What is a Schedule? #
Schedules control all of the available time slots for a set of resources. This is where you can control the start and end times of the day as well as the time intervals to book.
You must have at least one schedule defined and every resource must belong to a schedule.
When installing Booked, a default schedule will be created with out of the box settings. From the Schedules menu option you can view and edit attributes of the current schedules.
Layouts #
Layouts define the general availability of the resources on a schedule. For example, a schedule may have a layout with available slots every 30 minutes between 9am – 5pm. Each schedule can have it’s own layout.
Each schedule must have a layout defined for it. Clicking the Change Layout link will bring up the layout editor. Here you can create and change the time slots that are available for reservation and blocked from reservation.
Schedules can be displayed starting on any day of the week and for any number of days. For a schedule to display starting on the current day, set the Starts On option to Today.
Fixed Slot Layouts #
The most common way to set up bookable times is using a standard fixed slot layout. An example of a fixed slot layout could be the ability to book on the hour or half hour, every weekday, between 8am and 5pm.
There is no restriction on the slot times, but you must provide slot values for all 24 hours of the day, one per line. The time format must be in 24 hour time. You can optionally provide a display label for any or all slots.
Below the slot configuration windows is a slot creation wizard. This will set up available slots at the given interval between the start and end times without having to manually enter all of the times.
Different Availability per Day of the Week #
Fixed slot layouts can vary each day of the week. This can be enabled in the layout editor by unchecking the Use the same layout for all days option. When setting slot layouts per day, slots for all 24 hours must be defined for each day.
Labeling a Slot #
A slot without a label should be formatted like this: 10:25 – 16:50
A slot with a label should be formatted like this: 10:25 – 16:50 Schedule Period 4
Blocking Time #
To make an entire day unavailable, set the Blocked Time Slots to 00:00 – 24:00 and leave the Available Time Slots blank.
By default, reservations cannot begin or end in a blocked slot. You can change this and allow reservations to end during blocked slots for each schedule. This is helpful if you have people working at a facility past your standard closing time. Reservations still cannot start during a blocked slot.
Appointment Layouts #
Appointment bookings allow you to make very specific dates and times available instead of an fixed layout. This is useful for event or service booking, such as salon appointments or one time meetings.
You can create a fully customized schedule layout by switching to the appointment layout option. This will let you set specific times on specific dates to be available to book.
Switching to an appointment layout will remove all fixed layout slots.
Schedule Administrators #
A group of users may be set up with permission to manage schedules and all resources on those schedules.
Schedule Administrators have the same capabilities as Application Administrators for all resources on a schedule which the group is assigned to. They can change schedule details, black out times, manage and approve reservations.
Adding Schedule Administrators #
- As an Application Administrator, open Application Management -> Groups
- Add a new group for each set of schedules you want to manage
- Change the Role to include Schedule Admin
- Add users to the group – these will be people who have administrative rights for specific schedules
- Set the specific schedules that the group should have administrative rights to. These can be set by clicking the arrow next to the group Roles option, then choosing the schedules. Alternatively, open Application Management -> Schedules, and update each resource to set the Schedule Administrator.
Schedule Availability #
If a schedule should only be available for a limited period of time, such as a season or semester, you can set the schedule availability. No reservations will be allowed outside of the availability date range.
By default a schedule is available all year round.
Limiting the Total Number of Concurrent Reservations #
By default there is no limit to the total number of reservations occurring at the same time on a schedule.
If you want to ensure that there are never more than 2 resources booked at the same time on a schedule, for example, you would set the maximum number of resources reserved concurrently to 2.
This is useful if you have a single room with all of your equipment and can only allow a certain number of people in at a time.
This setting does not apply to application administrators.
Limiting the Number of Resources per Reservation #
By default there is no limit to the number of resources that can be booked on a single reservation.
If you want to limit the total number of resources that someone can book as part of a single reservation, you can set the maximum number of reservations per reservation.
This setting does not apply to application administrators.
Public Schedule Visibility #
By default only logged in users can view schedules, but this can be changed with some configuration updates.
In Application Configuration the privacy section contains two settings – view.schedules and view.reservations.
view.schedules will allow unauthenticated users to browse your schedules, though they will need to log in to book any resources. A new menu option on the login page will be displayed to let users open the schedule in a read only mode.
view.reservations lets you control whether or not unauthenticated users will be able to see reservation details from the read only schedule. By default, only available and unavailable times are shown. Setting this to true will show full reservation details to unauthenticated users.
Starting with version 3.5 of Booked, each resource must be configured to be publicly visible for it to show up on the public schedule and calendar views.
