Set Your Availability for Bookings

What this covers#

Availability is step 2 of 4 in the Calendar wizard, and it is the step that decides whether your booking link is useful or a nuisance. It answers three questions: how far ahead people can book, how much warning you need, and which hours of which days are open at all.

You reach it from Meetings → Calendar → New event, after naming the calendar on step 1. The whole wizard is covered in Create an Event in the Calendar; this article is just step 2, in full.

Step 2, Availability. Two cards on the left, a live summary of what you have built on the right.

The booking window#

The first card sets the outer edges — how far ahead people can book, and how much notice you need.

Bookable range on the left, Minimum notice on the right.

Bookable range#

How far into the future the link is open: 7 days, 14 days, 30 days or 60 days, or a Custom figure of your own.

The line under it is the important part: “Rolls forward daily, so the link never goes stale.” The range is not a fixed end date. A 30-day range means the next 30 days, always — the window moves with today, so a link you shared six months ago is still bookable this morning.

• Short range (7–14 days) keeps your calendar flexible and pushes people to book soon.
• Long range (30–60 days) suits meetings people plan around — but you are promising those hours a long way out.

Minimum notice#

The buffer in front of now: None, 1 hour, 2 hours or 1 day. As the screen puts it, it “blocks last-minute bookings inside this buffer” — slots inside the buffer simply do not appear to an invitee.

None means someone can book you for ten minutes from now. That is occasionally what you want — a support desk, say — and usually not. An hour or two is the setting most people end up on; a full day suits meetings you need to prepare for.

Weekly hours#

The second card is the real work: which hours, on which days, are bookable.

One row per day. A ticked day is open; an unticked one reads “Closed — not bookable”.

Start from a preset#

Quick set fills the whole week in one click, and you can adjust afterwards:

• Weekdays 9–5 — Monday to Friday, eight bookable hours a day, forty for the week.
• Mornings only — a three-hour morning window on each weekday; fifteen hours for the week.
• Lunch break — the same working day, split into two blocks with a gap in the middle, so nobody can book you over lunch.
• Clear week — closes every day. A blank slate to build from, and a fast way to take the link out of service without deleting it.

Then set it day by day#

Each day has its own row, and the controls are the same on all seven:

• The checkbox opens or closes the day. Unticked, the row reads “Closed — not bookable” — which is what Saturday and Sunday start as.
• The two time fields are the start and end of a bookable block.
• + block adds a second block to the same day, for a split schedule — mornings and late afternoons, with the middle protected. The day’s total goes up accordingly, and the × beside a block removes it again.
• Copy to all pushes that day’s hours onto every other open day. Set Monday properly, copy it, then fix the one day that is different.
• The hour count at the end of the row (8 h) is that day’s bookable total, so a typo in the times shows up immediately.

Timezones are handled for you#

Above the rows sits your timezone, with the current time in it, and the card states the rule plainly: “Times are in your timezone; invitees see their own.”

The panel on the right#

Everything you change is totalled live on the right, and it is worth reading before you move on.

“What invitees see” — real slots for next Monday, converted to each invitee’s timezone.

• Bookable this week — the total hours you have opened. Forty is a full working week; if this number surprises you, your rows are wrong.
• Hours per day — a bar per weekday, so a day you left closed by accident is obvious at a glance.
• The slot estimate — how many bookable slots those hours come to at your chosen duration (“about 80 slots of 30 min across 5 days”).
• What invitees see — the actual time picker for next Monday, built from the hours you just set.

Hours that hold up#

A booking link gives away control of your calendar inside the hours you open. A few habits keep that comfortable:

• Do not open every hour you are technically free. Availability is not a timesheet — leave yourself room to work.
• Protect lunch and the start of the day with two blocks rather than one, or with the Lunch break preset.
• Set a notice period you can live with. One hour is fine if you watch your calendar; a day is safer if you do not.
• Match the range to the meeting. A quick call does not need to be bookable two months out.
• Check the slot count. If it says eighty, eighty different people could take eighty different half-hours of your month.

Before you continue#

• Every day you meant to open is ticked, and the ones you did not are showing Closed — not bookable.
• The hours total matches what you intended to give away.
• The notice period would not embarrass you at 8:55 for a 9:00 meeting.
• The timezone above the rows is genuinely the one you work in.

Then Continue to platform for step 3, where the meeting gets a location. Availability stays editable after the calendar is published, so none of this is permanent — but the invitees who book before you fix it get the hours you set today.