Switch between Day, Week and Month. Choosing one applies it immediately; there is no second Apply press. Then use the date controls to move through time or return to today. Day and week show the full time grid and open at the shop's first working hour instead of midnight; month gives a compact view of each day's appointments. Two cars booked into the same hour sit side by side at their own time, and only that day widens to fit them; a day the shop is closed with nothing booked on it narrows on a desktop screen, and under Group by Tech so do its empty technician lanes. When the week is still wider than the screen, it opens with today in view, and a fade with an arrow at either edge shows there are more days that way. A red line marks the current time: solid across today, and fainter across the other days of the week so you can read what is booked at this hour on any of them. On a phone the day view fits the screen, and opening a card shows it as a sheet along the bottom with a close button.

Closed time is hatched on the day and week calendar. It is the boundary your customers book inside: the online booking page and the phone never offer a time outside the shop's opening hours, a closed day or a time that has passed, and a request for one is refused. You and your staff are not held to it. Anyone who can book appointments can put a car at any date and time — before opening, after closing, on a closed day, or in the past to record a visit that already happened. The card then says Outside opening hours or In the past beside the time, so nobody mistakes it for an open slot.

Book and move work

1. 1

   Step 1: Start the appointment

   Click an empty time on the day or week calendar to book that half hour, or press and drag down the day to book a longer range. + New Appointment opens on the next free time instead, from the day on screen or now, whichever is later. The form asks for three things: who, when and what for. Choose the customer, and the vehicle is picked for you when they have one car. Somebody who has never been in can be added right there: press + New customer, type their name, mobile number and car, and they are saved with the booking — or not at all, if the time is refused. A number or email already on file is answered with that customer and a button that books them, so nobody gets a second record. A number added this way has no permission to be texted, so the confirmation goes by email or not at all. A waiting customer's card says Waiting on the calendar. Scheduling from a ticket fills in its customer, vehicle and first service for you to confirm. With a mouse, an open hour shows its booking chip — the time and how many bays are free — when you point at it; on a touch screen every chip stays drawn so there is something to tap.

2. 2

   Step 2: Pick an open time, or type any time

   Under the date and time, the next open times are one press each, with Next open for the first free time from now. Or type any date and time into the Date and Time boxes; the time is read in the shop's own timezone. The save still checks bay capacity: if every bay is taken then, it says the time is fully booked. Tick Book anyway and save again when you mean to double-book; on the calendar's own editor the same choice is a Book anyway button.

3. 3

   Step 3: Save, or save and send

   Save books the appointment and sends the customer nothing. Save and send books it and sends the confirmation, under the same texting permission rules as always; it is greyed out, with the reason beside it, when there is no way to reach the customer. An appointment saved without sending shows Not sent yet on its card with a Send confirmation button for later. An appointment in the past is a record, so nothing is ever sent for it — no confirmation, no reminder and no reschedule message — whichever button you press.

4. 4

   Step 4: Say what it is for, and let the length follow

   Under What for, type what the customer said, pick services from your menu, or both. The picked services' labor hours add up into the small pill beside them — 1.8 h, say — and the booking is that long, rounded up to your slot length, so a shop with half-hour slots books 1.8 hours as two hours. Booked from a ticket, it is as long as the labor already on that ticket. With nothing picked it is one slot, the length set in schedule settings. The picked services stay on the appointment, so Edit opens with them picked. At check-in the concern becomes the first job on the order and each picked service is added after it, priced, exactly as picking it from the menu on the order would. A service taken off the menu since, or one with labor before your shop has a labor rate, is added as a job with just its name for you to price.

5. 5

   Step 5: Open More only when you need it

   More holds the rest, each with a sensible default: the length, the tech, the bay, drop-off or waiting, the promised-back time, a note, the appointment's color and All day. It is closed until something in it matters — it opens by itself when one of them is not the default, or when the shop refuses the booking because of one of them, such as a promised time before the car arrives. A waiting customer's card says Waiting on the calendar. A tech with approved time off on that day says so beside their name in the Tech list; you can still give them the car, and its card then says Tech is off that day.

6. 6

   Step 6: Color it, or book the whole day

   Under More, pick one of ten colors — teal, cyan, blue, purple, yellow, orange, red, brown, gray or dark — or leave Calendar's choice. The card is drawn in that color when the calendar colors by appointment. Tick All day for a car that is in for the day rather than at an hour, or one dropped off after hours: it sits in the All Day row on that date and the time boxes are ignored. An all-day booking is your choice, not a bay-hour: it never fills a bay in any hour, never makes a full hour refuse the next booking, and never puts its tech or bay on two cars at once. It does count on that day's labor-hours bar. Only you and your staff can book a whole day; the booking page and the phone offer times.

7. 7

   Step 7: Change or cancel a booked appointment

   Open the card and press Edit to change anything on it — the customer, the vehicle, the time, what it is for and its services, and under More the length, tech, bay, drop-off or waiting, the promised time and the note. The time and the promised time are in the same form, so a car moved past its promise is fixed in one save by moving the promise too. Save changes it quietly; Save and send, when the time moved, also sends the customer the rescheduled message, exactly as the move screen does. From a ticket that is already booked, the rail's Edit appointment opens the same screen. Cancel asks first: press Cancel…, and choose whether to draft a message telling the customer, then Cancel appointment. The draft opens in their conversation for you to send; cancelling on its own sends nobody anything.

