Prevent Clients Ordering Last Minute Online

Modified on Fri, 30 Sep, 2022 at 3:15 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 and cancel services online, called "Booking Restrictions". The "Company Booking Restriction" prevents clients from booking services online within a given number of “hours of the service start time” or “days of the service date”.

You can set up booking / cancel restrictions in three places:

at company level (shown here)
“service item group” level and
“service item” level

Tip: When using "Hours" the restriction is on a rolling 24 hour clock, for example, at 4PM today, you CANNOT request a service for 3PM tomorrow, however, "Days" resets at midnight, meaning at 4PM today you CAN book a 9AM service for tomorrow.

The coordinating setting, Service Booking Cut Off Time, overwrites the standard midnight cutoff and so you can set own cutoff time for Requests, 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.

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 and cancellations (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 Can I Prevent Clients from Requesting Services Last Minute with Booking Restrictions?

Navigation: Admin > Settings > Service Request Settings > Restrictions

In "Company Booking Restriction", enter a number, then select “hours" or "days”.
- “Hours before cut off time” prevents Online Service Requests within a number of hours before service start time.
- “Days before cut off time” prevents Online Service Requests within a number of days before service start time.
Click "Update."

Set a restriction on when clients can place bookings in the Portal in dog daycare software

With “Company Booking Restriction” set to “1 day before cut off time”, below is an example of the error message received by the client in the client portal when trying to book a “same day” service.

Error message in client portal in dog walker software