Why does the calendar show a day as available when it is fully booked?

The calendar does not immediately calculate full availability for every day it displays. Only for the days within the calendar detail window is it worked out in advance which time slots are still free. Days beyond that window keep the default colour for the time being — usually green, so 'available' — even if they are in fact fully booked. As soon as you click such a day, the real availability is calculated and you see the correct colour, for instance red when all time slots are full.

So there is nothing wrong with availability itself: a customer can never book a time slot that is full. It only concerns the colour the calendar shows up front.

Example

On 17 July you look at the month of August. 28 August is already fully booked, but falls outside the configured detail window of 30 days. In the calendar 28 August is therefore still green. Click that day and the calculation is performed, showing that all time slots are red.

Exception: holidays and closing days

Holidays and closing days are an exception: they are always shown immediately in the configured colour, regardless of the detail window. No availability calculation is needed for those days — they are fixed.

Interaction with 'Calculate days'

Two settings together determine whether a day turns red in the calendar:

• Calculate days in the calendar configuration must be set to Yes. When set to No, only the fully booked time slots turn red and never the day itself. See Calendar page.
• The day must fall within the calendar detail window. If it falls outside, the calculation is only performed at the moment the customer clicks the day.

Step by step: changing the detail window

1. In the configuration screen, choose Front pages.
2. Choose General settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Look for the setting Calendar detail window (days). The default value is 30 days.
4. Increase this number if the calendar should already show the correct colour further into the future.
5. Save the setting and check the result on the front page.

An overview of all settings on this screen is available at General settings.

Trade-off: speed versus reach

The higher you set this number, the longer the calendar takes to load: a full availability calculation is performed in advance for more days. So choose a value that matches how far ahead your customers tend to book.

Checking it yourself

• Always click a day to see the real availability. The colour of a day far in the future is not necessarily the definitive colour.
• After a change, refresh with CTRL+SHIFT+R (on a Mac CMD+SHIFT+R) so you are not looking at a cached version of the calendar.