Time is your most valuable resource. When your schedule is optimized, your business runs smoother, staff stay productive, and clients get better service. In this playbook, we’ll cover how to set up your WellnessLiving schedule to reduce downtime, maximize appointment capacity, and deliver a frictionless client experience.
Business hours & working hours: The cornerstones of scheduling
Business Hours show when your doors are open. Working Hours show when your team is available to deliver services. If these aren’t aligned, clients can book when no staff are available—leading to missed appointments, refund requests, or last-minute rescheduling.
These settings are the foundation of your schedule. Before setting booking rules or optimizing availability, make sure your Business and Working Hours are accurate and in sync. This alignment also affects your entire scheduling system—classes won’t display correctly, appointment times may appear outside of staffed hours, and assets (like rooms or equipment) may be shown as available when they shouldn’t be. A mismatch here causes ripple effects across your calendar, impacting both client experience and revenue potential.
These settings are the foundation of your schedule. Before setting booking rules or optimizing availability, make sure your Business and Working Hours are accurate and in sync.
Business Hours
Business Hours ensure that clients only see time slots during your operating window. This protects staff time, avoids off-hour surprises, and creates a predictable booking experience.
To set this up:
Open the App Drawer, then go to Setup > Locations > Business Hours
Define open/close times for each day
Consider buffer time before/after for staff prep/cleanup
Getting your business hours right:
Prevents bookings outside of working hours
Creates healthy boundaries for staff and operations
Working Hours
Working Hours determines when each team member is actually bookable. It ensures client appointments only happen when staff are on the clock, reducing confusion and improving service delivery.
To configure:
Open the App Drawer, then go to Setup > Staff > [Staff Member] > Working Hours
Set recurring weekly hours for each staff member
Add exceptions for vacations or time off
Clear and up to date availability ensures:
Clients only book when staff are truly available
Helps with planning, shift coverage, and operational forecasting
When both of these are correctly configured, you’re setting your business up for success. Everything else—from filters to widgets to reducing schedule gaps—relies on these foundational guardrails.
Set your timing rules: Booking intervals, padding & processing time
How Booking Rules Shape Your Day
These three hidden heroes define the rhythm and flexibility of your schedule. They control how services fit together, how staff transition between bookings, and whether key time slots are used—or wasted. They also shape how your schedule looks and functions in both the Staff Back Office and the Elevate Staff App, helping staff easily manage appointments on the go.
Booking Intervals
Define the time slots clients see when booking (e.g., every 15 or 30 minutes).
Match your interval to your most common service length.
Too long = empty gaps you can’t fill.
The right fit = a tighter, more profitable schedule.
Padding Time
Adds time before or after services for setup, cleanup, or room transitions.
Prevents staff burnout and delays.
Too much = wasted time. Too little = chaos.
Just enough keeps your day running smoothly.
Processing Time
Creates availability during service wait periods (e.g., hair color processing).
Opens mid-service time slots for short bookings.
Increases revenue without extending hours.
Keeps staff productive and your schedule flexible.
Booking intervals, padding time, and processing time not only shape your schedule—they also make saved views more powerful by creating tight, logical blocks that are easier to filter by staff, service, or availability. With these in place, features like Reduce Gaps can work smarter—maximizing every bookable minute of your day.
Make the Schedule easy to read for staff
Customize your schedule view (Look & Feel)
If your team spends too much time clicking into appointments or can’t tell who’s doing what at a glance—it’s time to clean up your schedule view. A clean, color-coded, and scannable schedule empowers your staff to review bookings faster, reduce errors, and stay on top of cancellations, no-shows, and padding.
How to set up:
Open the App Drawer, then go to Setup > Look & Feel > Schedule Design
Customize:
Time cell height & width
Appointment display style (client name, service, staff)
Colors for status (booked, canceled, unavailable)
Display All Hours (Optional)
To offer off-hours services, enabling 24-hour schedule visibility ensures those time slots don’t go unused—capturing bookings that might otherwise be missed and expanding your revenue potential beyond the typical 8- or 10- hour operational windows.
How to set up: Enable "Only show business hours" OFF in Schedule Settings.
Managing schedule visibility & workflow
Stay in control with filters and scheduled closures
Filters and closures keep your calendar clean and your team focused.
Filters let staff view only what's relevant—by staff, service, or location—reducing distractions and mistakes.
