This is an opt-in feature, off until you switch it on, and even then it's decided pet by pet — so you can offer it to your steady, easy regulars and keep it well away from the dogs you'd rather book yourself. This guide walks through switching it on, how the available times are worked out, what your client sees, and how you handle the requests that come in.
The idea: your real calendar is the availability
The thing that makes self-booking low-maintenance is that there's no separate availability calendar to keep up to date. You carry on running your diary exactly as you do today — booking appointments, blocking out time, marking days off — and Woofle works out what's free from that, fresh, every single time a client looks.
So the moment you book someone in, or block out an afternoon, that time simply isn't offered any more. There's nothing to remember to close off, and no way for the two to drift apart, because there aren't two things — there's just your calendar, read live. A slot a client is shown is a slot you're actually free for.
Switching it on: two switches
Self-booking only appears to a client when both of these are set. That's the safety catch — nothing goes live by accident.
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Turn on the feature and set your hours
Go to Self-Booking under Configure and switch it on. This is where you tell Woofle the times of day you're open to requests — more on the settings below. This is a set-once job.
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Opt in the pets you're happy to offer it for
On a pet's profile, in the Scheduling section, set a self-booking slot length — how long a groom for that dog takes, in minutes. Setting a length both opts the pet in and tells Woofle how big a gap its owner needs to book. Leave it blank and that pet is simply not offered for self-booking. The client never sees or sets this.
Your self-booking settings
Everything on the Self-Booking page is about drawing a sensible boundary around when clients may request — the "when they're actually free" part is handled for you by your live calendar.
Working hours
For each day of the week you set the times you'll accept requests — or leave a day with no hours at all to keep it closed. You can add up to four separate ranges in a single day, which does two handy jobs:
- A lunch break. Set, say, 9:00–12:30 and 1:30–5:00 and the middle of the day simply isn't offered.
- Discrete start windows. Paired with the "only offer earliest time" option below, a handful of short ranges become a handful of specific start times you're happy for a day to begin at.
Lead time
The minimum notice you need, in hours. Set it to 24 and a client can't request anything sooner than a day away — so you're never ambushed by a "can I come in an hour" request. Any slot closer than your lead time is quietly left off the list.
Booking horizon
How far ahead clients may request, in days. A horizon of 28 lets them look about four weeks out and no further, which keeps requests realistic and stops someone pencilling in a slot for next Christmas.
Buffers
Optional gaps to keep before and after each groom — time to clean down, have a cup of tea, or get set up for the next dog. A buffer widens the space a slot needs, so genuinely back-to-back requests aren't offered unless you want them to be. Leave them at zero if you don't need any.
Only offer earliest time
By default Woofle offers every free start time in your working hours, on a 15-minute grid. Switch on only offer earliest time and it instead offers just the first free start in each of your working ranges. Because availability is always worked out live, your day then packs neatly front-to-back: a client takes the 9:00, and the next person is offered 10:00, and so on. It's a gentler, tidier way to fill a day — especially alongside a few short working ranges, where each range becomes one clean start time you're offering.
What your client sees
Once it's live for them, a client visiting their portal finds a Request an appointment task on their home page. It's the same personal portal they already use for their details and documents — no app to install, no login to remember, just their private link.
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Pick the pet
If they have more than one dog opted in, they choose which one first. If only one is eligible, Woofle skips straight past this.
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Pick a time
They see the days that have space, each opening out into a row of time pills to tap — only the times that genuinely fit are shown. They can add a short note if they'd like ("she's a bit nervous of the dryer"), then confirm.
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They're told it's a request
The portal confirms the slot they've asked for and makes clear you'll be in touch to confirm — it never pretends the appointment is booked. From then on that pet shows a Pending marker on their portal, and the request page shows their outstanding request rather than the form.
Because the times are drawn from your live calendar, two clients are never shown the same slot as free once one of them has asked for it — a pending request holds its slot, so it drops off everyone else's list straight away.
Handling requests
A new request doesn't text you or interrupt your day — it simply appears where you'll see it, ready when you next look. It turns up in two places:
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On your dashboard — Booking Requests
A Booking Requests queue lists each pending request as a card: the pet, the client, the date and time they've asked for, and any note they left. This is your to-do list of requests to deal with.
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On your calendar
Each pending request also appears right on your calendar, in the slot it's asking for, drawn as a tentative, dashed hold so it's clearly not a confirmed booking. It shows across your day, week and month views, so you can see a request in the context of the day it wants. In day and week view it even carries little approve and decline buttons, so you can action it without leaving the calendar.
Wherever you action it from, you have two choices.
Approve — it opens your normal booking window
Approving doesn't quietly create an appointment behind your back. It opens the same Create Appointment window you always use, already filled in with the pet, the date, the time and the client's note. You do what you'd do for any booking: set the service and price, adjust anything you like — you can even pick a different slot — and book it. The act of booking the appointment is what approves the request.
Once booked it's a completely ordinary appointment — it shows on your calendar, counts in your reports, and feeds reminders and re-book nudges just like any other. And because it went through the normal booking window, the usual confirmation text is right there for you to send, telling the client their requested slot is confirmed.
Decline — with an optional word back
If a slot doesn't suit, decline the request. You can add a short reason, and — if you'd like — send the client a text to let them know, so they're not left waiting. Woofle comes with a wording for this you can edit on your Message Templates page, and as with every text in Woofle it only goes out because you chose to send it. Declining without a text is perfectly fine too; the request just clears from your queue.
When a request quietly disappears
A pending request looks after itself in a couple of tidy ways, so your queue never fills with stale entries:
- Its time passes. If the slot a request asked for comes and goes without you actioning it, the request simply drops off your queue and calendar — there's nothing to book any more. You're never nagged about a request for a time that's already been and gone.
- The client cancels it. As above, a client can withdraw their own pending request, which removes it from your queue and frees the slot.
Putting it together
Switch self-booking on, set your working hours and a sensible lead time and horizon once, and opt in the pets whose owners you're happy to let book this way. From then on those clients can ask for a groom from their own phone, at a time you're really free, and each request waits quietly in your Booking Requests queue and on your calendar. You approve the ones that suit — setting the price as you book — and decline the ones that don't, with a friendly word back if you like. No phone tag, no double-bookings, and no second diary to keep straight.
Self-booking sits alongside the rest of your client portal — details, documents and photos. For the wider picture, see Setting Up Your Client Portal, or browse the full guides index.