How to set opening hours, start times and closed days for bookings

In TeleportHQ, you decide when customers can book in Booking Settings, the gear at the top of the Bookings panel. Booking Times sets your timezone, how often start times are offered, how much notice you need, how far ahead customers can book, and the check-in and check-out times. Opening Hours sets the hours each weekday can be booked, for items booked by time. Closed Days closes dates, for every item or for one item. Your published site uses each change as soon as you save it.

Before you start#

• Bookings must be on in your project. See How to add bookings to an existing project.
• Know how each of your items is booked. Opening Hours and Start Times apply only to items booked by time (appointments, classes, tables). Check-In and Check-Out apply only to items booked by night (rooms, holiday homes). Items booked by day (rentals) follow the notice, how far ahead and the closed days. See How to add a bookable item.
• To open the settings: in the left sidebar, click Bookings, then click the gear at the top right of the panel (Booking Settings). The Bookings Setup drawer opens.

1. Set your booking times#

1. In Bookings Setup, on the Booking Times row, click Booking Times. The Booking Times panel opens beside the list.
2. In Timezone, choose the timezone your business runs in, for example Europe/London. The list shows each timezone with its offset from UTC. "Opening hours and every time on the site are in it."
3. In Start Times, choose how often a start time is offered: from Every 5 minutes to Every 2 hours. For example, with Every 30 minutes and a day that opens at 09:00, customers can start at 09:00, 09:30, 10:00 and so on.
4. In Notice (hours), type how close to the start a booking can still be made, for example 2. Decimals work: 0.5 is 30 minutes, and 0 lets customers book right up to the start.
5. In Up To (days ahead), type how far ahead customers can book, for example 90.
6. If you take bookings by night, set Check-In and Check-Out, for example 15:00 and 11:00.
7. At the bottom of the panel, click Save Booking Times. The message "Saved. Your site uses it from now on." appears.

2. Set your opening hours#

TeleportHQ opening hours apply to items booked by time. Rooms and rentals (items booked by night or by day) aren't bound by them.

1. In Bookings Setup, on the Opening Hours row, click Opening Hours. The Opening Hours panel lists the week from Monday to Sunday.
2. To open a day, switch it on. It gets the hours 09:00 to 17:00. A day switched off reads Closed.
3. Change the hours: click the opening time and set it, for example 08:30, then do the same with the closing time, for example 18:00.
4. To add a second range on the same day, for example after a lunch break, click the + next to the day's name (Add hours). The new range starts at the previous closing time and lasts one hour. Change it, for example to 14:00 to 18:00.
5. To remove a range, click the bin next to it (Remove these hours).
6. Optional: set Monday's hours, then click Copy Monday to all weekdays. Tuesday to Friday get Monday's hours. Saturday and Sunday stay as they are.
7. Click Save hours. The message "Opening hours saved." appears. To leave without saving, click Cancel.

How TeleportHQ uses your opening hours:

• Start times fit inside the hours. A start time is offered only when the whole booking ends by closing time. For example, a 60-minute massage on a day open 09:00 to 17:00 can start at 16:00 at the latest.
• After midnight. A closing time earlier than the opening time runs past midnight: 18:00 to 01:00 is open until 1 at night.
• On the site. Each item's page lists the hours under Opening hours, with today's hours first and All week to see the rest.
• A closed week can't be booked. An item booked by time with no open day offers no start time at all.

Give one item its own hours#

The Opening Hours panel sets the hours of every item booked by time. To give one item hours of its own, for example a class that only runs on Saturday mornings, use your live site's admin panel:

1. Open your site's admin panel. Under BOOKINGS, click Opening hours.
2. Click + Add New.
3. In Day, choose the day, for example Saturday.
4. In Opens and Closes, type the times in 24-hour time, for example 09:00 and 12:00.
5. In Item, choose the item.
6. Click Create. Repeat for every day the item is open.

Once an item has hours of its own, it keeps to them only: the days you didn't add are closed for that item. Rows with an empty Item are for every other item ("Leave it empty for every item that has no hours of its own."). See How to manage bookings from your site's admin panel.

3. Close days for holidays or maintenance#

Close dates in TeleportHQ when nothing, or one item, can be booked: a public holiday, a room being repainted, a car at the garage.

1. In Bookings Setup, on the Closed Days row, click Closed Days. The Closed Days panel shows Close some days and, below it, Coming up.
2. In From, pick the first closed day. In Until, pick the last one. Both days are closed, and every day between them. To close one day, pick the same date twice.
3. In For, keep Every item, or choose one item, for example Sea-view room.
4. Optional: in Reason (only you see it), type a note, for example Public holiday. Up to 255 characters. Customers never see it.
5. Click Close these days. The message "Those days are closed now." appears, and the days show under Coming up, for example "Thu, 24 Dec – Sat, 26 Dec" with "Every item · Public holiday".

Closed days apply to every kind of item: no start time on those days, and no night or day of a stay or rental inside them.

To open closed days again, in Coming up, click the bin next to them (Open these days again). The message "Those days can be booked again." appears. While nothing is closed, Coming up says "No closed days ahead" and "Everything follows your opening hours."

Check that it worked#

• On your published site, open an item's page and pick a date. Only start times inside your opening hours show, from the notice you set onwards and up to the days ahead you allow. Closed days can't be picked.
• In the editor, open Growth → Bookings → Calendar: closed days are hatched and marked Closed (or Everything closed when every item is closed).

Troubleshooting#

"Between no notice and 60 days." Notice (hours) takes 0 to 1440 hours.

"Between 1 day and 2 years." Up To (days ahead) takes 1 to 730 days.

"Use a time like 15:00." or "Use a time like 11:00." Check-In or Check-Out is empty or not a time. Pick a time.

"Use a time like 09:00." or "Opening and closing times must differ." A range in Opening Hours is empty, or opens and closes at the same time. Fix that range, then click Save hours again.

"These days are over. Pick days from today on." Closed days must end today or later, in your business's timezone.

"The last day cannot be before the first." Swap From and Until.

"These days are already closed for every item (…)." or "…already closed for [item] (…)." Another closure already covers all those days for the same item, or for every item. Nothing to add.

Customers see no free times Check, in this order: the item's day is switched on in Opening Hours (or in the item's own hours in the admin panel); the booking fits before closing time; the date is past the notice and within Up To (days ahead); the day isn't closed; the item isn't fully booked or blocked by a synced calendar. See Why isn't Bookings working?.

Good to know#

• No publishing needed. Your published site reads booking times, opening hours and closed days from your bookings' database on every booking.
• Times are in your business's timezone, on the site and in the emails.
• Synced calendars block dates too. Bookings made on Airbnb, Booking.com or Google Calendar can block an item's dates. See How to sync an item's calendar with Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo or Google Calendar (iCal).
• The same settings on your live site. Your admin panel's BOOKINGS group has Opening hours, Closed dates (First closed day, Last closed day, Reason, Item: "Leave it empty to close everything.") and Booking settings.