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Staff Schedules & Availability

Staff Schedules & Availability

Set working hours for each team member so the calendar and online booking only show available time slots — and configure your venue's operating hours to define when you are open for business.

Where to find it — Web: Sidebar → Team → select staff member → Profile tab → Working Hours. Mobile: More → Team → staff member → Edit next to Schedule.

Overview

Staff schedules and availability let you:

  • Set each team member's weekly working hours (which days and times they work)
  • Set your venue's operating hours (when the venue is open to customers)
  • Detect booking conflicts when you reduce hours — with the option to save anyway
  • Block out specific time slots for breaks, training, or personal time
  • Control who can edit schedules (owners, managers, or staff editing their own)

Note

Working hours and operating hours are available on both FREE and PRO plans. There is no tier restriction on schedule management.

How staff hours and operating hours work together

OpenChair uses two layers of scheduling to determine when bookings can be made:

Layer What it controls Who sets it
Venue operating hours When the venue is open to customers. This is the outer boundary — no bookings can be made outside these hours. Owner
Staff working hours When each team member is available within the venue's operating hours. This is the inner boundary — a staff member's hours cannot extend beyond venue hours for booking purposes. Owner, Manager, or the staff member

A booking time slot is only available when both the venue is open and the assigned staff member is working.

Example: If your venue is open 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM on Monday, but a stylist's hours are 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM, that stylist's bookable slots on Monday are 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.

Setting staff working hours

On web

  1. Go to Team in the sidebar.
  2. Select the team member.
  3. The Profile tab opens by default — scroll to the Working Hours section.
  4. For each day of the week (Monday – Sunday):
    • Toggle the switch on to mark the day as a working day, or off to mark it as not working.
    • For working days, set the start time and end time using the dropdown selectors.
  5. Click Save Roster.

Times are shown in 12-hour format (e.g. "9:00 AM") and are available in 30-minute increments from 12:00 AM to 11:30 PM.

When you have unsaved changes, an "Unsaved changes" indicator appears next to the save button.

Working day styling: active days are highlighted with a white background and border; inactive days are dimmed with reduced opacity.

On mobile

  1. Go to More → Team.
  2. Tap the team member.
  3. Tap Edit next to the Schedule card.
  4. For each day:
    • Toggle the switch to Working or Off.
    • For working days, tap the start or end time button to open a time picker.
  5. The time picker shows a scrollable list of 30-minute slots in 12-hour format. Tap a time to select it, then tap Done.
  6. Tap Save Schedule.

Tip

During onboarding, the staff availability editor shows a "Same as venue hours" button that copies the venue's operating hours to the new team member's schedule — saving you from setting each day manually.

Default schedule

New staff members are initialised with all days set to not working with default times of 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. You must toggle on the days the team member works and adjust the times as needed.

Setting venue operating hours

Operating hours define when your venue is open to customers. They appear on your storefront and control the outer boundary for all booking availability.

On web

  1. Go to Settings → Schedule in the sidebar.
  2. The Operating Hours card shows all 7 days.
  3. For each day:
    • Toggle the switch to mark the day as open or closed.
    • For open days, set the open time and close time using the dropdowns.
  4. Optionally, toggle "Same hours every day" to apply the same open and close times to all open days.
  5. Click Save Schedule.

The card description reads: "Set your weekly schedule. Future bookings will be checked against these times."

On mobile

  1. Go to More → Settings → Schedule (or navigate to the operating hours screen).
  2. For each day, toggle Open or Closed and set the times.
  3. Optionally, toggle "Same hours every day" to apply uniform hours.
  4. Tap Save Hours.

Default operating hours

New venues default to:

Day Status Hours
Monday – Friday Open 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Saturday – Sunday Closed —

Booking conflict detection

When you reduce a staff member's working hours or a venue's operating hours — by turning off a day or narrowing the time window — OpenChair checks for future bookings that fall outside the new schedule.