Scheduled Closures block off holidays or events to prevent accidental bookings and last-minute cancellations.
Clients are automatically notified if a session is affected, helping you maintain trust and avoid confusion. Together, these tools prevent scheduling errors, minimize disruption, and keep your day running smoothly.
To customize your filters:
Use the Schedule tab filter bar to filter by staff, service, location
Save custom views for quick access
To set up closures:
Go to Schedule > Settings > Add Closed Day
Follow these steps to schedule, edit, or remove Closed Days—so you can stay in control of your calendar year-round.
Optimize efficiency with Reduce Schedule Gaps
Let’s say an instructor who runs hour-long sessions has 45-minute gaps between sessions all day. That’s time no one can book—and time the instructor doesn’t get paid for. Small gaps between appointments often go unused because they’re too short for a service. The Reduce Schedule Gaps policy helps you fill your schedule more efficiently by hiding time slots that leave small, unusable gaps.
It automatically applies to all staff and assets, so there’s no need to set it up for each service—saving you time and keeping your schedule consistent.
Enabling the Reduce Schedule Gaps policy:
The policy helps guide clients toward back-to-back or strategically spaced time slots—making your schedule cleaner and more profitable.
Eliminates scattered gaps that waste 15–45 minute chunks of staff time
Increases appointment volume without increasing operating hours
Promotes smarter client booking behavior—they won’t even see inefficient options
Boosts profit per hour by maximizing how many clients staff can see each day
Once it’s in place, your schedule becomes a high-performance tool.
Reduce Schedule Gaps works in tandem with other schedule elements:
It respects Booking Intervals (e.g., 15 or 30 min)
It factors in Padding Time between appointments
It follows Working Hours and Business Hours
It uses Processing Time windows (like color processing) as usable gaps for other bookings
This setting only affects what clients see—it won’t stop your staff from manually booking into those hidden time slots when needed. If a client has special needs or a one-off time request, staff can still override the system and book manually—while keeping automated availability optimized for everyone else.
How to set it up
Open the App Drawer, then go to Setup > Business > Business Policies > Booking
Under Schedule Options, select:
"Reduce schedule gaps (Optimized availability)"
Set your key rules:
Lookahead Window: Sets how far into the future clients can see optimized availability (e.g., next 2 weeks). Clients booking earlier will get first pick of priority time slots, helping you reward clients who plan ahead and control how far out your schedule fills.
Allowed Gap: Sets the minimum time slot you’re okay leaving open (e.g., 30 minutes). Anything smaller won’t be shown.
Click Save to apply the policy update.
📌 Pro Tip: Set your Allowed Gap to match the shortest service duration you offer. That way, every gap the system allows is actually fillable.
How it works in practice
If a staff member has a 9:00–10:00 AM appointment and your Allowed Gap is set to 1 hour:
Booking Request | Shown to Client? | Reason |
10:15–10:45 AM | ❌ Hidden | Leaves 15 min unusable gap |
10:00–11:00 AM | ✅ Shown | Back-to-back booking |
12:00–1:00 PM | ✅ Shown | Gap is larger than 1 hour |
If a client tries to book into a time that creates an unusable gap, it simply won’t appear on the schedule.
Strategic tips for long-term success
Once your schedule is set up, these final strategies will help you maintain long-term efficiency, prevent future gaps, and ensure your team stays aligned as your business grows.
Match allowed gap to shortest service – Don’t set your Allowed Gap smaller than your shortest service. Those gaps can’t be filled, which wastes revenue.
Use appointment padding wisely – Setup padding between services for cleanup/setup. Padding counts toward gap logic—make sure it’s reflected in your policy
Empower staff with the right permissions – Use Staff Roles to let only managers change look & feel or business policies
Test First, Then Publish – Before making changes live, log into the Client Portal or use a private browser window to simulate a real booking. This helps you preview how your schedule displays and ensures clients won’t see time slots you meant to hide.
Smart scheduling is a growth strategy
Smart scheduling isn’t just about avoiding double-bookings. It’s a growth strategy. When your schedule is clean, consistent, and efficient, your clients enjoy better availability, your staff can earn more without working longer hours, and your business becomes more profitable with fewer manual adjustments.
Ready to implement? Start by setting up Reduce Schedule Gaps, then revisit your business hours, booking intervals, and widgets to complete the loop.
Let your schedule work for you—not the other way around.