Pooling calendar availability in Acuity Scheduling

Assign appointments based on priority or using a round-robin option.

If you offer an appointment type on more than one calendar, by default, clients need to select one of the calendars to view the appointment type's available times. 

To display all possible appointment times across calendars, use pooled availability. After clients pick a time, the appointment is added to a calendar using either a priority or round-robin method. 

Tip: If you only have one calendar, some of the settings described below won’t be visible and you won’t be able to pool your calendars.

Turn availability pooling on or off

If availability pooling is turned on, when clients select an appointment type that’s offered on two or more calendars, they can click “Any Available” to view combined availability for all calendars, or they can choose a calendar.

To turn calendar pooling on or off:

1. Open the Scheduling Page panel and click Settings.
2. Click Calendars.
3. Switch the “Any available” option toggle on or off. Turning off this option disables the other two  pooling options, and clients need to choose a calendar.
4. Click Save.

Choose how calendars are prioritized with pooled availability

When calendar pooling is enabled, you can choose to prioritize calendars by the fewest number of appointments, or by the order they appear in your Availability panel. Only the calendars with availability during the client’s requested time slot will be offered.

To change how pooled appointments are assigned:

1. Open the Scheduling Page panel and click Settings.
2. Click Calendars.
3. Switch the “Any available” option toggle on, then switch on the toggle for the calendar pooling option you want:
   • Automatically assign a calendar - Clients don’t pick a calendar. Their appointment is automatically assigned to the calendar with the fewest appointments that day.
   • Prioritize "Any Available" - When clients choose “Any Available”, calendars are prioritized alphabetically instead of the number of appointments.
4. Click Save.

How calendars are prioritized

If you choose to assign calendars based on priority instead of number of upcoming appointments, Acuity will rank calendars based on the list of calendars in your Availability settings.

To review the order of your calendars, in Acuity, click Availability. Calendars are listed in alphabetical order. To change the order, add spaces in front of the calendars’ names. These spaces are counted as coming before the letter A, but aren’t displayed to clients. Review the example below: