Hours, special dates and booking rules
Your booking hours, days that are different, and how much notice you need.
Settings → Scheduling is where you tell CLEO how your week normally runs, which dates break the pattern, and how far in advance people book. Everything CLEO later offers as a free time is built from these answers.
When you normally take bookings
Under When do you normally take bookings? each day of the week has its own line. Add the hours you work with Add hours, and a day with none says Closed.
A day can hold more than one stretch of time — 9:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00 for a business that stops for lunch. Add a second pair on that day and CLEO treats the gap as time you don't take bookings. Remove takes a stretch away.
Press Save booking hours and CLEO confirms: Saved. CLEO knows when you normally take bookings.
Dates that are different
Holidays, a training day, a Saturday you open specially — these are exceptions to the week, and they live under Dates that are different.
Pick the date, optionally say What is it? so you recognise it later, then choose:
- Closed all day — nothing can be booked that day.
- Open, but with different hours — and give the hours.
Press Save this date. The screen is explicit about what the second option means: hours you set for a date replace your normal hours on that date. They don't add to them.
To undo one, press Back to normal hours: Removed. That date goes back to your normal hours.
How far ahead people book
Two rules, under How far ahead do people book?:
- How much notice do you need? — from No minimum up through the usual choices, or Something else for your own number of hours. This stops same-hour surprises.
- How far ahead someone can book — No limit, or 30, 60 or 90 days, or your own number.
Save, and CLEO confirms: Saved. This applies to new bookings from now on.
Appointments already in the diary are left alone.
What these rules actually do
They are real limits, not preferences:
- When you book someone in yourself, CLEO won't quietly break them. A time inside your notice window or beyond your booking window is flagged, and you can set the rule aside deliberately with a tick. A time that is genuinely taken or outside your hours is refused unless you override it on purpose.
- When a customer books online, the rules are absolute. There is no override, and times that break them are never offered.
Hours and rules are two of the three things CLEO needs before it can offer a time as free. When CLEO can offer free times covers all three.