Add Buffer time between meetings

Our padding feature is designed to give you some extra time before and after each appointment, ensuring you won't be booked back-to-back. This can be helpful if you need a moment to set up for your next appointment or jot down some meeting notes.

This feature is available on our Individual, Professional and Team plans.

• How it works?
• How to add buffer time between appointments 
• Why we include padding before and after a booking
• Alternatives to the padding setting

How it works?

Padding is tied to the start time of each booking -  the increments of time that we divide your availability into. On a new booking page, your start time of each booking defaults to 1 hour, so we divide your time into 60-minute blocks. You can edit your start time of each booking to be anything from 10 minutes to 24 hours under Availability rules. If you feel restricted by the padding options, adjust your start time of each booking. 

• Padding may reduce your availability on your booking page, as the page will only show time slots that can accommodate the booking duration, plus padding before and after the appointment. 
• If you are taking 1-hour bookings with 30 minutes of padding, we will only display start times when we find at least 2 hours of bookable time on your linked calendar (30 minutes + 60 minutes + 30 minutes = 2 hours). 
• Longer padding can reduce the availability on your booking page - try adjusting your Availability Rules to offer smaller increments of padding.
• Padding will also be applied to existing events on your linked calendar, so you're never booked right after another commitment.

How to add padding between bookings 

1. To include some buffer time on your booking page, edit your booking page and head over to Additional options.
2. Next, click on Availability rules, and then choose "Add padding between bookings."
3. Pick the amount of buffer time you'd like to add between appointments.
4. Don't forget to save all your changes, and then make a test booking to ensure everything is set up just the way you want it.

Why we include padding before and after a booking

Padding before and after an appointment prevents you from ever being booked back to back. 

If you take a 30-minute booking at 9:30 am, 30 minutes of padding will:

• Prevent anyone booking from 9:00-9:30
• Prevent anyone from booking 9:30-10:00
• Allow a booking at 8:30 or 10:30

Alternatives to using padding

• Try Calendar Managed Availability where you can specify slots in your calendar to create your own padding
• Set your meeting duration to include your padding - for example, set a 1-hour booking duration, but in your booking page intro advertise your sessions as 45 minutes. To do this, you'll need to remove all references to the shorthand code {DURATION} in confirmation and reminder emails. 

For further questions, contact our team at support@youcanbook.me.

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