No times are showing

The single most common problem — and a checklist that finds it every time.

"No times available on this day" is the message that brings most people here. Booked never invents availability — it starts with your opening hours and takes time away, layer by layer. One wrong toggle anywhere in that chain removes every slot. Work down this page in order.

How Booked works out a bookable time

Booked applies each layer in turn and offers whatever survives. Nothing later can add time back: ticking Sunday on a service will not open a branch closed on Sunday. And nothing warns you when the answer is zero — the branch or service quietly stops appearing on the form.

• 1The branch's Opening hours — the outer boundary. If Bramhall is closed that date, Booked returns nothing without looking at who is working.
• 2The person's Working hours — set on their record, and used at every branch they work at.
• 3The overlap, minus blocked time — only 09:00–16:00 counts. Her 11:00 appointment and 13:00–14:00 lunch are cut out (hatched).
• 4What is left — starts every 15 minutes, and only where the whole appointment fits. 10:45 goes because a 30-minute jab would run into the 11:00 booking.

Check the links first: service, branch, person

Before hours matter at all, Booked needs one member of staff who qualifies. Three links must exist, each editable from either side.

1. The service is offered at the branchServices › (the service) › Locations ("Available at").
2. The person works at the branchEmployees › (the person) › Locations ("Works at").
3. The person can perform the serviceEmployees › (the person) › Services ("Can perform").
4. All three records are ActiveOne Inactive record vanishes from customers while looking normal in the admin.

Miss one and the branch or the service disappears from the form silently. Saving a service also replaces its whole Staff and Locations list, so if two of you edit from different screens, the last Save wins. Video consultations skip the branch layer.

Then the hours: the branch and the person must overlap

Working hours are cut down by opening hours, never merged with them. Priya on 08:00–16:00 at a branch open 09:00–17:30 gives 09:00–16:00. If the two never overlap she produces nothing, though both records look open.

• An interval whose end is not later than its start is discarded without a word — an overnight 22:00–02:00 shift disappears.
• Hours are read in your WordPress timezone (WordPress › Settings › General), not the Timezone box under Settings › Region & currency. Set both the same.

Closures, time off and breaks

Three more mechanisms remove time from a person's week, and they behave differently.

• 1The tab rail — all five tabs are one form. Switching tabs saves nothing; Save employee writes the lot.
• 2Working hours — Wednesday reads "Closed", so Priya offers no times that day at any branch. Days run Monday first everywhere.
• 3Breaks — a recurring weekly block, treated exactly like a booking. One with no day ticked is dropped on save.
• 4Time off — whole dates only. "Off (time off)" removes her from 5–12 October at every branch.

Branches have the same mechanism under Times › "Special days", where the buttons read Closed and Custom hours.

• Only one special day applies to a date — the earliest-starting one that covers it. A second, overlapping range is ignored.
• A special day replaces the weekly hours rather than merging with them, and "Custom hours" opens with every weekday off — which behaves exactly like Closed.
• An end date before the start date never matches anything, and special days do not repeat — bank holidays need re-entering each year.

The service's own availability window

A service can be limited to certain weekdays, certain times of year, or both. This layer gets forgotten, because it lives on the service, not on anyone's diary.

• 1Available on these days — highlighted days are bookable. All seven, or none, is stored as no restriction at all.
• 2The hint underneath — the only way to tell a restriction is on. "All days can be booked." means there is none.
• 3Only available on certain dates — month and day only, so it repeats every year, forever. Both ends need a month and a day.

If a seasonal window opens further ahead than the form looks, customers see "No availability in the next two weeks. Please contact us." Each Date picker layout searches a fixed distance, never beyond 42 days — and the default "Dropdown" leaves empty days undimmed, where Calendar grid greys them out.

When the day is already taken

Every booking for that person removes the times it overlaps, except a Cancelled one. Pending, Completed and No-show all hold their slot — marking someone a no-show does not reopen the time.

How much room the appointment needs

• A booking blocks the person, not the branch — someone booked at 10:00 at the High Street shop is unavailable at 10:00 at Bramhall.
• Group bookings multiply the duration: three people on a 20-minute service need a clear hour, so times vanish as a customer adds someone.
• "Buffer after (min)" lengthens the block and pulls the last start earlier — 30 minutes plus a 10-minute buffer closing at 17:00 last starts at 16:20. "Buffer before (min)" affects nothing.

Why the admin sees times your customers cannot

• The admin slot picker does not subtract breaks, so a colleague can book over Priya's lunch — a time no customer could pick.
• It ignores the service's availability window: flu jabs restricted to Tuesdays are still offered on a Wednesday.
• "Allow staff to override availability" makes taken times and closed days selectable, with a fixed 08:00–20:00 window. It changes nothing on the public form.

The checklist, in order

1. Your planSettings › Your plan — without an active licence every lookup is refused.
2. The three links, and every StatusService at the branch, person at the branch, person on the service — all Active.
3. Hours for that weekdayThe branch's, the person's, and whether the two overlap.
4. Special days, time off and breaksOn the branch and on the person, for that exact date.
5. The service's Availability tabWeekday allow-list and seasonal ranges.
6. The day itselfOld Pending bookings, duration plus buffer, the slot interval, the party size.

In the admin picker, "Not available on this day — day off or outside working hours." points at steps 3 and 4; "No available times on this day." points at step 6.