How to change availability for online booking?
Short answerChange online booking availability by editing your weekly working hours, adding one time blocks for days off, adjusting lead time and buffers, and then previewing what customers see. Changes affect only future openings, so check existing appointments separately before cutting hours.
The explanation
Most booking tools split availability into two layers. Weekly hours are the repeating pattern, such as Monday to Friday, eight to four. Overrides handle exceptions, like a day off, a half day or an extra Saturday. Keep the weekly pattern accurate and use overrides for anything temporary.
Then check the rules around it. Lead time stops last minute requests, buffers add drive time between jobs, and daily limits cap how many jobs one person takes. If openings look wrong, one of these usually explains why.
Before saving, look at the public page as a customer would, and review appointments already on the calendar in the period you are changing. Reducing hours does not move existing visits. If you must cancel some, contact those customers directly.
Steps
- Edit the repeating weekly hours for each day and each staff member.
- Add one time blocks or overrides for days off and special hours.
- Review lead time, buffers and daily job limits.
- Preview the public booking page as a customer.
- Check existing visits in the changed period and contact anyone affected.
What to watch for
- Editing weekly hours when you only needed a one day override.
- Forgetting that existing visits stay on the calendar.
How Apex does it
In progress
Part of this is built. The rest is not. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex is designed to set lead time and blackout dates, technician working hours with overrides and buffer time between jobs. Lead time and blackout dates are built; technician hours and buffers are in progress.
- BK13Lead time and blackout dates(Built)
- SC35Tech working hours and availability overrides(In progress)
- BK14Buffer time between jobs(In progress)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: owners type it, or a close variant, into search boxes. It was returned by public search suggestions (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo) when we collected them on 2026-10-06; the exact phrase seen was “how to change availability on acuity scheduling?”. We do not have search volumes.