Add Booking Restriction to Service Groups

Modified on Wed, 02 Nov 2022 at 08:09 PM

Once you have allowed clients to request services online through the Client Portal, you also have some settings to limit when clients can request services and cancel services online, called "Booking Restrictions." 

You can set up time constraints in three places:
  1. at company level (for all services)
  2. “service item group” level (for all services in the group)
  3. service item” level (for an individual service)

Note: These Group Booking Restrictions are applied to ALL services in a group. To make these changes to service items individually, see Add Booking Cut Off Time to a Service and Add Cancellation Cut Off Time to a Service.

"Booking Restrictions" can be set:
  • Using “hours” prevents clients from booking services through the Client Portal within the number of hours before the service start time that you specified.
  • Using “days” prevents clients from booking services through the Client Portal within the number of days of the date of the service that you specified.

Tip: When using "Hours" the restriction is on a rolling 24-hour clock. For example, if the "Booking Restriction" is set to 24 hours, at 4PM today your clients would NOT be able to book a service scheduled for 3PM tomorrow. However, "Days" resets at midnight, so if the "Booking Restriction" is set to 1 day, your client has until 11:59PM today to request a service scheduled for any time tomorrow. 
If a client logs in to book the service after the "Booking Restriction" has passed, a warning message appears to explain that the booking is too short notice. This message can be customized to your own wording.


Note: The coordinating setting, Service Booking Cut Off Time, overwrites the standard midnight cutoff and so you can set own cutoff time for bookings, for example 9PM.

How do I allow clients to book online?
You will need to toggle Request Services to ON to enable online booking. You can turn the settings on and off at any time, adjusting the settings either provides clients with a Request Services button when they log into the portal or removes it, preventing them from Requesting Services.

What is a Service Item Group?
Service Item Groups combine service items to subtotal the value of services in a specific category in the Schedule Stats Report and to filter your schedule to view only items in a certain group, such as training or vacation care. Grouping services makes requesting services easier in the Client Portal.


Note: With Booking Restrictions, the more specific restriction overrides the more general restriction, so the "Service" level setting overrides all other settings, the "Service Item Group" level overrides "Company". If you want the same Booking Restriction for ALL Services, only set the "Company" restriction and remove other settings. 
However, if you have some services for which you'd prefer more notice for requests (for example Boarding or Overnights), you can override the Booking Restrictions for those services at the "Service Item Group" or "Service Item" level, leaving the rest of your services to be controlled by your "Company" Booking Restriction settings.


How Do I Add a Service Booking Restriction to a Service Item Group?

Navigation: Admin > Services > Service Item Groups

Step 1

  • Click the Service Item Group to edit, eg. "1. Walking."
  • Enter how many days or hours you wish to limit your clients to, eg. 1 day means clients can only request services for the following day or later, but not book services for that day.
  • Click "Update."
Note: Changes apply to all walking services that have been put in the "1. Walking" service item group.

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