Before You Dive In
This article is one step from our Master Help Guide: All About Calendars. We recommend starting with the visual walkthrough video and examples inside the Master Help Guide before diving into the technical setup below.
Each Master Help Guide acts as your project plan - teaching you the feature, laying out the steps in the right order, and linking to every resource you’ll need along the way.
This guide is perfect if you're looking to:
Understand how calendar availability works as a whole
Set your regularly available days and hours, and custom availability for specific dates
Quickly block out specific time slots as unavailable (e.g. for once-off events, or emergencies)
Problem solve availability issues on Meetings Calendars
Meetings Calendar Availability
Your Meetings Calendar availability in Ivorey™ is managed in one central place, giving you full control over your weekly working hours and date-specific hours across all of your Ivorey™ calendars. This setup allows you to you to maintain a consistent weekly schedule while also accommodating unique circumstances on specific dates.
By understanding how availability works inside Ivorey™, you’ll be able to:
Stay open for bookings without overcommitting
Protect your work hours, days off, and holidays
Avoid scheduling conflicts with external events
Keep team-wide calendars running smoothly while honouring each person’s unique schedule
1. Set Your Profile Availability
Click here for the written instructions
Click here for the written instructions
From the Ivorey™ main menu, go to [Settings] > [Profile] > and then scroll down to Schedules. There are two layers to set here:
Set up your Weekly Working Hours - your regular availability on a recurring basis. This is useful for setting up your default schedule that repeats week after week.
Example: if you're consistently available every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 8 AM to 10 PM, you can configure these hours as your weekly working hours. The system will then automatically apply this schedule to those days and times every week.
Set up your Date Specific Hours - use this to override your weekly hours on specific days. You might use this to:
Block off time for personal appointments
Mark yourself unavailable for holidays
Extend your hours on certain days
Customise availability for one-off events
If any Date Specific Hours are set, they will always take priority over your weekly schedule for that day.
2. Calendar Booking Rules
While availability is managed centrally, each individual calendar still has its own booking rules. These settings let you control how each calendar behaves without affecting your core availability.
Inside each calendar, you can:
Choose which services are bookable
Set minimum notice periods
Add buffers between appointments
Limit the number of daily or weekly bookings
Define how far in advance someone can schedule
These rules shape the booking experience for your clients, but they don’t control your availability; that’s all managed from your profile.
You'll be able to manage your calendar booking rules when setting up your calendars, which you can learn more about over here.
3. External Conflict Calendars
You can also connect to external conflict calendars (like Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCal). When connected, Ivorey™ cross-checks for personal appointments or events already in your external calendar. If you’ve blocked time there - whether it’s a meeting, lunch break, or family event - Ivorey™ will automatically note that slot as busy, and prevent you from getting double-booked with an external event. You can learn more about setting up your conflict calendars over here.
How These Layers Work Together
Profile availability sets the overall working hours of each team member.
Calendar rules narrow that down for each service type.
Conflict calendars keep everything in sync and prevent double-booking with external schedules.
Together, these layers create a smart, centralised scheduling system that protects your time, avoids clashes, and gives clients a seamless booking experience.
Troubleshooting Calendar Availability Issues
All Meetings Calendars have a troubleshooting function built-in, where you can click on each day to see what the issue might be. This will help you determine why specific calendar slots are showing as unavailable in your calendar booking widget.
