Calendar real-time availability


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Enable real-time availability

OctopusPro allows your customers to set the booking date and time when there is at least one matching fieldworker available for the booking. The available time slots will always depend on the business working hours set in your general fieldworker profile as well as your fieldworkers’ availability. This flag shows the available times at which customers can place bookings. It takes into consideration business opening hours as well as the working hours of your fieldworkers. 

When customers are scheduling a booking through the customer portal, the working hours and calendar availability of each fieldworker will be checked, so this will only allow your customer to place a booking for a time slot where there is at least one matching fieldworker available for the booking.

For example, if your business hours are from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, your customers won’t be able to schedule appointments at 8 pm, even if you have available fieldworkers at this time.

Table of Contents: 

How does real-time availability scheduling work?

Real-time availability booking is a solution that integrates your current information on available fieldworkers and time slots, as well as customer preferences and requirements.

This automation is what makes your business operations more effective and increases consumer satisfaction with your company. Everything happens very instantly, allowing clients to book a service immediately and minimizing the need to manually check every single appointment.

Benefits of real-time availability 

Some of the key features of an RTA are: 

  • Task management has become easier and more efficient.
  • Better appointment scheduling and management
  • More convenient and easier to use for customers
  •  Better reliability 
  • There is no longer any possibility of duplicate booking.
  • Allocation of available time slots based on your business working hours.

Enabling real-time availability

To enable this flag, go to Settings > Customer Portal > Flags & Permissions. You will be redirected to the customer portal flags and permissions settings page. In the fieldworker flags section, activate the “Enable real-time availability” flag.

Setting up fieldworkers’ working hours

Admin users can set up fieldworkers’ working hours by going to Settings > General settings > Working hours. It will redirect you to the general fieldworker’s profile. Click on the “Job Settings” button and your business working hours will be displayed. You can change your business working hours from the edit button.  

OctopusPro limits your customers’ ability to book appointments for times outside of your business hours. Your business hours will be changed from the general fieldworker’s profile as they represent the admin’s account. 

The working hours set in your general fieldworker’s profile will determine the time your customers can book your services through your customer portal. To learn more about the “Working hours” feature click here.

For example, if you set your working hours to start on Monday at 7:00 AM, it will be displayed under the general fieldworker profile.

However, the first available fieldworker can start working at a different time than the business’s opening time, as you might have several fieldworkers in your business.

As shown, the fieldworker, “John Smith,“ will start his work at 8:00 a.m.

Customers can navigate to the customer portal when they proceed with booking the “requested time.” 

For example, they will find that the available time to make an appointment is at 8:00 am on Monday, which means that the company starts at 7:00 am and the fieldworker starts at 8:00 am, so the real-time at which a fieldworker is available to fulfill a booking is at 8:00 am.

Setting up business working hours

The working hours set in your general fieldworker’s profile will determine the time your customers can book your services using your customer portal as it acts as your office’s main calendar.

OctopusPro doesn’t allow your customers to book appointments for times outside your set working hours. For example, if you have one general fieldworker, his real-time availability will be taken into consideration if this feature is enabled, but if other fieldworkers are added, the general fieldworker’s working hours will be ignored and other fieldworkers availability will be taken instead. 

To set your general fieldworker’s working hours, go to Settings > General settings > Working hours, or go to Fieldworkers then select General fieldworker profile.

You will be redirected to the general fieldworker profile, click on Job settings > Working hours where you can add or edit working hours. To learn more about setting fieldworkers’ working hours, click here.

How does it affect real-time availability when admin users block a period of time?

Go to the calendar, and click on the date you want to mark as unavailable.

When you block a period of time on the calendar, and your customers go to the customer portal to create a booking, they will recognize that the calendar won’t accept bookings placed through the customer portal at this time if the real-time availability option is enabled.

How does real-time availability affect customers when creating a booking?

Customers can go to the customer portal to create a booking. They can select the date and time for their appointment, but they will only see the available time.

