For the basics of service configuration, check out the introduction. Here we cover some of the more advanced topics.
Categories are used to present your services in a grouped manner on the online booking homepage. They are also used in the appointment window, making it easier to find the correct service type when making an appointment. To add a new service category, go into Setup > Services. Tap the plus button in the lower-right corner and select New category. Enter the name and tap OK. You can now select this category in the Service type setup.
The order of the categories is preserved when presenting the service types. To change the order, tap the button with three dots next to the category name and use the buttons Move up or Move down.
A service type can have multiple durations. You can, for example, have a service type, "Oil Massage", with durations of 60 and 90 minutes. To add a new duration, tap the plus button to the right of the Service durations label. Each duration has an individual setting for the price displayed to the client.
This option is only relevant for service types with one single duration. If the service is of a kind where the client expects it to last for a specific time, e.g., a massage, you may want to have this enabled. But if the service is of a type where the client typically expects to "get the job done", for example, a haircut, you probably want to have this option disabled.
This is useful if you have an upcoming price change. If you, for example, plan to raise the price on January 1st of the following year, you want clients who book appointments for the current year to see the current price. But you want those who book appointments on January 1st and later to see the new price. Then you set the upcoming price and the date it will take effect. When the day comes when the new price should take effect, the system will automatically make this new price the default price and clear this option for you.
With many types of services, you will need some extra time between appointments to get everything in order. For example: after a massage, you typically want to exchange towels, prepare heated towels, etc. After a haircut, you may want to sweep the floor and clean up. This means that with two adjacent appointments of, say, 60 minutes each, you won't be able to use those entire 60 minutes to attend to the clients.
In many cases, your clients will be understanding of this and realize that a 60-minute service cannot be exactly 60 minutes. But in other cases – depending on your type of business and your clients – you may want to be extra clear about this. In these cases, you can take advantage of prepare and restore time. When using this, you could, for example, create a service duration of 55 minutes with a restore time of 5 minutes. That means that the client will only be promised 55 minutes, but the service time will still be 60 minutes in the calendar.
You should always try and make sure that the service duration + prepare/restore time adds up to an even time slot size, to avoid "holes" in the calendar in the calendar, which you cannot use for appointments. The time slot size is configured in Settings. For example, if you have a time slot size configured to be 30 minutes (services can begin at 00 and 30 minutes past the hour), you could configure a service to be 55 minutes and the restore time to be 5 minutes. This way, it adds up to an even 60 minutes, which will fit nicely into the calendar.
This option lets you display alternative prices during certain days or times during the week. If you – for example – have fewer clients during a certain day of the week, you may want to offer a discounted price during that day. To add an alternative price, tap the plus button next to the label Alternative prices, which takes you to a separate page. Enter the price, select the day of the week, and set during which hours the price should be used (for the whole day, set the start time to 12:00 am and the end time to 11:30 pm). If you have a future price change coming up, you can configure that for the alternative price in the same way as described in future price change.
When a client books online without choosing a staff member, the system picks one for them. When you create an appointment in the calendar, it suggests one in the same way. By default, it chooses among the staff members who are working and free at the time, starting with the one who has the fewest booked minutes that day, so the bookings are shared evenly.
With booking priority, you can change that for each service. Open the service under Setup > Services, and under Booking priority, turn on Prioritize staff. Each staff member who performs the service can then be set to Preferred, Normal or Fallback. Staff members with a higher priority are booked first, and those with the same priority share the bookings evenly. A staff member set to Fallback is only booked when no one else is available – for example an owner who would rather leave the service to the rest of the team.
The priority only applies when the system chooses the staff member. A client who chooses a staff member by name in the online booking can book them as usual, and in the calendar you can always pick someone else.
A service that requires resources can also prioritize them. Open the service, and under Resource priority, turn on Prioritize resources. The list shows the resources of the types in the service's resource requirements, and each can be set to Preferred, Normal or Fallback.
A Preferred resource is used before any other, and a Fallback resource only when no other resource fits. The priority comes before the other rules for choosing resources, described on the Resources page: resource groups and the order of alternative requirements then only decide between resources with the same priority. Without any priorities set, those rules decide as before.
The priorities are per service. A treatment room can, for example, be a fallback for massages while it's the only choice for facials.
