Adding buffer times gives your staff time to prep for the next appointment or take care of important tasks in between, like cleaning up or documenting a client's progress. Using this feature will affect the time slots available for services in the schedule.
The buffer time can be specified on three levels, with increasing priority (the last listed has the highest priority):
These limits apply to end customers; hosts are not bound by them and can book reservations back-to-back despite having buffer times set.
To edit an individual service's buffer times, click Appointments > Services > edit a service and scroll to Timing.
To preview your changes and test out what your customers will see, click Schedule > click the Checkout page.
To make these changes for all services assigned to one board, click Appointments > Boards > edit the board in question > scroll to Buffer time.
To do this for all services assigned to all boards, click Appointments > Schedule > Actions > Appointment Settings > scroll to Buffer Time.
Overlapping buffer times
Buffer times of two different reservations can overlap!
Example 1: If both reservations have a buffer time of 10 minutes, then the minimal allowed gap between them is 10 minutes (and not 20)
Example 2: If one reservation has buffer time of 25 minutes and the other 10 minutes, then the minimal allowed gap between them is 25 minutes
Time blocks
On the other hand, time blocks for staff/venue are "sacred," and no buffer time can overlap them.
Example:
Let's have a time block from 2pm to 3pm and a service that has a 10min buffer time at the start and a 20min buffer time at the end.
The soonest that service can start is 3:10pm
The latest the service can end is 1:40pm
These rules apply to end customers only (during checkout). Hosts can still create a reservation that starts immediately at 3pm or ends at 2pm.