When making bookings through your customer portal, your clients will be limited by the overall business hours set in your general fieldworker’s profile.

How real-time availability works when it is set to “Virtual business“

OctopusPro allows you to handle different time zones when creating virtual bookings, this allows you to accept bookings from customers in different time zones and manage online fieldworkers working in different timezones. To learn more about the virtual business click here.

In the case that you have enabled Virtual Business for your company if your company provides online/virtual services with no physical address.

To edit your business type for your company, navigate to Settings > Company Settings > Business Details. Then select I provide online/ virtual services with no physical address from under Business type.

When your customers are placing a booking request through your customer portal, they can select their local timezone when selecting the appointment date and time, this helps ensure your admin users and assigned fieldworkers are aware of the timezone the customer is in, helping ensure they attend the booking at the correct time after adjusting the appointment times to their local timezone.

Your customers can easily search their timezone from the search box provided in the drop-down menu.

Viewing a virtual/online booking as a fieldworker

Your fieldworkers can view and manage virtual/online bookings provided using any desktop or mobile device through the web portal and app. Regardless of the timezone selected for the booking appointments, your fieldworkers will view the scheduled appointment times in their local time and will be alarmed and reminded regarding their upcoming appointments based on their local timezone.

Setting which appointment times are available for your customers to schedule

You can set your standard business hours from Settings > General Settings > Working Hours

So, you can control the appointment time slots that are accessible to your customers by specifying your standard business working hours on your general fieldworker profile. which is the default general fieldworker added when your account is created. The general fieldworker, which is a core user and cannot be deleted, serves as your office’s main calendar and is used to hold all unassigned quotes and bookings.

 If you enable real-time availability it‘ll affect appointments that are accessible for your customers to schedule. 

OctopusPro will review each of your fieldworkers’ working hours and calendar availability and will only enable your customers to schedule a booking appointment when at least one matching fieldworker is available. The time slots available will always be limited by the business working hours set in your general fieldworker profile.

How do the working hours set in your general fieldworker profile affect your business core availability?

Your general fieldworker’s calendar, which serves as your office main calendar and is used to keep all unassigned quotes and bookings, determines your company’s overall working hours. Your regular fieldworker’s profile’s working hours will decide when your clients may schedule your services through your customer portal. OctopusPro does not enable your clients to schedule appointments outside of your regular business hours.

 If you enable real-time availability it‘ll affect appointments that are accessible for your customers to schedule. 

OctopusPro will review each of your fieldworkers’ working hours and calendar availability and will only enable your customers to schedule a booking appointment when at least one matching fieldworker is available. The time slots available will always be limited by the business working hours set in your general fieldworker profile.

For example, you can set your business hours to 7 am – 5 pm. You can also set your fieldworker’s hours to be a subset of your business hours. For example, Fieldworker A hours can be 7 am – 1 pm and Fieldworker B hours can be 11 am – 5 pm. So the first available booking will be at 7 a.m., as there is a fieldworker available and also a general fieldworker available at the same time. 

If you want to enable your customers to book appointments at any time regardless of your fieldworkers’ availability, you may disable the real-time availability option, which will allow your customers to make appointments at any time regardless of your fieldworkers’ availability or working hours. Customers will still be restricted by the ordinary fieldworker profile’s overall company operating hours.

Your admin/office users can create appointments outside of your regular business hours and are not limited by the hours specified in your standard fieldworker profile or the actual availability of your fieldworkers. When making bookings through your customer portal, your clients will be constrained by the overall business hours defined in your general fieldworker’s profile. You may disregard your fieldworkers’ availability by removing the real-time availability feature, which will allow your clients to book whether or not there are fieldworkers available, but they will still be limited by your defined business hours.

