A guide to go over the settings that may be causing your appointments to go missing. Most missing appointments are caused by settings that need to be double-checked.
What You Need First
At least one Appointment Type created and the Booking Calendar has been placed in a page or post.
Quick Settings Checklist
- Availability Calendar: The time slots won’t show up if they’re not long enough for the Appointment Duration + Buffers.
- Availability Window: No time slots will appear outside that date range, even if there could be some overlap.
- Notice Required: Clients visiting your Booking Calendar will not be able to see time slots that fall within the Notice Required range.
- Advance: When this is set, clients cannot book beyond the Advance range.
- Booking Window: Time slots won’t show up when a client visits your Booking Calendar on a day outside the Booking Window range.
- Per Day Limit: When this booking limit is met, the time slots won’t show up for that specific day.
- Google Calendar: Whenever an event is booked in Google Calendar those time slots don’t show up in Simply Schedule Appointments.
Appointment Type Settings to Look Over
🦊 Does the Availability Calendar have time slots that can fit your Appointment Duration + Buffers?
Add these times up:
- Appointment Duration, under the Basics tab
- Appointment Buffer, under the Scheduling Options tab
The Availability Calendar, under the Availability tab, is an interactive setting. You can visually set the time that you’ll accept appointments. The time slots won’t show up if they’re not long enough for the Appointment Duration + Buffers.
For example: Let’s pretend you’ve set a 1 hour-long appointment with 10 minute buffers before and after. There needs to be at least one block of time longer or the same size as an hour + 20 minutes.
When the blocks are less than an hour + 20 minutes long, the time slots won’t show up on your calendar.
In the image above it seems like you could take two 1-hour long bookings on Monday. But if you use buffers, then you’ll only be able to take one 1-hour long appointment on Monday. Once one appointment is booked, it will remove the other time slot on Monday.
🦊 Do the missing appointments fall outside of the Availability Window range?
The Availability Window, under the Availability tab, is the date range where Appointments will be shown on your Booking Calendar. No time slots will appear outside that date range, even if there could be some overlap.
For example: Let’s assume you’ve setup the range to be between 2 PM May 20th and 2 PM May 21st.
You can’t have a 2-hour appointment at 1 PM on May 21st. It won’t show up as a time slot on your calendar because there can’t be overlap.
You’d need to stretch the Availability Window to 3 PM on May 21st to make this time slot show up.
Notice in the image above how the Availability Calendar could handle the 2-hour appointment at 1 PM. But the time slot for that time would not show up because the cut-off time is at 2 PM.
🦊 Do the missing appointments fall within the Notice Required range?
The Notice Required, under the Scheduling Options tab, is used to avoid last minute appointments. Setting this will give you some time to prepare for new appointments.
When this is set, clients visiting your Booking Calendar won’t see time slots that fall within the Notice Required range. Even if there could be some overlap.
For example: If you’ve set a Notice Required range for 1 day, the calendar won’t show time slots for the next 24 hours. Time slots that fall in between the cut-off time are also left out.
From the image above, let’s pretend it’s Monday 10:15 AM. If there’s a 1-day notice required for a 1-hour long appointment, then I can only book beyond Tuesday at 10:15AM. So, the only time slots I see are Tuesday at 11AM and beyond.
🦊 Do the missing appointments fall outside the Advance range?
The Advance setting, under the Scheduling Options tab, is used to limit how far into the future a client can book an appointment. When this is set, clients cannot book beyond the Advance range.
For example: If you’ve set Advance to 3 days, the only time slots that will appear on the calendar are the ones that fall within the next 3 days (or 72 hours).
From the image above, let’s pretend it’s Monday 10:15 AM and the Advance is set to 3 days. If I’m looking at the calendar, I’ll only be able to book Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday at 11AM.
🦊 Are you looking at the Booking Calendar outside of the Booking Window range?
The Booking Window, under the Scheduling Options tab, is the date range where a client can see time slots. Time slots won’t show up when a client visits your Booking Calendar on a day outside the Booking Window range.
For example: Let’s pretend you’ve setup the range to be between May 1st and May 2nd. If it’s April 30th, you won’t see any time slots.
In the image above, let’s pretend you’re viewing the calendar on Monday April 30th at 9AM. The Booking Window is from May 1st to May 2nd. Even if all the availability is set for the week that client won’t be able to see any time slots.
They’ll need to return the next day when the Booking Window is open to be able to book their appointment.
🦊 Has the Per Day Limit for that Appointment Type been met?
The Per Day Limit setting, under the Scheduling Options tab, is meant to set the bookings you can accept each day. When this limit is met, the time slots won’t show up for that specific day.
From on the image above, let’s pretend you have 30-minute appointments set-up. If the Per Day Limit is set to 3, then Monday you could have one time slot that could end up missing. On Tuesday you could have all the time slots filled.
🦊 Does your Google Calendar have open time slots long enough to hold the Appointment Duration + Buffers?
When Google Calendar is synced, if an event is booked on Google Calendar those time slots don’t show up in Simply Schedule Appointments.
Note: Tasks and Reminders will not affect your time slots in Simply Schedule Appointments.