Click here for the written instructions
Click here for the written instructions
From the Ivorey™ main menu, go to [Calendars] > [Calendar Settings] > and click the 🛠️ icon of the calendar you need to check. This will open a Troubleshooting View window of your calendar, showing all potential booking slots
All unavailable slots will display the reason for unavailability:
USER: No user is available because they are either blocked by another event, or this appointment falls outside their set availability
COLLECTIVE: One or more users are unavailable for the collective appointment
CONFLICT: An event on an external calendar is blocking this slot
BOOKED: An appointment is already scheduled at this time, on a calendar inside your Ivorey™ account
BLOCKED: A blocked-off time has been added for this slot
NOTICE: The slot cannot be shown due to the minimum scheduling notice requirement
TOOFAR: The slot is outside of the allowed date range
DAYLIMIT: The maximum number of appointments for the day has been reached
SLOTMAX: The maximum number of appointments for this slot has been reached
BUFFER: A pre/post buffer is applied, blocking this slot
DURATION: The appointment duration is longer than the available time
PAST: This slot is in the past
LOOKBUSY: This slot is hidden due to the 'Look Busy' setting in the calendar
NO SEATS: The maximum number of available seats has been reached
RESOURCE: A required resource (e.g. room or equipment) is not available
Once you understand the reason, you can then adjust the calendar or user availability settings accordingly, if needed:
Check the calendar's booking rules, and adjust any settings here as needed (e.g. buffer times, or 'Look Busy' setting). Please refer to our Create a Calendar guide for the detailed steps
Check the booking availability settings for each team member assigned to the calendar:
Click [Bulk Edit] to edit multiple team member's availability at once, or click on an individual team member > click [Date-Specific Hours] to check for any conflicts
Click [Weekly Hours] > to make adjustments, click [Edit] > select either [Edit this schedule] to adjust the Weekly Hours for this team member's profile (this will affect all calendars they're assigned to), or [Customize schedule for this calendar only] to create a custom schedule that will only apply to this calendar.
If any adjustments were made to the main profile schedule, double-check that the changes have synced across the account:
Make sure to click [Save] before leaving calendar settings > click [Back to Calendars List] > and go to the [My Availability] tab. This will show your schedule as set in your profile, ensure any changes made are reflected here. Select another team member's profile from the drop-down menu to check their schedule, if any adjustments were made
Click [Profile] on the Settings menu, and scroll down to Schedules to ensure any changes made have synced here. Or click [Team] > click the ✏️ pencil icon of your team member and select the [User Availability] tab, to check their schedules for changes.
Note: if you've gone through all of the steps above and your availability still isn’t displaying correctly, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team via the chat widget inside Ivorey™. Please provide details about the issue, as well as the name of the calendar, and we’ll be happy to assist you in resolving it.
Services Calendar Availability
If you're using Services Calendars, availability works differently from Meetings Calendars and does not pull from your Profile Availability.
Because Services Calendars support multiple locations, physical resources, and multi-service bookings, each team member’s availability must be configured directly inside the Services Calendar settings.
This ensures that:
each staff member can have different working hours
availability varies by location
services can be offered on different days or times
split shifts and breaks are accurately reflected
date-specific hours (holidays, leave, shortened shifts) are managed per person
This setup must be completed for every team member assigned to Services, and is separate from your main Profile Availability. Please refer to our Set Up a Services Calendar guide for the detailed steps.
Block Off Time Across All Calendars
You can easily block-out time slots on your calendars, without having to reconfigure your calendar settings, using the Blocked Off Time feature. This will apply to ALL calendars you're involved in, so you don't need to manually adjust each individual calendar. This is great for managing time off or if something unexpected pops up.
Click here for the written instructions
Click here for the written instructions
From the main Ivorey™ menu, go to [Calendars] > and click the [Appointments List View] tab
Click the [+ New Appointment] button at the top right of your screen
Select the [Blocked Off Time] tab > from the drop-down, select which User/Calendar this should apply to > fill in an Appointment Title > select the Date & Time for the slot you would like to block out
Click the [Block Time] button to save, and you will now see this time slot has been booked out across all calendars for the selected user or for all users within the selected calendar
Next Steps
If you’ve completed the steps above, head back to the Master Help Guide On Calendars to move onto the next phase.
Each Master Help Guide acts as your project plan - teaching you the feature, laying out the steps in the right order, and linking to every resource you’ll need along the way.
Still Need Help?
Hit the support chat widget inside Ivorey™ - we can:
Walk you through any of the steps
Troubleshoot anything that’s not working
We’re here and ready to help via the chat widget in the bottom right of your Ivorey™ account. Or if you are looking for done-for-you support, you can browse our current services here 🤍