Opening Hours

Opening Hours

FlowCaptain uses your configured availability to determine which time slots are offered for appointments. Only times within your availability — and not already taken by existing calendar events — are offered to callers.

Configuring Availability

In the calendar, open the Schedule & Availability tab. In the Availability section, for each day of the week you can:

• Toggle open/closed — Whether you're available that day
• Set start and end — When you're available (e.g. 09:00–17:00)
• Add multiple time slots — Use Add time slot for up to 4 slots per day (e.g. 08:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00 for a lunch break)
• Remove time slots — Delete individual slots again

Time slots before 08:00 are not supported — night operations are currently not possible.

Appointment Settings

Also in the Schedule & Availability tab you'll find the Appointment Settings:

• Default Appointment Duration — How long each booked appointment is (15, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120 minutes). If you use services, each service has its own duration that overrides this default.
• Slot Increment — The spacing between available time slots (15, 30, or 60 minutes). Determines how fine-grained the availability grid is.
• Buffer Time — Break after each appointment (0–60 minutes). Gives you time between consecutive bookings.
• Minimum Lead Time — How short-notice appointments may be booked (from Immediately up to 4 weeks). Appointments within the lead time are declined — the caller receives a clear message with the earliest possible slot.
• Booking Horizon — How far into the future appointments can be booked (from 2 weeks to 1 year, default: 3 months).

How It Works

When a caller asks about availability (e.g. "Do you have anything free on Monday?"), FlowCaptain checks:

1. Your availability for that day
2. Google Calendar for existing appointments (busy times)
3. Calculates available slots based on your schedule minus busy times, taking buffer time and minimum lead time into account
4. Suggests matching time slots — how many at most is controlled via Max. Suggestions in the assistant settings

Country & Public Holidays

In the calendar's Settings tab, you configure the country (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and federal state or canton. This determines two things:

• Public Holidays — FlowCaptain knows the holidays for your region. On holidays, the assistant tells callers that the business is closed and names the holiday. Different states have different holidays — make sure your state is set correctly.
• Timezone — Your country setting determines the timezone for all bookings (e.g. Germany → Europe/Berlin). The timezone setting in Google Calendar has no effect on this.

Tips

• Use multiple time slots to model lunch breaks or other recurring unavailability
• If you offer services with different durations, configure them under Services — their duration overrides the default
• Changes take effect immediately — no restart needed