Custom Availability
Fine-tune exactly when customers can book — per service, per staff member, and per location — with advanced scheduling rules.
How Availability Works
Advik Booking resolves availability through a layered rule system. When a customer picks a time slot, the plugin checks all applicable rules in this order:
Business Hours
The global open hours for your operation.
Location Hours
Override hours for a specific branch or location.
Staff Schedule
Individual availability per team member.
Breaks & Buffers
Lunch breaks and per-service buffer time.
Blackout Dates
One-off closures like public holidays.
Existing Bookings
Already-booked slots are automatically blocked.
A slot is only shown to the customer if all layers allow it. This means you can have broad business hours but restrict certain staff or locations to narrower windows.
Business Hours
Business hours define the outer boundary for all bookings. No appointment can be scheduled outside these hours regardless of other settings.
- Go to Advik Booking → Settings → Business Hours.
- For each day of the week, toggle it Open or Closed.
- Set the Open Time and Close Time per day. You can set different hours for each day — e.g., shorter hours on Saturday.
- Click Save Business Hours.
{
"monday": { "open": "09:00", "close": "18:00" },
"tuesday": { "open": "09:00", "close": "18:00" },
"wednesday": { "open": "09:00", "close": "18:00" },
"thursday": { "open": "09:00", "close": "20:00" },
"friday": { "open": "09:00", "close": "20:00" },
"saturday": { "open": "10:00", "close": "16:00" },
"sunday": { "closed": true }
}
Staff Schedules
Each staff member can have their own working schedule — independent of the global business hours. This is useful for part-time staff or specialists who work only on certain days.
Staff member schedules are intersected with business hours — a staff member cannot be available outside the business open hours even if their personal schedule allows it.
- Go to Advik Booking → Staff → [Select Member] → Schedule.
- Toggle which days the staff member works.
- Set start and end times per working day.
- Use Custom Date Overrides to set one-off availability — e.g., a staff member working on a normally-closed Sunday.
- Click Save Schedule.
Personal hours
Different start/end per day per staff member.
Date overrides
Exceptional one-off availability windows.
Multi-timezone
Staff can be in different timezones; booking forms auto-convert.
Leave management
Block entire date ranges as vacation or sick leave.
Location Availability
If your business operates from multiple branches or offers home-visit services, you can assign separate availability windows to each location.
- Go to Advik Booking → Locations → [Select Location] → Hours.
- Enable Override Business Hours and set location-specific open/close times.
- Assign staff members to the location. Only staff assigned to a location will appear as available choices when a customer selects that location.
- Optionally set a Maximum Simultaneous Bookings per slot to prevent overbooking at a physical space.
Home Visit / Mobile services: Set a location as type mobile and the booking form will ask customers for their address instead of showing a branch selection.
Breaks & Lunch Periods
Break periods block out specific time windows within a working day. Customers cannot book into a break slot.
- Go to Advik Booking → Settings → Breaks (global breaks) or to an individual staff schedule for per-staff breaks.
- Click Add Break and set a name (e.g., "Lunch"), start time, end time, and which days it recurs.
- For non-recurring breaks (e.g., a one-off team meeting), use a Blackout Date with a partial-day window instead.
Blackout Dates
Blackout dates completely block booking for a specific date or range — useful for public holidays, renovation periods, or staff retreats.
- Go to Advik Booking → Availability → Blackout Dates → Add New.
- Select the Start Date and End Date (can be the same day for a single-day closure).
- Choose the Scope:
- Global — applies to all services and all staff.
- Service — applies only to a specific service.
- Staff — applies only to a specific staff member.
- Location — applies only to a specific location.
- Add an optional Reason (shown in the admin calendar view).
- Click Save. The blocked slots disappear immediately from the booking form.
Existing bookings that fall within a newly-created blackout date are not automatically cancelled. You must review and cancel them manually from Advik Booking → Appointments.
Booking Lead Time & Limits
Control how far in advance customers must book and how far into the future the calendar is open.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Lead Time | 2 hours | Minimum notice required before a booking can be made. |
| Maximum Future Days | 60 days | How far ahead customers can book. |
| Max Bookings per Day | Unlimited | Cap on total daily appointments across all staff. |
| Max Bookings per Slot | 1 | Concurrent appointments per time slot. |
| Allow Same-Day Booking | Enabled | Whether customers can book for today. |
Find these settings under Advik Booking → Settings → Scheduling Rules.
Priority Rules
When multiple availability rules apply to the same slot, Advik Booking follows this priority order — higher number = higher priority (overrides lower):
Business Hours (lowest)
Base layer — always evaluated.
Location Hours
Overrides business hours for that location.
Staff Schedule
Narrows or expands within location hours.
Breaks
Always blocks regardless of schedule.
Blackout Dates (highest)
Overrides everything — slot is unavailable.