Availability Planning: Open Time Slots and Capacity
Looking for a report that shows available schedule time slots? Use Availability Planning. The page header reads Availability. It brings four views of your schedule's open time and capacity together:
- Schedule Gaps — open time slots by team and date, long enough for a job of the length you choose
- Availability — how much capacity is left on each day for a scope group
- RPP Utilization — how full each team's schedule is
- Master Schedule — your recurring schedule pattern
Use it to answer questions like "When can we fit a new 3-hour clean next week?" or "Which days still have room?" before you confirm a date with a customer.
How to Open Availability Planning
- Go to Reports.
- On the Reports tab, find the Tools section.
- Under Scheduling & Capacity, click Availability Planning.
The Tools section is hidden while you type in the Search reports... box. If you searched for "availability" and see nothing, clear the search box and look under Tools > Scheduling & Capacity.
Tabs or Grid Layout
Use the View toggle in the toolbar to switch between:
- Tabs (default) — one view at a time, with tabs for Master Schedule, Schedule Gaps, RPP Utilization, and Availability
- Grid — all four views on screen at once. You can expand any one of them to fill the page.
Pulse remembers the layout you picked.
Filters
The toolbar has quick filters. Click More to open the full Availability Filters panel.
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Date Range | The dates to look at. By default, this starts today |
| Scope | The scope group(s) whose capacity the Availability view shows. Your company's default scope group is selected automatically |
| Zip | Enter a customer's ZIP code to filter to the matching service zone |
| Zone | Limit results to one service zone |
| Hours | The job length to look for. Schedule Gaps only lists openings at least this long. The default is 2 hours |
| Freq | Choose a service frequency. This doesn't currently change the results in any view |
| Team | Limit results to one team, or show All Teams |
Click Reset to go back to the default filters. Reset also clears Scope, so choose a scope group again to see the Availability view.
The RPP Utilization view doesn't use the zone filter. The Availability view uses only Date Range and Scope.
Finding Open Time Slots (Schedule Gaps)
Schedule Gaps lists the best open slots on the schedule for a job of the length set in Hours, within your date range, zone, and team filters. Each slot shows the team and how long the gap is. Sort the list by Score (best fit first) or by Date.
Schedule Gaps is view-only. To book a slot, create or reschedule the job from the schedule or from a quote.
If no slots appear, try widening the date range, shortening the job length, or including more teams.
Checking Remaining Capacity (Availability)
The Availability view shows, day by day, how much of the selected scope group's capacity is already booked and how much is left. You can select one or more scope groups in the Scope filter.
What do the colors on the Availability calendar mean?
Each day is colored by its status, the same on the Tabs and Grid layouts and when booking: green is Open, yellow is Filling Up or Nearly Full, light red is At Capacity (full), and darker red is Overbooked. Grey days have No Goal or are in the past.
How far over is an overbooked day?
An overbooked day shows how far over its goal it is, so you can tell a slightly full day from a badly overbooked one at a glance. The day shows a negative amount, such as -3.5h, instead of 0h. Hover over the day, or click it, to see the same amount labeled Over by.
Viewing more than one scope group
When you select two or more scope groups, each one gets its own line, labeled with its name:
- When Availability is expanded on the Grid layout, the calendar's top line for each day is the total for everything you selected. Below it is one line per scope group with its booked and goal amounts. Hover over a day to see the same lines and the total. If any selected scope group is blacked out that day, the top line shows Blackout instead of the total.
- On the Tabs layout, or the Grid layout with Availability not expanded, each scope group has its own row of days. The All selected row shows the total.
Usually the total is the selected scope groups' goals minus everything booked in them. In a scope group's own row of days, an overbooked day shows how far over it is. In the expanded calendar, the scope group's line shows what's booked against its goal. Either way, its extra bookings also come off the total. So adding an overbooked scope group can lower what's left in total.
Pooled capacity may need to be turned on for your company. With it on, a total in hours is worked out from the people scheduled to work in the selected scope groups, and each person is counted once. So the total can differ from the scope group lines added together. A change made on a day's Override tab changes that scope group's line, but not a total in hours. Totals in dollars work the same way as without pooled capacity, so an override changes both the scope group's line and the total.
If your scope groups mix hours and revenue goals, there's no total. Each scope group is shown on its own row.
Click a day to see its details:
- Capacity Used — the percentage of the day's goal already booked
- Goal, Used, and Available — shown in dollars or hours, depending on how the scope group's capacity is set up. On an overbooked day, Available reads Over by and shows how far booked work is over the goal
- A status: Open, Filling Up, Nearly Full, At Capacity, Overbooked, No Goal, or Past
If the view says Select a scope group in the filter bar, choose at least one scope group in Scope.
Why does a day say No Goal?
For a scope group set up by hours, a day's goal is its Override if there is one, otherwise that weekday's Hour Goal if one is entered, otherwise the hours of technicians scheduled that day. Hour goals are optional.
A technician counts only with the Scheduled tag, one of the scope group's Applicable Skills, and an available schedule that day. No Goal means the day has no hours: its Hour Goal is 0, or no counted technician is scheduled. When every upcoming day says No Goal, the booking flow's Availability tab shows a note saying which.
How do I change availability by hand for online booking?
Go to Settings > Quoting & Scopes > Scopes of Work, then edit the scope group's Availability Calendar. You can adjust availability there manually. You can also go to Schedule > Availability, click a day, and use the Override tab.
Tips
- Quoting a new customer? Enter their ZIP code and the expected job length in Hours, then check Schedule Gaps for the earliest open slots in their zone.
- Planning hiring or marketing? Use Availability and RPP Utilization to see which days and teams are consistently full.
- Availability Planning is not the live schedule. It helps you find room. Book and move jobs on the Schedule page.
Who Can Access This
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Full access |
| Office | Full access |
| Sales | Full access |
| Technician | Not available |
Related Articles
- Master Schedule - Your recurring schedule across a 4-week cycle
- Reschedule a Job - Move a job using suggested open time slots
- Revenue Production Planning - Team capacity and utilization reporting