Appointments: Settings
Overview
Appointment Settings is where you control when customers can book, block off time you’re unavailable, and manage how you and your customers are notified. These settings apply across all your appointment services by default. Some can be overridden at the individual service level.
Accessing Appointment Settings
Go to Appointments > Settings in your POS. You’ll find four sections:
- Services — set up and manage your appointment services
- Availability — set your default bookable hours, lead time, and buffer time
- Closures & Hours — block holidays and specific date ranges
- Notifications — control email and text alerts for you and your customers
Availability
Go to Appointments > Settings > Availability to set your default available hours for all appointment services.
Weekly availability
Toggle each day on or off and set your available time range. You can set different hours for each day of the week.
Turn on Sync with shop hours to automatically match your appointment availability to your shop’s operating hours.
Lead time
Set how far in advance a customer must book. For example, with a 60-minute lead time, customers won’t see any times starting within the next hour. Select your preferred lead time from the dropdown.
Buffer time
Add a break between appointments so back-to-back bookings aren’t offered online. For example, a 30-minute buffer means if an appointment ends at 2:00 PM, the next available slot won’t be until 2:30 PM. Select your preferred buffer time from the dropdown.
Click Save when you’re done making changes.
Closures & Hours
Go to Appointments > Settings > Closures & Hours to block off time when you’re not taking appointments.
Holiday hours
Twelve major holidays are listed. Each is toggled on by default, meaning appointments are available on those days. Toggle a holiday off to block it from accepting bookings.
Closures & date overrides
Block a specific date range — for example, if a staff member is out for a week or your shop will be closed for an event.
- Enter a date range in the Date range field
- Click + Add
You can add multiple date ranges and remove them at any time using the trash icon.
Click Save when you’re done making changes.
Notifications
Go to Appointments > Settings > Notifications to control how you and your customers are notified about appointments.
Client notifications
- Send email when appointment is booked, updated, or cancelled — on by default. Customers receive an automatic email for each of these actions.
- Send reminder email — off by default. Turn this on to send customers a reminder before their appointment. Enter the number of hours in advance you’d like the reminder to be sent.
Your notifications
- Email me when a new booking is received — on by default. Leave the email field blank to send notifications to your shop email, or enter one or more addresses (comma-separated) to notify specific people.
- Text me when a new booking is received — off by default. Turn this on to receive a text notification for new bookings.
Click Save when you’re done making changes.
Tips
- If your availability changes seasonally, update your weekly hours rather than adding individual date overrides
- Use the lead time setting to give yourself enough time to prepare — especially for consultations that require research or planning ahead of the meeting
- If specific people at your shop handle appointments, add their emails directly in the notification email field so they’re always in the loop
- When booking from the POS, you are not restricted to your published availability windows and can book appointments that overlap with existing ones. Customers booking online cannot — each time slot can only be booked once across all your appointment services.
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Need help?
If you have questions, our Partner Support team is here to help.
Phone: (210) 405-5050
Email: support@bloomnation.com