Every Cal.com dashboard looks a little different; this isn't surprising since there are many approaches to appointment setting. Some users have a single bookable event and availability schedule, while others have multiple. When you're starting your calendar scheduling journey, sometimes it can be challenging to figure out how to approach things. This is where our blog comes in. We have product features, tutorials, and articles like this one that provide a little extra information while you get your sea legs.
Today, we’ll be explaining the advantage of using multiple availability schedules. This is something that might seem a little bit overwhelming at first, but soon it'll make sense.
Creating Multiple Availability Schedules
When you first made your Cal.com account, you were prompted to create an availability schedule. However, this isn't the only availability schedule you can create. You can create as many availability schedules as you need. Even though you will always have one default availability schedule, it can be overridden on an event type basis. Ultimately, what this means is that each of your bookable events can actually have its own separate schedule.
Example: Sarah the Investment Consultant
Let's go over a couple of examples of how this could work. Let's start by imagining a user named Sarah. Sarah is self-employed. She uses Cal.com to book meetings with her clients. As an investment consultant, Sarah offers three primary booking types. She has one event type for regular clients, another event type for speaking engagements, and a third bookable event for free introductory sessions.
Sarah's Scheduling Preferences
Now, Sarah likes to organize her calendar in a specific way; she prefers to do all introductory work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Sarah also wants to offer the maximum availability for bookings to her regular clients, so she wants to ensure they have access to her throughout the working week. Sarah also loves public speaking, but she really only has time for that towards the end of the week and during part of the weekend.
With this in mind, Sarah has created several availability schedules. Her main availability schedule runs Monday through Friday, and it's for meetings with her regular clients. Her secondary availability schedule is Fridays and Saturdays, and it's for speaking engagements. Finally, Sarah's third availability schedule is Mondays and Tuesdays, and it's when she does all of her introductory free sessions.
Having three different availability schedules, each for a different appointment type, makes a big difference for Sarah. It means that not only is she able to offer a wide variety of appointment slots, but she's still able to protect her own sense of equilibrium by ensuring that specific bookings only happen on specific days. This keeps things simple and means Sarah is always prepared for the week ahead. The use of multiple availability schedules means that Sarah knows the following will always occur:
New clients will only have sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Regular clients will have maximum choice availability running Mondays through Fridays.
All public speaking gigs will happen on Fridays and Saturdays.
Not everyone is Sarah; some people don't need three availability schedules, but that doesn't mean they can't benefit from two. In the next section, we're going to look at a scenario where a user only has two event types. The first event type is going to be their primary event type and is synced to their default availability schedule. The second event type is a minor event type—it's not the majority of their business; however, it benefits from having its own availability schedule.
Ben's Scheduling Strategy
Meet Ben; he's a fantastic barber. He's respected and well-known—in fact, people travel from other communities to get their haircuts from him. Ben offers two booking types: one is for regular haircuts, and the other is reserved for sensory-friendly haircuts. About 20% of Ben's bookings are for these haircuts, and they require a specific setup. Ben has found that it's most efficient to do all of his sensory haircuts on Thursday.
This means that he's able to provide specialty clients with an environment that they're comfortable in, while also simplifying his own workflow. With this in mind, Ben has created two availability schedules. His main availability schedule is for his regular clientele. This availability schedule runs Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. This is the schedule that his main bookable event type pulls from.
Ben's secondary availability schedule is connected to the sensory-friendly bookings, and it only offers time slots on Thursday.
Both of Ben's availability schedules are synced to the same calendar. This means that he doesn't have to worry about any double bookings or scheduling errors. It also helps to ensure that all the sensory-friendly appointments are booked on a day when he's able to fully accommodate the needs of the people who book them. This makes it easier for Ben to balance both of his client types so that he can continue to give back without compromising efficiency.
I hope that these two examples have helped to illustrate how custom availability works and the advantages of multiple booking schedules. If you already use this feature and have tips that you'd love to share, give us a shout on X/Twitter and let us know. Thanks for reading, and as always, happy scheduling!
