Block time for a person or the whole location

Block time makes a person, or the whole location, unavailable for a short window without editing weekly hours, asking for time off or adding a closure. Use it for a lunch, a late start, an admin hour or a training morning.

While a window is blocked, nobody can book it, at the desk or online. Nothing that is already booked moves or is cancelled for you.

For days away, use time off, which needs approval. For a whole location shut on certain dates, add a closure. Block time is for the in-between: hours rather than days.

1. You need access to the appointment book. An owner can block anyone and the whole location. A team member who signs in can block only their own time, from the staff app, when their account allows it. They cannot change a colleague's block or a block for the whole location.
2. Know who the block is for: one person, or the whole branch.

Block time from the diary

1. Open Book and choose the location.
2. Press Block time in the header. You can also click an empty spot in a person's lane and, at the top of the booking sheet, choose Block time instead of Walk-in or Appointment. The block sheet opens with that person and time already filled in.
3. Under Who, choose One person (and pick them) or Whole branch.
4. Under Quick pick, choose Next hour, Lunch 13:00–14:00, Rest of today, Whole day, Tomorrow or Custom…. For a custom block set Day, From and To, or tick All day.
5. Under Reason, optionally pick Break, Admin, Training, Personal, Out of office or Other. It is a fixed list, and only your team sees it, in the diary. It never appears on your booking page, in messages to clients or in calendar feeds.
6. Under Repeat, keep Doesn't repeat, or choose Every weekday name or Every weekday.
7. Read What this affects. If visits are already booked in that window it says Already booked in this window and how many. They stay booked, and you move, reassign or cancel each one yourself from the diary.
8. Press the button at the bottom, which reads for example Block 13:00–14:00 or Block with the day. The diary shows the block as a hatched band labelled with the reason.

Change or remove a block

1. Click the hatched band in the diary. The window is now Edit blocked time.
2. Press Save changes, or Delete block to remove it.

Block your own time from the staff app

1. Open the Today tab and press Block time.
2. Choose Next 30 min, Next hour, Rest of today or Custom… with From and To, and optionally a reason.
3. Press Block time. The app confirms Time blocked. and tells you how many booked visits stay booked. The block only covers you, and it shows in the diary like any other.

• The blocked hours simply do not appear as times to book, on your booking page or when booking over WhatsApp. They only see that the time is unavailable. They never see the reason.
• If everyone who could do the service is blocked for the whole day, that day shows as Unavailable on the booking page (not as Closed or Full), and the page does not offer to join a waitlist for it.
• Calendar files and messages that clients receive are built from their appointments, so a block never appears in them.
• Clients who already have a visit in the window keep it until you move or cancel it.

• Expecting a block to move booked visits. It never does. Open each one from the diary.
• Using Block time for several days away. Use time off, which is approved and tracked against the allowance.
• Using it to close the whole location on a holiday. Add a closure on the branch instead, so it can also repeat every year.
• Looking for a place to write your own reason. The reasons are a fixed list, so nothing private can end up in one. Only your team sees it.

The availability, time off and closures articles explain the other ways to make time unavailable.