How conflict detection works

  1. You save a reduced schedule (with the initial save attempt, force is off).
  2. OpenChair finds all future pending and confirmed bookings affected by the change.
  3. If conflicts are found, a dialog appears:
    • Web: "Bookings on changed days" — lists up to 20 affected bookings showing the date, time, customer name, and service name. You can click Go Back to cancel or Save Changes to save anyway.
    • Mobile: an alert showing the number of conflicting bookings. You can tap Cancel or Save Anyway to force the save.
  4. If you force save, the schedule is updated but the existing bookings are not automatically cancelled or moved — they remain as scheduled.

Warning

Conflicting bookings are not automatically cancelled when you reduce hours. After saving, you must manually reschedule or cancel any bookings that now fall outside the new schedule.

Blocking out time

For one-off unavailability — such as lunch breaks, training sessions, personal time, or meetings — use the Block Time feature instead of changing the weekly roster.

Block time creates a calendar event that prevents bookings during that specific time slot on a specific date. It does not change the team member's recurring weekly schedule.

For full details, see Blocking Out Time.

Who can edit schedules

Action Owner Manager Stylist
Edit venue operating hours Yes No No
Edit any staff member's working hours Yes Yes (Stylists only) No
Edit own working hours Yes Yes Yes (via mobile self-service)
View staff schedule Yes Yes Own schedule only

On mobile, the schedule editor shows a read-only notice for users who cannot edit: "Read-only — only the venue owner can edit schedules."

Time storage format

Staff and venue schedules are stored differently in the database, but displayed the same way to users:

Schedule type Storage format Display format
Staff working hours Minutes from midnight (e.g. 540 = 9:00 AM) 12-hour with AM/PM (e.g. "9:00 AM")
Venue operating hours HH:MM string (e.g. "09:00") 12-hour with AM/PM (e.g. "9:00 AM")

Both use 30-minute increments in the picker (00:00, 00:30, 01:00, ... through to 23:30).

Platform differences

Feature Web Mobile
Staff schedule location Team → staff member → Profile tab → Working Hours Team → staff member → Edit next to Schedule
Operating hours location Settings → Schedule Settings → Schedule (operating hours screen)
Time picker Dropdown selector (Radix Select on desktop, native select on mobile web) Scrollable list in a modal (FlashList with 48 slots)
Save button (staff) "Save Roster" "Save Schedule"
Save button (venue) "Save Schedule" "Save Hours"
"Same hours every day" toggle Yes (operating hours) Yes (operating hours)
Conflict dialog Dialog listing up to 20 bookings with date, customer, and service Alert with booking count and force-save option
Unsaved changes indicator "Unsaved changes" label + dot badge No explicit indicator
Non-working day label "Not working" (desktop), "Off" (mobile) "Off"
Closed day label (venue) "Closed" "Closed"

Troubleshooting

Issue Solution
Staff member not showing available time slots on the booking page Check that the staff member has working hours set for that day. Go to Team → select the staff member → Profile tab → Working Hours and confirm the day is toggled on with the correct times. Also check that the venue is open on that day.
Changed working hours but existing bookings are still at the old times Changing the schedule does not automatically move or cancel existing bookings. If you reduced hours, you need to manually reschedule or cancel any bookings that now fall outside the new schedule.
Cannot edit a staff member's schedule Only owners and managers can edit staff schedules. If you are a Stylist, you can only edit your own availability via the mobile app. Managers can only edit Stylist schedules, not other Managers or Owners.
Operating hours saved but staff can still be booked outside venue hours Staff working hours and venue operating hours are checked independently. If a staff member's hours extend beyond venue hours, bookings outside venue hours should still be blocked. If this is happening, verify the venue's operating hours are saved correctly in Settings → Schedule.
"Same hours every day" toggle is not showing The "Same hours every day" toggle only appears on the venue operating hours editor, not on the staff working hours editor.
Staff member's hours reset to defaults after editing Ensure you clicked Save Roster (web) or Save Schedule (mobile) after making changes. On web, look for the "Unsaved changes" indicator — if it disappears after clicking save, the changes were saved successfully.
Need to give a staff member a day off on a specific date Do not change the weekly schedule for a one-off day off. Instead, use the Block Time feature to block out the specific date and time range. This prevents bookings without changing the recurring schedule.

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Last updated: March 2026