8. 8

   Step 8: Move an existing appointment

   Open the appointment and reschedule it, by the open-time list or by typing any date and time, or drag it on the calendar. A move can land outside opening hours or in the past too; a full hour is refused unless you tick Move anyway on the move screen. Dragging a card onto a full hour is refused the same way, with a Book anyway button beside the refusal that puts it there on purpose. On the move screen, Save moves it quietly and Save and send also sends the customer a message with the new time and their link, by text only to a number with permission, otherwise by email. A move clears the customer's earlier confirmation, because they confirmed the old time. If your shop sends appointment reminders, moving a booking to another day arms a fresh one for the evening before the new day, while moving it to a different time on the same day does not, because the reminder that already went out named that day.

9. 9

   Step 9: Offer times and let the customer pick

   On the booking form, open Send as request — let the customer pick, add up to two more times if you like, and press Send as request. Nothing is booked yet: the customer gets a link to pick the time you chose or up to two more, or to ask for another. While they decide, the times show above the calendar as Requested, waiting on the customer; they do not use up a bay, so check them before booking over one. When the customer picks, the appointment is booked and marked confirmed, unless the bays filled in the meantime, in which case they are asked to pick again. An unanswered request expires after 48 hours, or whatever you set in Settings › Appointment messages. It is sent under the same rules as Save and send.

10. 10

    Step 10: Know what the customer said

    Every confirmation and reminder carries a link where the customer can confirm, ask to move, or cancel up to 24 hours before (you can change the cutoff). A confirmed booking shows Confirmed on its card. When a customer calls instead, open the card and press Confirmed or Declined. An ask to move, or an ask for another time, appears on the Appointment requests page for you to answer; nothing moves until you do. A request from the online booking page or the phone can be confirmed at the time the customer asked for or any other — before opening, on a closed day, in the past, or over a full hour with Book anyway — because you are choosing it. Customers can only ever pick open times.

Make the calendar fit the counter

Press Options to open the rail. Choose Standard or Condensed, or use Group by Tech when technician lanes are more useful than one shared grid. Every choice in the rail applies as soon as you make it, the way a checkbox should; ticking several names in a row sends them together. A closed appointment card always names the customer, adds the vehicle for work booked at least an hour, and adds the concern at two hours; booked duration decides those fields, so changing the view density does not change the facts. Appointment color can follow the appointment itself, its status, its technician or both, and the rail names each tone in words directly under the color control — coloring by technician puts each person's tone beside their own name in the list below it. Technician filters include unassigned work, and the number beside each name counts that person's appointments in the range on screen before the filter is applied, so an unchecked name still shows what checking it would reveal. The inactive-technician switch is there when old assignments still matter. These are saved viewing preferences; they do not change the appointment itself. Once a car has checked in and its appointment has an order, opening the card puts that order first — Open order sits beside the date — followed by the schedule, customer, vehicle and the check-in, no-show and cancel controls.

Choose Group by Bay to read active work bays in shop order with No bay last. A day's heading warns when booked appointment hours exceed the capacity from active bays, their bookable minutes and that day's opening hours; the warning does not stop an intentional overbooking.

Appointment Colors has a fourth choice, By Both: the card is filled with the appointment's own color and its technician's tone runs down its left edge. Under Group by Tech, a technician with approved time off has that day's lane hatched and Time off under their name. In the week and the month, each day shows a labor-hours bar — the labor booked that day against the hours your techs are there, such as 6.5 of 32 h booked. Booked labor is the services picked on each appointment, or the labor already on its order; an appointment with neither is counted as without hours rather than guessed at. The hours available are the day's opening hours, less the lunch break, for each active tech who is not off. A day booked past its hours says Over.

Under the rail's filters, Calendar settings sets how your own calendar is drawn: the day the week starts on, where the day starts and ends, and whether Saturday and Sunday show. Day starts is where the day and week open; Day ends sizes how much of the day is shown before it scrolls, and nothing outside them is hidden. These are yours alone — a colleague's calendar keeps its own — and they change nothing about what can be booked.

Set the rules behind the hatch

Owners and managers set the timezone, bay count, slot length and each day's opening hours in Schedule > Schedule settings. A closed day has no bookable time. Bays mean concurrent appointment capacity, not the number of technicians on the payroll. Once you name your bays in Settings > Bays, the count of active bays there is the capacity, and the number on this page is kept for shops that have not named theirs. The timezone changes how saved UTC appointment instants are displayed; it does not move those stored instants.

Each open day can have a lunch break. Nobody is offered an arrival during it online or by phone, and it is hatched on the calendar and labeled Lunch; a job that starts before lunch still runs through it. Under Special days (holidays, closures and special hours), add a date the shop is closed, or open different hours, with an optional name such as Thanksgiving. The calendar greys it and names it in the day's heading, and the booking page and the phone offer nothing outside it. You and your staff can still book on it; the booking form says the date is closed or on special hours when you do.

When tighter hours or capacity conflict with work already on the calendar, the settings page previews those appointments before saving. Existing appointments are not moved or cancelled. You can Save anyway, and the calendar marks the conflicts, but every new booking must follow the new rules.

Your opening hours are not only a scheduling rule. They are printed at the bottom of every email you send a customer, under your name, address and phone number, so somebody about to ring you knows whether anyone will pick up. Change them here and the next email carries the new ones. A shop that has not set hours has nothing printed there, and is never described as closed.