Can I overlap appointments

[CandiCV]

Im considering Square for my online booking. I own a hair salon and curently use mindbody. My issue is that Im having a hard time finding an online booking service that will allow me to double book appointments. ie Mindbody will allow me to set application and finish times. a color process takes 90 minutes. On mind body I can set the first 30 minutes for applying and the last 30 minutes for finishing. this leaves the middle 30 minutes open (while their color processes) so another client can book a different 30 minute service. The issue with mind body is that I cant overlap appointments.

My question is... Does Square booking also allow me to seperate process and finish times so that clients can overlap appointments? Can two client book during overlaping time slots so that while one is processing, another can book a different 90 minute color service. ie. Barbara books a color retouch (90 minutes) at 1:00 (set to be done and out by 2:30) while Stacey also books a color retouch (90 minutes) at for 1:30 (set to be done and out by 3:00).

[katieand · Accepted solution]

Hi @CandiCV - Thanks for sharing all of this.

At this time, you cannot set overlapping appointments on Square Appointments. This is something we've heard about from a lot of our Appointments merchants, especially those like yourself who provide services in the beauty/hair industry. Our product manager for Appointments @Devon is tracking these requests frequently so I'll be sure to share this with him 🙂

[kateyg82]

Has this feature been added in yet? Overlapping appointments is a key consideration for me if I am to switch to Square Appointments.

[nika]

Hey @kateyg82- While your clients don't have the option to book overlapping appointments, you can book one over the other from the calendar on your Dashboard.

Apologies for the inconvenience here. We know this has been a long awaited feature request, so we'll continue to track and pass it along to our Developers.

[LaciLamb]

My question is since 2018 has it changed and now you’re able to double book or overlap appointments during a processing time ?

[AshleyK]

@LaciLamb welcome to the seller community and thanks for asking! You still cannot double book an appointment or book overlapping appointments. So, a single appointment slot can only be booked by one client. Once an available time slot is booked, other clients will only see the next available time.

One way to potentially work around this is to create another staff member with the same availability, or similar availability, which will allow you to have appointments overlap one another. 

[klsywllms]

Would love to be able to use double booking feature but I need to be able to set final duration of service processing time to 0 minutes -- I book hair appointments a-la-carte (for example color and a haircut is 2 separate services) so having a final duration time doesn't allow two different client's appointments to line up correctly on the schedule. Please make this an option ASAP! 

[juji]

Hi! I actually have an issue related to this - I do not want any overlapping appointments, however, clients have been able to select times during already booked or confirmed appointments which causes me to have to waste time by declining the service and asking them to reschedule. I can't seem to find how to suggest a rescheduled time - is this a possibility?

[AshleyK]

@juji I'm really sorry to hear the frustration regarding your overlapping appointments! That shouldn't be happening, so I would check to see if you have staff members with overlapping availability times or if your service durations need to be extended. I do see how a suggested reschedule time would be nice for both yourself and customers should a slot need to be moved, so I will mark the feedback as well. 

[juji]

Hi Ashley, thanks for your reply! I only have one staff member so i know it wouldn’t be other members. i will change the processing time to see if that works. I have extra time slotted for all my services, though, so would that really matter? How do i edit the ability to have overlapping appointments? i can’t seem to find it under any of the categories to edit. 

[nika]

Hey @juji! Jumping in for Ashley today. Looks like she put in a word to our Appointments team to get some clarification so we'll give you the run down once we hear back from them. Thanks for your patience!