> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.storetalk.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Providers and Availability
> Set up services, providers, per-provider overrides, working hours, and locations in BookingPro
This page is the deep reference for the **Services**, **Providers**, **Availability**, and **Locations** tabs in the BookingPro dashboard. If you haven't installed BookingPro yet, start with the [BookingPro overview](/apps/booking-pro).
## Services
Open the **Services** tab and click **Add Service**. The modal has six fields:
| Field | What it does |
| ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Name** | What the customer sees in the storefront. Required. |
| **Category** | Used to group services in the storefront and dashboard. Free text — defaults to "General". |
| **Default duration (minutes)** | How long an appointment for this service takes. Defaults to 30. |
| **Price** | Stored in paise (₹100 = 10,000 paise) but the UI accepts rupees and converts. Set to 0 for free services — the customer skips payment entirely. |
| **Color** | Eight presets plus a custom hex picker. Used for the colour indicator on cards and on calendar events. |
| **Online toggle** | When ON, BookingPro creates a video meeting room at booking time and sends the customer a Join link in WhatsApp. When OFF, it's an in-person service. |
Services can also be marked **inactive** — they stop appearing in the storefront but stay in your data so historical bookings still resolve their service name.
Use **Category** to group related services. A clinic might have "General Consultation", "Specialist", and "Tests" as categories; a salon might have "Hair", "Skin", and "Nails". The customer-facing storefront groups services by category for browsability.
## Providers
Open the **Providers** tab and click **Add Provider**. The modal collects:
| Field | What it does |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Name** | The provider's full name as it should appear in the storefront and reminders. Required. |
| **Initials** | Auto-derived from the name (first letter of each word, capped at 4 characters), but editable. Shown on dashboard cards when no avatar is set. |
| **Specialty** | Free text — "General Practice", "Pediatrics", "Senior Stylist", etc. |
| **Color** | Twelve preset colours. Used to make appointments visually distinct on the dashboard. |
| **Status** | One of *Active*, *On Leave*, or *Pending Invite*. Only *Active* providers appear in the customer storefront. |
| **Email** | Used for invites and notifications. Optional today, but worth setting — future releases will support per-provider login and per-provider notifications. |
### Linking providers to services
Below the basic fields, the modal shows every service in your store with a checkbox. Tick each service this provider can deliver. When you check a service, two override fields appear:
* **Duration override (minutes)** — leave blank to use the service's default duration
* **Price override** — leave blank to use the service's default price
This is how you handle real-world variation. A clinic might offer a 30-minute consultation at ₹500 by default, but a senior consultant takes 45 minutes and charges ₹1,000 for the same service. You set the senior consultant's overrides; everyone else uses the default.
Overrides are per provider, per service. They never affect what other providers charge or how long their slot is.
### Provider statuses
| Status | Visible in storefront? | Counted as Active? | Notes |
| ------------------ | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Active** | Yes | Yes | Default for newly added providers. |
| **On Leave** | No | No (counted as "On Leave" on the Dashboard) | Use for vacation, sick days, sabbaticals. Existing bookings remain; new bookings can't be made until you switch back to Active. |
| **Pending Invite** | No | No | Placeholder for providers who haven't yet accepted the invite. Treat as not-yet-onboarded. |
## Availability
Open the **Availability** tab to define each provider's working hours. The model is one rule per day-of-week per provider:
* **Day of week** — Monday through Sunday
* **Start time** — local time in your store's timezone
* **End time** — local time in your store's timezone
* **Location** — optional; only used if you have multiple Locations defined
For example, Tara works Mon–Sat 10:00–18:00 IST. You'd add six rules to her — one per working day. To add a lunch break, today the simplest approach is to define two narrower rules per day (e.g. 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00) — explicit multi-shift support is on the roadmap but not in the current dashboard.
All times are stored and shown in the timezone you set on the **Settings** tab. Customers see slot times in your timezone too — the WhatsApp confirmation message includes the timezone abbreviation (e.g. "11:20 am IST") so there's no ambiguity.
### How availability becomes slots
When a customer reaches the slot picker in the storefront:
1. BookingPro looks up availability rules for the chosen provider (or all providers, if "any available")
2. Slots are generated within those windows based on the service duration
3. Existing bookings are subtracted to avoid double-booking
4. The result is shown as a date calendar — only days with at least one open slot are tappable
The slot calendar respects the provider's status (skips on-leave providers) and the service's duration (a 60-minute service won't show a 30-minute leftover at the end of a window).
### Recurring rules and exceptions
The current rule model is **weekly recurring** — every Monday at 10:00–18:00 means "every Monday forever". One-off exceptions (a provider taking next Tuesday off, or a holiday) aren't yet supported as a feature in the dashboard.
Today's workarounds:
* **Provider on leave for a few days** — switch their status to **On Leave** for the duration. New bookings stop, existing bookings stay (you may want to reassign them).
* **Single-day office closure** — temporarily clear that day's rule for every provider, then re-add it after.
Quick-leave bulk reschedule is on the roadmap.
## Locations
Multi-location businesses use the **Locations** tab to define each site. Each location can have:
* A name (e.g. "Indiranagar Branch")
* An address
* Optional rooms (treatment rooms, courts, stations)
Availability rules can be linked to a specific location, so a provider who works mornings at one branch and evenings at another can be modelled with two rules per day, one per location.
If your business operates from a single place, you can ignore this tab entirely — leave the location blank on availability rules and BookingPro will simply not surface a location in customer messages.
Even single-location businesses sometimes benefit from defining one location explicitly — it lets you add the address to confirmation messages via the `{{location_name}}` placeholder, which is much friendlier than "your appointment is confirmed" with no address.
## Reassigning a booking
Bookings can be moved to a different provider after they've been confirmed. From the **Bookings** tab, expand the booking row and click **Reassign**. The modal:
* Shows a dropdown of currently-Active providers (excluding the one already assigned)
* Has an optional **reason** field (free text — captured in the activity log)
* Has a **notify customer** toggle — defaults to ON. When on, the customer receives a WhatsApp message telling them about the new provider. The appointment time stays the same.
The Reassign button only appears when you have **two or more Active providers** — it's hidden on single-provider stores where reassignment doesn't make sense.
If the booking is for an online service, the existing meeting room is **kept**. The customer's join link still works; only the human on the other end of the call is different. If you'd rather give the customer a new link, cancel the booking and create a fresh one instead.
The customer journey, payment flow, video meetings, and lifecycle tour.
Customise the WhatsApp wording for confirmations, reminders, and lifecycle events.