Duration and availability
Why a customer does or does not see times — and how to track down a service with no slots, step by step.
"My service is online, but customers see no times at all." That is almost never one setting being wrong. A slot only exists once a chain of conditions all hold, and those conditions live across four different screens.
This guide first explains how a slot comes into being, then gives you a search list that finds the missing link in a few minutes.
How a slot comes into being
Schedulinq runs the same sequence for every booking page. The moment one step yields nothing, the times stop — the steps after it are not even considered.
Is the service in the catalogue at all?
An appointment type is only shown to customers when all three hold: Online booking is on, a duration is set, and at least one staff member is assigned. Miss one and the service does not exist for the customer.
Can anyone perform it?
Of the assigned staff, only the active ones remain. If the customer picks add-ons, one and the same person must be able to do the service and every add-on they chose.
Does the address fall inside your service area?
For work at the customer's address, anyone whose service area does not cover that address drops out.
Does anyone have a roster block that fits this service?
There must be a roster block matching the service's workplace (at the customer or on location) and the services that block is meant for. This is the step that most often goes wrong silently — see below.
Is anything left after the date rules?
Only here do your booking rules apply: whether today can be booked, how far ahead people may book, and which time off and existing appointments remove what is left.
No times showing? Work through this list
1. The status column does not tell you everything
Open Settings → Appointment types. The status column shows Bookable, Not bookable or No staff.
2. Check the duration
Open the service and look at Duration. One of the buttons must be selected.
If No duration set is active, the service disappears from your booking page. That is deliberate — you use it for jobs whose length you only know after an intake — but it is also the most commonly missed cause.
The duration then decides how long the reserved block is. A two-hour service does not fit a roster block from 09:00 to 10:00: the block has to be long enough to hold the whole appointment, travel time included for work on location.
3. Roster blocks that serve only one service
This is the nastiest one, because no single screen shows anything wrong.
A roster block can be restricted to certain services. If the Services column says anything other than All appointment types, that block only offers those services — and produces zero slots for every other service.
On the roster you see the difference side by side:
The fix is usually not to widen the block but to add a second block for the other services — blocks may overlap, including with different service restrictions.
4. Workplace and location do not line up
Under Where does this take place? each service states whether it happens at the customer, on location, or both. Every roster block has the same choice under Workplace. The two have to line up.
A service performed only on location gets no times from a roster block set to At the customer — not even when the hours fit perfectly. If you work from several locations, the block also has to be attached to the right one.
5. The address falls outside your service area
If you work at customers' homes, a staff member drops out as soon as the customer's address lies outside their service area. If it lies outside everyone's, the customer sees no times at all — regardless of the roster. Check this under Company → Service area.
6. Only then: the booking rules
Under Online booking → Booking rules are the rules that decide which days are left.
Allow same-day bookings
Default: offWith this off, the earliest bookable day is tomorrow. That is usually exactly what you want, but it does explain why a customer cannot book anything this afternoon.
Turn it on and an extra field appears: Minimum booking notice. Those minutes only apply to the current day, and your travel time to the customer is added on top. With same-day booking off, that notice does nothing — which is why the field is hidden then.
Maximum booking range
Default: 365 daysHow far ahead customers may book.
Set this very low — say 7 days — while your team works a roster that only starts later in the month, and everything falls outside the window and the page stays empty.
Cancellation & reschedule deadline
Default: 1 dayHow many days before the appointment the customer can no longer cancel or reschedule it themselves. With 0, changes stay possible.
This does not affect which times a new customer sees — only what an existing customer can still do afterwards.
7. Time off and one-off availability
Under Team → Schedule you manage time off and extra availability. Two things that often surprise people:
- Time off cuts time out of the regular roster for that day.
- Extra availability works the other way round: it adds a block, even on a day someone does not normally work. Time off does not remove such an extra block — the two are independent of each other.
Frequently asked questions
I checked everything and there is still nothing. Check whether your staff's calendars are simply full. The six steps above cover structural causes; a fully booked week also produces an empty page, but that one opens up again by itself.
Should I include travel time in the duration? No. For work at the customer's address Schedulinq adds travel time on top itself. The duration is the time you spend with the customer.
Someone is on the roster but gets no appointments. Check that this person is actually assigned to the service (the Assigned staff block in the appointment type). Being on the roster is not enough — the service has to know the person, and the roster block has to allow the service.
Still stuck? Work through the ready to go live checklist, or revisit creating an appointment type.