Set which days a bay is available

Summary

Each bay can have its own working days. Your MOT tester might not work Saturdays, so the MOT bay should not be offered for a Saturday MOT. A specialist ramp might only be used on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Set a bay’s working days and online booking, the customer portal, the AI assistant on SMS and chat and the Voice AI stop offering that bay on the days it is off. You can also close a single bay for one date, or open it specially on a date it normally does not work. Staff booking by hand is never blocked, so you can still take the job you have decided to make an exception for.

Prerequisites

• You can open Settings > Bays. This needs the Manage bays permission (settings.bays.manage). Owners and managers have it by default.
• For one-off dates, you can open the Closed dates and special openings page. Owners and managers can by default.
• Your garage’s normal opening hours are set. A bay can only work on days the business is open.

Steps

Set a bay’s working days

1. Go to Settings > Bays.
2. Select the pencil icon next to the bay, for example MOT Bay.
3. Find Working days. A bay you have never changed says it follows your normal opening hours.
4. Select Set working days for this bay. One switch appears for each day, Monday to Sunday.
5. Turn off the days the bay does not work. For the MOT bay, turn off Saturday. Each day shows Working or Not working.
6. Check What this means underneath. It shows the next two weeks as a customer booking online would find them, including one-off dates and business closures. Each day reads Bookable, Bay off, Open specially, Closed this date, Business closed or Closed this weekday.
7. Select Save Changes.

If you turn every day off, a warning reads “No working days set, so this bay won’t be offered online at all. Your staff can still book it by hand.”

Put a bay back to normal opening hours

1. Open the bay for editing.
2. Under Working days, select Follow normal opening hours.
3. Confirm with Follow opening hours. The days you set are cleared.
4. Select Save Changes.

Close a bay for one date, or open it specially

One-off dates live on the same page as your holiday closures.

1. Go to Settings > Voice AI > Closed Dates. The page is titled Closed dates and special openings. You can also reach it from the Manage closed dates link on the scheduler.
2. Select Add a date.
3. Under This date, choose Closed or Open specially.
4. Under Apply to, pick Only one bay, then choose the bay under Which bay. A special opening always applies to one bay.
5. Pick the date or date range.
6. Add a reason if you like. For a bay entry, the reason is a note for your team. Only this page shows it. The AI assistant and customers never see it.
7. Select Save.

Bay entries appear in the list with the bay’s name on them, and special openings carry an Open specially badge.

If your new entry overlaps another one, the dialog explains which one wins and what that leaves the bay doing on those dates.

Expected Outcome

• The bay is not offered on its days off on your online booking page, in the customer portal, by the AI assistant on SMS and chat or by the Voice AI.
• In the scheduler’s Day view, the bay’s column header is marked Not working on a day off, or Open specially on a special opening. The Week by Bay view marks the same days.
• Staff can still book the bay on a day off. The booking dialog shows a note that the bay doesn’t normally work that day and isn’t offered online.
• A bay you never set up behaves exactly as before.

How the rules combine

From strongest to weakest:

1. A closure for the whole business or a whole site always wins. If you are closed on Christmas Day, no bay is bookable online that day, whatever its own entries say.
2. The garage’s normal opening hours come next. An Open specially entry cannot open a bay on a day the business itself does not open.
3. A one-off bay entry beats the bay’s weekly pattern. Where two bay entries overlap, the one covering the shorter period wins. If both cover the same number of days, Closed beats Open specially.
4. The bay’s weekly pattern applies on every other day.
5. A bay with no pattern follows your normal opening hours.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A customer or caller says they were offered a day, then told the booking could not go through. Cause: The bay’s day was withdrawn after the slot was offered, for example you turned Saturday off while they were booking. The Voice AI declines the booking, and a public or portal booking is refused when the customer confirms. The system is declining to sell a slot you cannot honour. Fix: Nothing is wrong. Offer the customer another day, or book the slot by hand in the scheduler if you want to take it anyway.

Problem: A staff member booked a bay on its day off. Is the setting broken? Cause: Working days only control what customers and the AI are offered. Staff booking is left open on purpose, so you can make exceptions. Fix: None needed. Move the appointment if it was a mistake.

Problem: The booking page says “This service isn’t available on this day. Please pick another date.” Cause: Every bay that can do that service is off on that day. Fix: This is expected. If you want the service bookable that day, give one suitable bay that day, or add an Open specially date for it.

Problem: I added a special opening but the bay still is not bookable online on that date. Cause: The business, or that bay’s site, is closed that date, or the business does not normally open on that weekday. A business or site closure always overrides a single bay. Fix: Check the closures in the list and your opening hours. What this means in the bay’s edit dialog shows the reason for each day.

Problem: “Moving a date between a bay and the wider business also needs permission to manage bay settings.” Cause: You tried to change an existing entry from a business or site closure into a bay entry, or the other way round, and your role cannot manage bay settings. Fix: Ask an owner or manager to move it.

Problem: A move saved but the message says the original is still in the list. Cause: The new entry saved, but removing the old one failed. If the old one is a business or site closure, it still overrides the new bay entry. Fix: Remove the original entry from the list by hand.

Notes

• Use complementary patterns to split a solo operation’s week. Set the van to Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the workshop ramp to Tuesday and Thursday, and online customers only ever see van slots on van days. See Bays and mobile units.
• Working days are whole days. They have no times or breaks of their own. The bay uses your garage’s opening hours on the days it works.
• Changing a bay’s working days does not move or cancel appointments already booked.