Appointments - Limit services to only being available on certain dates

[JamesRS]

I am a shoemaker/repairer and want to more efficiently use the Appointments feature of Square.

I have three services;

1. Shoe Repair Drop Off

2. Shoe Repair Pick Up

3. Shoemaking Consultation/Fitting

I want to make the Drop Off service limited to availability but not the other services.

How can I book out the availability for one service and not the other two?

I have looked at the Resources option but that doesn't seem to work. I could maybe add another fake staff member just for Drop Offs and limit their availability but then I have to manage two or more calendars. 

It would be good if Services could have an availability option or if Resources could include 'time' as an option.

Please let me know if I am missing something or if not please add this to feature requests.

Cheers, James

[Seamus]

Hey @JamesRS,

Thanks for reaching out.

I'm struggling to think of any elegant workarounds here, and to some extent Square Appointments may not be the best solution for you here - however let me first try and learn a bit more about your situation.

• If "Shoe Repair Pick Up" has unlimited availability - eg your customers can pick up their shoes whenever you're open - is there any reason it needs to be listed as a service? You could just put in the listing for the drop off service that pick up can be any time you're open, once informed the repair has been completed. 
• A consultation does feel like the intended sort of service Appointments was designed to book in as a service with an allotted time slot - what's the reason you wouldn't be putting this into the general calendar flow and managing your available time around both drop offs and consultations?

Cheers!

[JamesRS]

Hi Seamus, 

Thanks for the reply.

1. I am not open to the public all the time. (I'd prefer to be just open by appointment at all times if possible).

2. I have to stop doing repair work while I make shoes and boots otherwise the work just piles up. For example I spend 2 weeks a month making boots and the other 2 weeks doing repairs. I want to not take appointments for new repair work while I'm making boots but still be available for pickups and consultations.

I hope that helps

[Seamus]

Hey @JamesRS,

Thanks for the additional context!

I think the kind of features you'd need here would be the ability to allocate certain services to certain weeks/timeframes in a month, where at the moment it's assumed that any appointment type is available on any given day. If you planned far enough in advance, you could potentially block out your making boots weeks via adding personal events to your calendar. 

However, this would mean you've blocked out drop-offs for those time frames too. I had a good look at this but unfortunately can't see a way to make Appointments operate in the way you're looking for - it's possible that Square Appointments may not be the best choice for your business here.

You could always get a second opinion from support - you can call support on 1800 760 137 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm Melbourne time), or contact us via online chat or email:

1. Sign in to your Square account

2. Head to our contact page https://squareup.com/help/au/en/contact

3. Go to "Other"" then "I don't see my issue"

4. Click "Message us" or "Email us"

For now we'll use this thread to better track demand for this feature from our sellers, and I'll pass your feedback to the Appointments team as well. Thanks for posting and letting us know more about your use case here!

[JamesRS]

Hi Seamus,

Thanks for your response.

I can definitely see a future Appointments feature being able to isolate either Resources or Services by time.

James

[itsfoxandbear]

I really want this option too.

I'm a photog and I want to have certain days available for consults and certain days available for sessions. 
I was using acuity and calendly previously and they both included multiple calendars (more if you paid the subscription).

Is there any way you can bump this @Seamus ?

[Arie]

Hi @itsfoxandbear 👋 stepping in for @Seamus here. 
 

Thanks for adding your vote to this thread. We continue to advocate for all suggestions we receive in the Seller Community, and our product teams look through the forum for feedback like this often. A number of different factors are taken into consideration when it comes to developing new features, including cost, how many sellers have requested a feature, other products in development, just to name a few. Right now it doesn't look like this feature is coming to Square Appointments, but that doesn't rule it out for the future. 

[MontagueStudio]

Adding in my thoughts as well on this, this would be immensely helpful.

As a sole photographer running my own studio, I want a way to have one type of session (eg pet portraits/Headshot days).

Being able to schedule pet portraits on Mondays, Headshots on Tuesdays, and Consult on Wednesdays would be amazing in order to speed up my workflow, instead of rearranging the studio space for every other booking.

Have also come from Acuity, looking at Calendly as a cheap alternative primarily for this scheduling method.

Would love to push this as a service, particularly as other providers are able to supply this, but I'd prefer to stick with Square.

Cheers 

[Mads_beauty]

I would really like this option too!

I am a beauty therapist that offers a range of services and im wanting to offer makeup services on only fridays and Saturdays but am struggling to find a way to do this. 

if this could please be considered into an update of the app, I know a lot of beauty therapists and beauty techs that would love this option!

[Laurie_]

Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm for this feature request, and providing some helpful use-case scenarios, @MontagueStudio and @Mads_beauty! 

I don't have any further news to share regarding the ability to create per-service availability, however, I'll continue to pass on this feedback directly to our Product Team.

If this changes in future, we'll be sure to tag and comment in this thread. 👍