Requests: set up your booking calendar

Set up who customers can book, for what, and when. Your bots and Add booking on the Bookings tab then use the same calendar: a 60-minute service blocks 60 minutes of its staff member's day, nobody is booked in a break or on a day off, and nothing is booked outside your opening hours. Only Owners and Admins of the workspace can change it.

Open Requests → Settings (/app/requests/settings/calendar). Settings has four tabs: Calendar, Staff, Services and Reminders and notices (what that one does). Until the calendar is on, each of the first three shows Set up bookings with its four steps and how many are done: Opening hours, Staff, Services, Switch the calendar on. Select a step to open it.

A service business is also offered this path on Today: the card Take bookings with the button Set up bookings (or Continue setting up bookings). Not now hides the card in this browser.

If a bot already books for you

When OmniBrand set up a booking bot for you, the tabs show Your bot already has a calendar. Select Copy from your bot: its staff (for example the dentists), its services with the appointment length, how far ahead people can book and its opening hours are copied into this calendar. Check them on each tab. Your bot keeps working exactly as before until you switch this calendar on.

Step 1: opening hours and booking rules (Calendar tab)

1. Under Opening hours, switch each day Open or Closed. For an open day, set From and To. Select Add hours for a split day (for example 09:00 to 13:00 and 16:00 to 21:00; up to four ranges a day). A range that ends before it starts runs past midnight (18:00 to 02:00). Copy Monday to every open day copies Monday's hours. Times are in the workspace time zone shown in the text (change it in Settings > Workspace). Until you save them, the hours are only a suggestion, and the box These are suggested hours and are not saved yet. Change them if you need to, then press Save calendar. says so (step 1 shows To do until then).
2. Under When a customer books, choose Confirm at once or Approve each request (see Bookings for approving).
3. Under Booking rules:

• Time between start times: 5 to 120 minutes. With 30 minutes, customers are offered 09:00, 09:30, 10:00 and so on. Each booking still lasts as long as its service.
• Minimum notice: from No notice to 48 hours. Customers cannot book a time sooner than this; your team can still add a booking for now.
• How far ahead customers can book (days): 1 to 365.
• Currency of prices: the currency your service prices are shown in. It starts as your organisation's own currency (from the Country in Company details, else from your time zone), for example PKR in Pakistan; change it here.

4. Select Save calendar. You see Calendar saved. A problem shows in red above the button, for example "Monday: two time ranges overlap. Change one of them.", and nothing is saved until you fix it. While anything on this tab is not saved, Save calendar stays in view at the bottom of the window, with You have changes that are not saved.

Closed days (at the bottom of the Calendar tab) are holidays when the whole business is closed. Pick the First day and the Last day (leave it empty for one day), add a Note (optional) and select Add days off. Remove takes a closed day away again.

Step 2: staff (Staff tab)

1. Select Add staff member.
2. Fill in Name (for example Dr Sara Haddad), pick a Colour, and leave Customers can book this staff member on.
3. How many bookings at the same time: 1 for a person; more for a room or a table that takes several at once.
4. Leave Works the opening hours on, or switch it off and set their own Working hours per day, the same way as the opening hours.
5. Under Breaks, switch a day on and set the break (for example 13:00 to 14:00). Nobody can book that person then.
6. Select Save staff member. For a new person the window stays open and says Saved. You can add their days off below now, or press Done. Add Days off: First day, Last day, Note (optional), then Add days off. Press Done to close the window.

The list shows each person's colour, Opening hours or Own hours, how many at once, and how many days off are planned. Edit changes them; Remove asks first and keeps the bookings already made, with the person's name on them. While the calendar is on, the last active staff member cannot be removed or switched off: add someone else first, or switch the calendar off.

Step 3: services (Services tab)

1. Select Add service.
2. Fill in Name (for example Whitening) and Length (minutes): 5 to 720.
3. Free time after it (minutes): time kept free after each booking, for example to clean up (0 to 240; 0 for none).
4. Price in the currency of the Calendar tab, for example 200 or 49.50. Leave it empty for no price.
5. Under Who can do it, tick the staff members who do this service. Tick nobody and every staff member can.
6. Leave Customers can book this service on and select Save service.

Step 4: switch the calendar on (Calendar tab)

At the top of the Calendar tab, under Calendar, switch on Use this calendar for bookings. It needs at least one active staff member and one active service; until then the switch is greyed out and the tab says what to add. Once it is on you see The calendar is on, and from then on your bots offer your staff and services with their own lengths, and Add booking books on this calendar.

To go back, switch it off and confirm with Switch off. Your bots return to the settings OmniBrand set up for them; bookings already made stay as they are.

Good to know

• Times customers are offered come from the service's length plus its free time after it, the staff member's own hours minus breaks and days off, the closed days, the minimum notice and how far ahead people can book.
• Renaming a staff member renames their upcoming bookings too. Removing a service or a person never deletes a booking.
• Members who are not owners or admins see a sentence saying only owners and admins can change these settings.