BukaTime Help
All help articles

Setup & admin

Managing Staff Availability and Hours

Managing staff working hours and availability.

Control when each staff member is available for bookings by setting their weekly schedule and adjusting hours for specific dates.

Clients can only book appointments during times you've said a staff member is working. Without hours set, that person won't show any open slots — so a quick schedule setup makes all the difference between a calendar full of bookings and one that looks inexplicably empty.

Weekly Schedule

The weekly schedule is a recurring template — it applies every week until you change it.

Setting the Default Weekly Schedule

  1. Go to Studio → Hours. Below the studio's own opening hours, find the Staff hours section.
  2. Click Set next to the provider's name (or Edit if they already have a custom schedule). This opens a "[Name] — weekly hours" dialog.
  3. For each day of the week:
    • Toggle the day on to mark it as a working day.
    • Toggle it off to make the staff member unavailable that day.
  4. For working days, set the start time and end time.
  5. Click Save changes.

Clients are only offered appointment slots within effective staff availability. The studio calendar uses these hours to show open/closed time visually, but staff can still create manual appointments outside availability when needed.

Only bookable (activated) providers appear in the Staff hours list. If you don't see someone there, activate them first — see Creating and Activating a Staff Member.

Overriding Hours for a Specific Date

To adjust hours on a particular date without changing the weekly template:

  1. Go to the Calendar.
  2. Find the column for the staff member on the date you want to adjust.
  3. Click the staff name or date header in their column.
  4. The Edit Day Hours dialog opens.
  5. Set custom start and end times for that specific day.
  6. Click Save.

This is useful for covering holidays, special events, or ad hoc schedule changes.

Making a Staff Member Temporarily Unavailable

If a staff member is on leave or otherwise unavailable for a period, you have two options:

Option A: Add a Busy Block (short periods)

  1. Go to the Calendar.
  2. Click an empty time slot in the staff member's column.
  3. Choose Busy time from the popover.
  4. Enter a title (e.g., "Holiday") and set the start/end times.
  5. Click Save.

Busy blocks appear on the calendar and prevent that time from being booked.

Option B: Deactivate the Staff Member (longer periods)

  1. On the Billing & Staff page, click the person's Active status pill.
  2. Confirm Deactivate in the dialog that appears — it warns that they'll no longer appear in the booking calendar, but existing appointments are kept.
  3. If they still have upcoming appointments assigned, a Resolve upcoming appointments dialog opens first — reassign those appointments to another provider, unassign them, or cancel them before the deactivation can go through.

While inactive, the staff member does not appear as a booking option. Re-activate them when they return by clicking their Inactive pill again — if that changes your bill, a billing dialog appears before it's confirmed.

Viewing Staff Availability on the Calendar

  • Use the staff filter in the calendar toolbar to show one staff member or split the view by staff.
  • Colour-coded columns show each staff member's active hours vs. blocked times.
  • Appointments outside staff hours show a warning indicator.
  • If neither studio hours nor effective staff availability are set, the calendar shows the closed/locked visual state instead of assuming 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.

Related