What are buffers?
Buffers allow you to add contingency time before and after services. For example, buffers may be used to allow for preparation, sanitization or travel time between bookings.
How to add or edit buffers on your services
Hover over Setup and click Manage services
Click the pencil icon next to the service
Click Availability
Under Buffers, select the duration of the buffer(s) for that service
Click Save service
Best practice
In order to ensure that available times in your external booking flow and in your internal appointment screen display correctly, we recommend the below settings.
As a best practice, we also recommend that Time increments to display in availability under Booking tools > Customize your booking flow match the general settings.
If you add a buffer of 5 minutes to any service, make sure that your interval increments in your general settings are 5 minutes or 1 minute.
If you add a buffer of 10 minutes, make sure that you interval increments are 10 minutes, 5 minutes or 1 minute.
If you add a buffer of 15 minutes, make sure that your interval increments are 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes or 1 minute.
To also note
Buffers won't apply to your first available slot
If you add a buffer before the start time of a service, this won't be applied to bookings which are made at the start of your resources working hours. For example, if a service has a buffer of 10 mins added to it and your resource working hours started at 9am, then the first booking could still be made at 9am, not 9:10am.
Buffers won't apply to your last available slot
If you add a buffer after the finish time of a service, this won't be applied to bookings made at the end of the day. For example, if your service has a duration of 1 hour with a 10 minute buffer afterwards, and your resource working hours are 9am-5pm, then a booking can still be made at 4pm.
Buffers won't carry over when modifying existing bookings
You can edit a booking and change the service. If the existing booking was for a service that didn't have buffers, then modifying it to a service that does have buffers, won't make any difference. The buffers will not carry over if the original booking did not have buffers.
If you want the buffers to carry over, we recommend modifying the booking as usual and extending it to consider the buffer time, or, cancel and make a new booking.
If you have any feedback we would love to hear it 👂