Creating a Schedule

Schedules are how the plugin determines which dates and times your events can be booked on. Each event has a schedules assigned to it (multiple events can share the same schedule). When the booking calendar is created, the schedule is used to determine which dates are valid for booking, and what times of day can be booked.

Schedules can be created when creating or editing and event, or they can be created separately by visiting Bookings -> Schedules and choosing “New Schedule” from the left submenu.

Schedule Components

Each schedule consists of a number of sections, separated into to categories – Active Times and Exceptions.

Active Times are the dates and times when the event is available to be booked. You could, for example, have an event which is active Mon-Fri, with bookings available every hour from 9am-5pm.

Exceptions are dates to specifically exclude – for example, if you set Dec 25th as an Exception, then even if that date is a Wednesday and the schedule normally allows bookings on that day, it will not be possible to book.

How Schedules Work

To determine if bookings are allowed on a particular day, the system will check to see if there is an Active Time which covers the date – each one will be checked until a match is found, or there are none left to check. If there is a match, then Exceptions will be checked as well – if any of the Exceptions match the date, then bookings will not be allowed. If at least one Active Time and no Exceptions match, bookings are allowed.

The system will then use the Start Time, End Time, and Frequency from the matched Active Time to determine when during the day bookings can be placed.

Schedule Sections

When you add a section (Active or Exception), the section editor will open with the same set of options:

Active Dates

These settings determine the date range covered by the schedule section. If the “Event runs forever” toggle is enabled, the event runs from the Start Date and has no End Date, otherwise it runs from the Start Date to the End Date. Start and End date are inclusive.

Time of Day

These settings determine what times of day the event is available to be booked at. If the settings are set to a Start Time of 9am, and End Time of 12pm, and a frequency of 1 Hour, then events will be bookable at 9am, 10am, 11am, and 12pm.

Limits

Limits allow for fine control over which days within the specified date range are valid for the event. For example, you may want the event to only be available on weekdays, or only during certain months, etc. These controls give you a great deal of flexibility in setting up your event schedule:

Days of the week: If enabled, the event will only be available on the weekdays which are checked (Mon, Fri, etc).

Days of the Month: If enabled, the event will only be available on the specified days of the month (1st, 16th, etc).

Weeks of the Month: If enabled, the event is only available on the specified week of the month. Usually combined with Days of the Week to set up an event on, for example, the 2nd Monday of each month.

Months of the Year: If enabled, the event is only available during the months which are checked.

Years: If enabled, the event is only available during the specified years.

More Help

There are some guides in the How To section of the documentation on how to set up schedules for various situations.