Overview

Staff-based services, such as grooming or training, are used for single-day bookings where the pet is assigned to a specific user. Appointment availability for staff-based services is based on the number of spots open under all available users for the requested day. Staff-based services can be all-inclusive or offer optional add-ons.

Service categories are the overall header of potentially multiple services you offer at your business. For example, you may have a Service Category titled Grooming that includes the Services titled Full Groom and Mini Groom. This article will assist in setting up the overall Service Category Grooming. If you would like to add Grooming Services, please navigate to the article: Create Staff-Based Services (Grooming, Training).

Staff-Based Services can be viewed in the following areas:

• Appointments tab
• Calendar and Advanced Staff Calendar
• Settings > Business Setup > Service Configuration
• Making a new appointment on the business portal
• Booking in mobile app or web link

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Overview
• Create a New Staff-Based Service Category
• More Information

Create a New Staff-Based Service Category

1. Navigate to Settings > Business Setup > Service Configuration.

2. If you are creating a brand new category such as Grooming, click Add next to Service Category. 

If you would like to add a new service under an existing category, simply click the category in question to expand it and then go to our article here: Create Staff-Based Services (Grooming, Training) 

3. If adding a new category, fill in the category details starting with Service Category Name (such as Grooming).

4. Choose the Pet Type (such as dog) and optionally enter a brief description that will be visible to staff and customers when creating the booking. For Service Type, select Staff Based.

5. Choose Appointment Approvals to be either Manual (the pet owner submits the request and your staff approves it) or Automatic (all requests submitted by the pet owner are automatically approved). 

6. After selecting Staff Based Service Type above, you should see the menu for Schedule Type expand. This section controls how services will be booked under your specialists. You will select the durations for individual services when creating the services later.

• Select Service Duration Based if staff are available during a set time period and only one animal can be booked in each time slot. This is the most common option for grooming and training. For example, if grooms take 60 minutes and the groomer works from 9am - 5pm, then time slots for this service would show as 9am, 10am, 11am, etc. Once an animal is placed in the 9am slot, customers would no longer be able to book in the 9am slot. If you select this option, you can also toggle on Display Staff if you would like the individual staff names to display to customers when submitting an appointment request.
• Select Slot Based Scheduling if staff are available during a given time period and multiple animals can be booked in a single time slot with a set daily maximum. For example, if grooms take 60 minutes and your groomer works from 9am - 5pm with a maximum of 10 animals per day, then time slots for this service would show as 9am, 10am, 11am, etc. Once an animal is placed in the 9am slot, customers would still be able to book in the 9am, or any other, slot (up to 10 animals for the entire day). If you select this option, you can select Global Slot which sets a total maximum animals for the entire facility, or Slots by Staff which sets the maximum animals per specialist. Display Staff will be hidden for Global Slots and is required for Slots by Staff.
• Select Bulk Drop Off Scheduling if staff are available for a maximum number of animals per day dropped off in a set window (such as 9am).

7. Set Minimum Advance Booking Window to the minimum number of days a customer must request in advance of their drop-off date (such as 1 day in advance). For How many days before to send appointment reminders?, enter the number of days in advance appointment reminders should send (such as 2).

8. For Display this service for the first pet or first appointment?, only toggle this setting on if customers must book this service before they can book anything else at your facility. For Grooming, this is most commonly disabled.

9. For Average Duration, enter the increment number of minutes that should display when creating or editing an appointment. For example, if the business is open for drop-offs from 9am-11am daily and you set Average Duration to 30 (minutes), then the time slots visible when creating an appointment would show as 9:00am, 9:30am, 10:00am, and 10:30am.

10. For Allow Booking Until in the app and web, enter the number of months in advance that a pet owner could request this appointment (such as 12 months in advance).

11. For Hide this service from app and web links, only toggle this on if customers should not see this service category. For display pricing details in app and web link, toggle this on if customers should see the price of the services in this service category.

12. If the customer should be prompted to enter pet medical history, toggle on Request medical history for each appointment. If the customer should be prompted to enter pet feeding information, toggle on Request food and feeding info. If the customer should be prompted to enter pet medication, toggle on Request medication. If the customer should be prompted to enter a card on file, toggle on Request card on file. If the customer should be prompted to submit pet vaccine data, check the box next to each required vaccine next to Request Vaccines. For all of these options, the customer can optionally enter the data. Once the toggles are enabled, you can check the required box make some of these fields mandatory. If you check this box, the customer will be unable to submit the appointment request until data is entered in the required field(s).

1. You can optionally add any questions unique to this booking category by clicking Add Question. Then enter your question and set whether it should be prompted at the first appointment or all appointments. Check the required box to make all questions mandatory. Once all settings are correct, click Add to save the service category.

More Information

For more information on setting up a Staff-Based Service, please refer to this article: Create Staff-Based Services (Grooming, Training) 

For more information on Add-On Services, please refer to this article: Primary Service Add-Ons and Linked Add-Ons

For more information on Pricing and Deposits, please refer to this article: Set Up Pricing & Deposits

For more information on Service Category Hours, please refer to this article: Configuring Service Category Hours