Limiting your customers to only selecting an approximate time for their booking requests when placing a booking, such as a morning, afternoon, or evening, rather than requesting an exact time for their bookings

When making a booking, your customers can choose the precise start time they want within your available working hours by default. If your company cannot guarantee an exact start time and instead offers a time range to consumers, you should deactivate the flag labeled “Allow customers to pick an exact start time for their bookings” in your customer portal settings. Once deactivated, your customers will be able to choose a time range rather than an exact time, such as dawn, morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, and midnight.

Does OctopusPro take the calendar availability of general fieldworkers into consideration if real-time availability is enabled?

If you are an owner-operator and do not have any fieldworkers other than your general fieldworker, the availability of your general fieldworker will be taken into consideration if the real-time availability feature is enabled as it will be considered your own availability. However, if you have other fieldworkers added, your general fieldworker will be ignored and will not be considered an available fieldworker when checking through your fieldworkers availability.

You can also set your time slot interval under your customer portal settings, which determine when clients are able to make bookings. For example, an interval of 30 minutes allows bookings at 1:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and every 30-minute interval after that. Time slot intervals start at the earliest available time for the fieldworker and run until the end of the fieldworker’s available time. For example, if the booking interval is 1 hour and the fieldworker’s available time is from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., a client can book at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., etc.

Time slots available will also account for the duration that this fieldworker is booked for. For example, with a 30-minute interval, it is still possible to book your fieldworker for 1 hour, provided the fieldworker is available for this duration. However, the 30-minute time slot interval that overlaps with the 1-hour duration will no longer be bookable. In addition, time slot intervals will not be presented if the duration of the booking exceeds the available hours of the fieldworker.

Does OctopusPro take the real-time availability of your fieldworkers into account when a customer is placing a booking?

By default OctopusPro takes the real-time availability of your fieldworkers into account and only allows your customers to place bookings during times when there is at least one fieldworker available, however, you can disable this feature from your customer portal settings if you want to allow your customers to ignore real-time availability and allow your customers to book anytime during your working hours.

When real-time availability is enabled, when a customer is placing a booking through your customer portal, OctopusPro will check through the working hours and calendar availability of each of your fieldworkers and will only allow your customer to place a booking for a time slot where there is at least one matching fieldworker available for the booking.

Blocking a period of time during your standard working hours

To block off any period of time, go to your calendar, press on the date you want to mark as unavailable, and then select the start and end time for the unavailable event. You can add extra comments about the event too if you wish. Blocking a period of time on the calendar means that the calendar won’t accept bookings placed through the customer portal if the real-time availability feature is active. If you want to block a specific fieldworker for a period of time you should go to his calendar and press on the day he wants to block, then press the Unavailable button in the popup and enter the start and end time for the blocked period. If you want to block your entire company from accepting bookings you can do that by adding the unavailable event on the general fieldworker calendar.

Adding time slot intervals between bookings

You can set the default time for your time slot interval under your customer portal settings. Time slot intervals determine when a client is able to make a booking. For example, an interval of 30 minutes allows bookings at 1:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and every 30-minute interval after that. Time slot intervals start at the earliest available time for the fieldworker and run until the end of the fieldworker’s available time. For example, if the booking interval is 1 hour and the fieldworker’s available time is from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., a client can book at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., etc.

This will also account for the duration that this fieldworker is booked for. For example, with a 30-minute interval, it is still possible to book a fieldworker for 1 hour (provided the fieldworker can be booked for this duration). However, the 30-minute time slot interval that overlaps with the 1-hour duration will no longer be bookable. In addition, time slot intervals will not be presented if the duration of the booking exceeds the available hours of the fieldworker. To learn more about the time slot intervals feature  click here

Scheduling appointments outside of the set business hours

Your admin users can always schedule appointments outside your business hours and are not restricted by the hours set in your general fieldworker profile or by the availability of your fieldworkers. However, your customers will be restricted by your overall business hours set in your general fieldworker profile when making bookings through your customer portal. You can allow double bookings by disabling the real-time availability feature which will allow bookings within your working hours without checking your fieldworker availability, but your customers will still be limited by your set business hours and won’t be able to book services for any time outside these hours. For example, if your business hours are 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, your customers won’t be able to schedule appointments for 8 pm, even if you have fieldworkers available at that time.

