Availability engine — no slot shown in error
The calculation that crosses hours, breaks, holidays, bank holidays and existing appointments to offer only what is genuinely free.
The problem
A slot offered in error costs more than a missing one. The client books, you discover the clash, you have to ring to move it. You have just turned a successful booking into an apology — and the client has worked out that your online calendar is not reliable.
The trap is that availability is never a simple subtraction. A 2pm slot is only free if you work that day, if it is not a break, if you are not on holiday, if the service fits before closing, if its preparation time does not bite into the previous appointment, and if the room it takes up is free too.
As long as those rules live in your head, they are only applied when you are available to apply them. The availability engine applies them every time the calendar is displayed, including at three in the morning.
How it works in Kagenda
On every request for slots, Kagenda rebuilds the day rather than reading a pre-made list. The calculation always runs the same steps.
- It starts from your hoursThe business's typical week, with its several breaks a day. If you have defined named sets of hours — school holidays, alternate weeks — the one that applies to the date requested is used.
- It removes what is closedHolidays, one-off or annual days off, bank holidays. For a service with its own hours, only its own slots are kept.
- It removes what is already takenExisting bookings, with their preparation time before and tidying time after. An exclusive service blocks everything else on its slot; a resource in use removes the slots that depend on it.
- It cuts up what remainsThe remaining time is cut at the step you have chosen, then filtered by the minimum notice and the maximum horizon. What comes out of that is bookable, without reservation.
Who it helps
Frequently asked questions
Are bank holidays handled automatically?
They are taken into account by the availability calculation. If you work certain bank holidays, you can open the date explicitly; the reverse holds for an exceptional closure, which is declared as a day off.
What happens if I change my hours mid-week?
The new slots shown follow immediately. Appointments already taken do not move: they stay in your calendar even if they fall outside the new hours, so that you decide for yourself what to do with them.
Can a service be bookable only on certain days?
Yes, each service can have its own slots, independent of the business's hours. That is the classic case of the practitioner who only runs one type of session on Tuesday afternoons.
Does the calculation take rooms and equipment into account?
Yes, when the service declares the resources it takes up. A slot where the necessary room is already booked is not offered, even if you are free.