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Overview

The Real-Time Availability feature provides instant feedback to potential customers about your availability for their desired event dates. This helps set expectations early in the inquiry process and saves you time by reducing requests for dates when you’re already fully booked.

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How It Works

Visual Indicators

When browsing dates on your form, customers will see visual indicators of your availability:
  • Available dates: Dates when you have capacity for new bookings
  • Limited availability: Dates when you’re approaching capacity or have blocked dates
Availability calendar view

Status Messages

After selecting a date, customers see a message when it’s busy or unavailable. Open dates show no message.
A lead form date question showing the message This date is in high demand
Even when dates show limited availability, customers can still submit requests, but they’ll do so understanding they might need flexibility.

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Availability Factors

Blocked Time

If you’ve blocked a full day, customers can’t pick that date.If you’ve blocked part of a day, the date stays open. Customers whose start time runs into the blocked hours see a message and up to 6 open start times to choose from.Use blocked time for:
  • Company holidays
  • Days you know you can’t service events
  • Mornings or afternoons you can’t take events
  • Maintenance periods
  • Personal time off
To block a day or a few hours, see Block dates and times.

Resource Capacity

Flashquotes compares the number of free resources on a date to the number of resources the lead needs. A date shows as available only when enough resources are free.Flashquotes works out how many resources the lead needs from:
  • The services the lead selects
  • The guest count and duration from the staffing question
Until the lead answers the staffing question, Flashquotes assumes the lead needs 1 resource.Example scenarios:
  • You have 4 carts and 3 are booked for a date. A lead who needs 2 carts sees that date as unavailable, because only 1 cart is free.
  • On the same date, a lead who needs 1 cart sees the date as available.
  • If all 4 carts are booked, the date shows as unavailable for every lead.
Services that need 0 resources, such as pickup, show every date as available unless you blocked it.
Fully blocked dates always show as unavailable, regardless of resource capacity.
You can adjust your resource capacity in the Resources section to ensure your availability is accurately displayed.

Multiple Locations

If your business operates in multiple locations:
  • You can set different resources for each location
  • Availability will display based on the specific location’s capacity
  • Customers will see availability specific to their selected location
  • Requests go only to locations that offer every service the customer picked, and the calendar uses only those locations
  • If no single location offers all picked services, the customer sees your out-of-area message, every date shows as unavailable, and instant quotes go to manual review
Set which locations offer each service in the service’s Available Locations picker. See Service-Specific Locations.
Make sure to properly assign resources to each location in your Settings to ensure accurate availability display.

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Setting Up For Success

1

Update Your Resources

Make sure your total available resources reflect your actual capacity. If you hire more staff or add equipment, update your resources accordingly.
2

Maintain Your Calendar

Keep your calendar up-to-date by:
  • Blocking off dates when you know you won’t be available
  • Ensuring events have the correct number of resources assigned
  • Regularly reviewing your upcoming bookings
3

Review Your Availability

Periodically check how your availability appears to customers:
  • Test your form to see availability displays
  • Verify blocked dates are showing correctly
  • Ensure resource allocations are accurate

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Business Benefits

The Real-Time Availability feature provides several advantages:
  • Time savings: Reduce time spent responding to requests for dates when you’re fully booked
  • Expectation management: Set clear expectations with potential customers from the start
  • Resource optimization: Better manage your resource allocation across events
  • Improved visibility: Maintain an accurate, real-time view of your availability