Allowing customers to book during business hours regardless of fieldworker availability

By default, OctopusPro takes the real-time availability of your fieldworkers into account and only allows your customers to place bookings during times when there is at least one fieldworker available. However, you can disable the real-time availability feature to ignore the availability of your fieldworkers and allow your customers to book anytime during your set hours.

Setting breaks for your fieldworkers’ working hours

OctopusPro gives your fieldworkers their own working hours in their profile which can be updated by your office and fieldworkers. You can add different sets of hours on each day of the week to any of your fieldworkers, the unavailable time between their set hours will determine their break time and will block out time for events such as lunch. For example, you can have your fieldworker available from 8 am-11 am and also available from 5 pm – 9 pm on the same day, the time between these sets of hours is considered a break and will not be available to receive booking requests made by your customers if real-time availability is activated in your account settings.

Setting a minimum notice time required for new bookings

You can set the minimum notice time required for new bookings under your customer portal settings. If your bookings require time to be organized and confirmed then you can set it up to be taken into consideration when bookings are made. For example, if you set the minimum notice time required for new bookings to 60 minutes, this will prevent your customers from booking jobs that start less than 60 minutes ahead of their current local time. To learn more about the minimum notice required feature click here 

Blocking a period of time within standard working hours for an extended leave of absence, such as a vacation

If you want to block your entire business from accepting bookings during a period of time within your standard business hours, go to your calendar and press the Unavailable button then enter the start date and end date you want to mark as unavailable, you can add extra comments and give reasons on why you are unavailable. 

Blocking a period of time on the calendar means that the calendar won’t be accepting new booking requests placed through the customer portal if the real-time availability feature is active. However, it won’t stop your office/admin users from making appointments as the restriction is solely for customers.

If you want to only block a specific fieldworker for a period of time you should select their calendar and press on the day you want to block, then press the Unavailable button from their own calendar. Your fieldworkers can do the same using the app.

Setting up how far in advance, or how close to the start time clients can schedule appointments

If your bookings require travel time to be taken into account or require time to be organized and confirmed with the fieldworker, you can set the minimum notice time required for any new bookings to be taken into consideration when bookings are being placed. For example, if you set the minimum notice time required for new bookings to 90 minutes, you will stop your customers from booking jobs that start less than 90 minutes ahead of their current local time, giving you extra time to confirm the booking and travel to the site.

Is travel time taken into consideration for bookings created through your customers using the customer portal embedded on your website?

OctopusPro does not take travel time into consideration when your customers are scheduling bookings through your customer portal. However, you can use the time interval settings in your customer portal to ensure you always have enough time for your bookings. 

Time slot intervals determine when a client is able to make a booking. For example, an interval of 30 minutes allows bookings at 1:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and every 30-minute interval after that.

Time slot intervals start at the earliest available time for the fieldworker and run until the end of the fieldworker’s available time. For example, if the booking interval is 1 hour and the fieldworker’s available time is from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., a client can book at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., etc.

This will also account for the duration that this fieldworker is booked for. For example, with a 30-minute interval, it is still possible to book a fieldworker for 1 hour (provided the fieldworker can be booked for this duration). However, the 30-minute time slot interval that overlaps with the 1-hour duration will no longer be bookable.

In addition, time slot intervals will not be presented if the duration of the booking exceeds the available hours of the fieldworker.

Disabling real-time availability

If you want to allow your customers to book appointments anytime regardless of the availability of your fieldworkers, you should disable the real-time availability flag. Accordingly, your customers will be able to schedule appointments at any time without taking the availability and working hours of your fieldworkers into consideration. Disabling the real-time availability feature will allow your customers to double book your fieldworkers, so it’s important that you manually confirm and organize bookings if you have disabled this feature in your account settings

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