Booking Page works by scanning your calendar for availability based on criteria you set when creating your booking page.
The frequency with which possible time slots are offered to your audience are influenced by your booking interval and buffer time settings, which can be found under Power Settings.
How Booking Intervals work
Booking intervals set the frequency of available times to meet. Consider this example: you have set an event duration of 30 minutes, set your booking page to scan for availability from 9am - 5pm and you currently do not have any appointments on your calendar.
The default Booking Interval is set to "Same as event duration".
This means that your Booking Page will offer appointments from 9:00am - 9:30am, 9:30am - 10:00am, 10:00am - 10:30am, etc. Essentially, you are offering 30 minute meeting options back-to-back.
Now, consider setting your Booking Interval to 15 minutes.
With this setting, your Booking Page will now offer appointments from 9:00am - 9:30am, 9:15am - 9:45am, 9:30am - 10:00am, 9:45am - 10:15am, etc. Essentially, you offer a 30 minute meeting beginning every 15 minutes. Following this example, you double the total number of possible appointment times.
How Buffer Times work
Buffer times block off time between events automatically. Consider this example: you have set an event duration of 30 minutes, set your booking page to scan for weekday availability from 9am - 5pm and you currently do not have any appointments on your calendar.
The default Buffer Time is set to "No buffer time".
This means that someone can book the 9:00am - 9:30am time slot, and someone else can book the 9:30am - 10:00am - scheduling you back-to-back without pause.
Now, consider a Buffer Time set to 15 minutes.
With this setting, your Booking Page will block off the 15 minutes following the conclusion of any event scheduled to your calendar.
Note: this applies to all calendar events, created with Doodle or otherwise
If a session is booked from 9:00am - 9:30am, the earliest possible time one could book to your calendar via your Booking Page is 9:45am - 10:15am, depending on your other standing appointments and booking page settings.
The 15 minutes following the conclusion of any scheduled event on your calendar will be protected by your booking page, allowing you to review meeting notes, discuss meeting content with stakeholders, or simply block off time for you to regroup before your next meeting.
Booking interval and buffer time interplay
Booking interval and buffer time settings will influence how many options are offered to your audience. Two general rules are:
If your booking interval is greater than your meeting duration, fewer meeting options will be offered to your booking page participants.
Longer buffer time settings result in fewer meeting options offered to your booking page participants.
Consider this example: you have set an event duration of 30 minutes, a buffer time of 5 minutes, set your booking page to scan for weekday availability from 9am - 5pm and you currently have a 30 minute meeting scheduled from 9:00am - 9:30am and another from 10:00am - 10:30am.
With these settings and previously scheduled appointments, the first available time slot would be 10:35am - 11:05am. If you were simply to change your buffer time setting from '5 minutes' to 'No buffer time', you would add a 9:30am - 10:00am time slot and adjust the next time slot to 10:30am - 11:00am.
Even minor adjustments can have a sweeping impact on your overall availability, so make sure you are mindful of the interaction between these two settings.
Preview your booking page settings
Booking Page includes a 'Preview' feature, enabling you to experiment with your booking interval and buffer time settings to find the best combination before you share your booking page link with your audience.
Best practices for booking intervals and buffer times
Everyone is different and the optimal Booking Page settings for one person may not work for another. Here are some tips that many users will find helpful:
Set your booking interval to half as long as your event duration.
For example, set your Booking Interval to 15 minutes if your meeting duration is 30 minutes. This will effectively double the number of available time slots.
Set a buffer time, but be careful about setting a long buffer time
Buffer times are helpful, but setting buffer time fundamentally reduces the overall number of available time slots, and longer buffer times will further reduce the available time slots. If your goal is to provide as many time slots as possible, no buffer time would be the best setting.
Learn more about Booking Page
To learn more about how booking intervals, buffer times, and other Booking Page settings work, please watch our comprehensive how-to video: