What is Smart Service Duration?
With the Smart Service Duration feature, you can set the perfect time period on the service/booking option.
Where do I set it up?
Click on your resource to do this
Select the item Service/ Booking option
If you have already added a service/booking option, you will find it in the left column. If you don't have one yet or if you want to add a new option, click on New+ in the right column.
Good to know: What is the difference between a booking option and a service?
Services and booking options are technically the same. However, there are small differences in the presentation. The settings, whether a resource uses a booking option or a service, is predefined by anny based on the category.
1. Booking options: All resources, which can be rented, use booking options. A booking option specifies how something can be booked. For example, a room can be booked by the hour or by the day. The customer books a room in both cases.
2. Services: A resource always has a service when an individual service is booked. Example coach: free initial consultation vs. strategy consulting. In this case, the customer gets a different service and the resource is booked and not rented.
Different representation of booking options and services on a resource:
Duration Options
The Smart Service Duration allows the time period to be fixed, flexible or intelligently stored.
For this, you have following units:
Minute (from 5 minutes to ∞), Hour (=60 minutes)
Day (1 day = 24 hours or can be defined with start and end time. Booking over night possible. E.g.: Start time 16 o'clock and end time 11:00 o'clock).
Week (Monday to Sunday)
Month (start of month to end of month)
Quarter (beginning of quarter to end of quarter) and
Year (01.01. to 31.12.) available.
Additionally, you have the choice between
Fixed duration (booking interval is specified).
Flexible duration (Dynamic booking interval – customer determines the duration) and
Duration by schedule (Booking interval is based on schedule)
1. Fixed duration
This setting is perfect if the period is fixed by you. For example, a weekly rate, which is always 1 week (start Monday and end Sunday).
All-day and multi-day services get an important setting: Start time & End time. This allows you to specify at what time your bookings should start and end. Note that the times must be within the opening hours.
Pro-tip: If you have specified 30 days in the past for a monthly booking, try the new unit month.
2. Flexible Duration
You want your customers to decide for themselves how long they want to book the service? Then use Flexible duration and the framework conditions such as minimum duration and maximum duration.
Pro-tip: If you offer a booking overnight, you can choose the unit day or greater and select the end time so that it is less than or equal to the start time. This way, anny knows that the booking should end the next day. Example hotel room: start time 16:00 (check-in) and end time 11:00 (checkout).
3. Duration by Schedule
If you offer a service or booking option over a long period of time or a one-time event, we recommend using the "Duration by schedule" option in combination with irregular schedules. Additionally, the setting is very convenient if the schedules are of different lengths.
The duration of the booking fills the individual schedule of the resource. All regular and irregular schedules thus become bookable as a whole.
Good to know
You want to put the services in a new order? Drag & drop the Service/Booking Options and sort the list as you wish.
If you want to adjust the pre- or post-processing time, always pay attention to the time unit of the booking option or service. If you change the time unit of the duration, it will be synced and 30 minutes can easily become 30 hours with one click.
Our pro tip: Use the smallest possible time unit for the duration here, so that the preparation or post-processing time does not take longer than desired.
You want information on Service Availability, then check out this article.