Availability Calendar Guide

How to Use Your Availability Calendar

Your availability calendar allows you to block off whole days or half days (ie. morning or afternoon blocks) for which you already know you are booked, out of town, or not available for work.

Customers will see your availability displayed on your profile when they are submitting an inquiry, and will only be able to select dates/blocks of time in which you have not blocked off. This means you will not have to spend time answering inquiries for dates you know you cannot take.

It is very important, however, that you update your calendar on a regular basis (ie. every week or 2 weeks) so that customers have an accurate view of your schedule. It is a frustrating experience for them to inquire about a date they think you’re free only to find out it’s not, and they may not end up booking you or Flytographer at all because of that frustration, so keep your calendar updated to ensure you get as many shoots as possible!

**Important note: You will still need to accept or decline each inquiry that comes to you, as this new feature does not indicate whether you are actually available. It only prevents customers from sending you requests for dates that you are unavailable for.

Quicklinks

A few things to note:

  • You will be required to respond to a new booking request within 24 hours or we will tell the customer that you are not available. Our data and current industry trends are showing that customers are more likely to book if they receive a fast response. As we want all your new requests to convert to bookings for you, getting a faster response will help!
  • We ask customers if they would like us to check with other photographers if their preferred photographer is not available. We will only send the request to other photographers in a city if the customer chooses “yes.” You will see on a new request email whether it has gone to only you or to multiple photographers.
  • To keep your availability calendar up-to-date without having you log in, we’ve created some situations in which we will automatically block off time slots in your calendar. These include:
    • If you respond that you are not available for a request we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.
    • If you receive a booking in a time slot, we will assume that you can’t take another booking in that slot and we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.
    • If you do not respond to a request in time, we will assume you are not available and we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.

**We know that those settings may not work for everyone’s business and we want to give you control over your calendar, so may change these auto-settings in your Global Calendar Settings section.

Where to find and edit your availability

1. Click on the calendar tab in your Flytographer account on mobile or desktop.

From here, you will see a list of the cities for which you are currently available for shoots. Click on each city to update your availability there. Please note if you have multiple cities, you will need to mark off your unavailability for each city – we currently do not have a way to connect all your city calendars.

Blocking off a time slot or date

1. To start blocking off a single date, a single time slot, or the same time slot on multiple days, click the date on the calendar.

2. Once you select a date, it will display the two time slots for that date (morning and afternoon). To block off a time slot that day, click on it.

3. To block off the whole day, click both time slots.

To block off a recurring time slot for the same day of the week for that time slot, use the check box that says “Make all (days of the week)s unavailable.”

Note: If you choose to block off the same time slot for all (days of the week)s, it will update for every day of the week from that date to the end of the next calendar year.

  • e.g. If we are in February 2020, and you block off all Thursday mornings, the system will block off all Thursday mornings until the end of December 2021.

Before you leave the window, be sure to click on “Update Calendar” text link.

Important: This will only tentatively add your changes to the calendar view for you to preview and allow you to make additional changes, but you must click “Save Changes” on the main calendar view when you are finished for them to be permanently saved and added to the customer’s view. Any unsaved changes will be lost when leaving the page.

How to unblock a recurring time slot

  1. Click into the date from which you wish to unblock the recurring slot.
  2. Click the slot (or slots) you wish to unblock.
  3. Click the check box to “Make all (days of the week)s available”.
  4. Before you leave the window, click “Update Calendar”.

Important: This will only tentatively add your changes to the calendar view for you to preview and allow you to make additional changes, but you must click “Save Changes” on the main calendar view when you are finished for them to be permanently saved and added to the customer’s view. Any unsaved changes will be lost when leaving the page.

Note: This will only unblock the future dates from that date forward; it will not affect dates prior to this.

Blocking off a date range

If you need to block off a date range of full days (eg. all of Sunday Dec 15 – Saturday Dec 21), use the “Block off date range” button at the bottom of the calendar.

You will then be able to select the start and end date for the range you wish to block off.

You will see the dates you have selected at the top of the calendar for reference. You can also reset your date selection from the Reset link if you’ve selected the wrong dates and wish to start over.

Be sure to click “Update Calendar” blue button at the bottom right corner of the calendar.

Important: This will only tentatively add your changes to the calendar view for you to preview and allow you to make additional changes, but you must click “Save Changes” on the main calendar view when you are finished for them to be permanently saved and added to the customer’s view. Any unsaved changes will be lost when leaving the page.

Global Calendar Settings

Your availability calendar comes with standard global settings for all the cities you shoot in. We created these to make it easier to keep your calendar up-to-date without having to log into your account.

There are a number of conditions the system will automatically block off time slots for you, including:

  • If you respond that you are not available for a request, we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.
  • If you receive a booking in a time slot, we will assume that you can’t take another booking in that slot and we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.
  • If you do not respond to a request in time, we will assume you are not available and we will automatically block off that time slot in your calendar.

**That said, we know that those settings may not work for everyone’s business and we want to give you control over your calendar, so may change these auto-settings in your Global Calendar Settings section.

There are three setting options:

Option 1: Always automatically block off time slots as I get bookings
This is the default setting.
We will automatically block off time slots for you in your calendar if:

  • You respond you are unavailable for a shoot
  • You don’t respond to a request in time and we assume you are unavailable
  • You get a new booking for that time slot

*Note: Although a time slot is automatically blocked off for you in these situations, we will always notify you when it has happened and you do have the ability to mark it as available at any time.

Option 2: Never block off times or dates
This setting will stop the system from automatically blocking off a time slot when you say you aren’t available and also when you receive a new booking. In both of these scenarios, your calendar time slots will be left open for customers to submit a request.
Use this setting if:

  • You like to book multiple shoots in the morning or evening time slots and you still want customers to be able to request you when you already have a Flytographer booking that day.
  • Even though you say you are unavailable for a shoot, you don’t want us to block off that date because you want to manually manage your calendar on your own.

*Note: There is an override for this setting if you do not respond to a request in 24 hours. If you do not respond to a request in time, we will assume you are unavailable and automatically block off that time slot for you so that other customers do not try to request that time on that date. We will always notify you that we have done so, and you are able to turn that date back on at any time.

Option 3: Ask me every time
If this setting is turned on:

  • When you respond that you are available and the customer books, we will automatically block off the time slot
  • When you respond that you are NOT available, you will see a message telling you that we will block off the time slot for you. You will always see a check box below that message which lets you choose to keep the time slot open if the customer books. If you check it, the time slot will be kept open. If you leave it unchecked, that time slot will automatically block off when the customer books.

*Note: Although a time slot is automatically blocked off for you in these situations, we will always notify you when it has happened and you do have the ability to mark it as available at any time.

How your calendar looks to a customer

As you save changes to your calendar to block off days you are not available, customers will see those days greyed out on your profile page. They will not be able to select them.

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