Salon managers: weekly booking slots from the staff rota

Build your bookable slots from the staff rota, one rota period at a time: for each person, open weekly slots on the days and hours they work, with an end date at the end of the period, then do the same for the next period once the rota is set. Late nights, rotating Saturdays and lunch breaks all live in the slot pattern. Clients only ever see times when someone is actually in, and a rota change means editing one person's pattern rather than cancelling bookings.

A salon open from 9:00 to 19:00 doesn't have ten bookable hours per person: staff arrive at different times, take breaks, and not everyone works every day. If slots follow the opening hours, clients book times when nobody is free. If they follow the rota, every slot on your page has a person behind it. On Book, each slot belongs to one service and sits within one day, and when each person has their own services, their slots are their rota.

Slots repeat each week on the weekdays you choose until an end date. Match the end date to your rota period, for example four weeks or a month. When the next rota is agreed, open the following period. You never publish times further ahead than you can staff, and each new period is a natural moment to adjust hours.

Names and hours are examples. Each line is a weekly pattern of slots under that person's services.

Evening and Saturday slots are the ones clients who work can book. If you open late one evening a week, create those slots only for the person on the late shift, and say in your service descriptions which evening it is. For rotating Saturdays, where staff alternate weekends, open each person's Saturday slots only on their weeks: a weekly pattern on Saturday with an end date covers a run of weeks, and you add single Saturdays for alternating ones.

Leave the lunch break out of the pattern: open a morning run and an afternoon run rather than a continuous day. Build buffer time into treatment slots that need a room reset, such as waxing or facials, so the next client isn't kept waiting.

A part-time therapist or a freelancer who rents a chair two days a week gets the same treatment: their own services, with slots only on their days. If a freelancer prefers to take their own bookings, give them their own Book account and booking page instead, so their clients and yours stay separate.

Swaps and changes happen after slots are open. If a swap removes someone's day, check their bookings on that day first: move each client to the colleague who covers it, from your bookings list, since rescheduling works across services. Then remove the slots that are no longer staffed. Tell each moved client yourself, since Book doesn't email clients about changes, and clients can't move bookings online.

For planned leave, stop that person's pattern before their holiday and restart it after, or skip those weeks when you create the next period. In quieter weeks, you can open fewer slots per person and leave the rest of the day for admin, training or stock. In busy seasons, add evening or Sunday slots for the weeks that need them, on the staff who agree to work them.

Each week, look over the next seven days in your bookings list: gaps you could fill with phone bookings, a person with an overlong day, a late night with no bookings that you could close. Your bookings sync with Google, iPhone or Mac calendars, so you can see the salon's week alongside the rota. When you book a client by phone, enter their email so they receive a confirmation with a calendar file. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.