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.

Make pooling automatic, optional, or unavailable

You have three options for pooling availability:

• Pool automatically - Clients don’t pick a calendar. When they select an appointment type, Acuity shows them all possible appointment times. This makes the booking experience simpler for them and hides the list of available calendars.
• Offer pooling as an option - Acuity includes Any available on your list of calendars. Clients who click that option see all possible appointment times. This is the default behavior if you have two or more calendars that offer the same appointment type.
• Prevent pooling - Acuity lists the specific calendars that are available. Clients need to choose one to see its available appointment times.

By default, pooling availability is enabled if you have at least one appointment type that’s offered on two or more calendars. To change that:

1. In Acuity, click Scheduling Page, then click Settings.
2. Select a calendar pooling option:
   
   • Calendars: Pool Availability and Automatically Pick an Available Calendar will make pooling automatic.
   • Calendars: Hide "any available" Option from Calendar List will prevent calendar pooling.
3. Click Save Changes.

Decide how Acuity assigns appointments when pooling availability

When calendar pooling is enabled, Acuity assigns appointments to your calendars in one of two ways:

• Round Robin — Acuity assigns appointments to a calendar that's open at the client’s desired time, and has the fewest other appointments that day. This is the default behavior if you have calendar pooling enabled.
• Priority — Acuity goes through the list of calendars in your Availability settings in order, until it finds one with the requested time slot open.

To decide how pooled appointments are assigned:

1. In Acuity, click Scheduling Page, then click Settings.
2. Select a calendar pooling option:
   
   • Calendars: Pool Availability and Automatically Pick an Available Calendar for round robin.
   • Calendars: Prioritize Calendars with "Any Available" Instead of Round Robin for priority.
3. Click Save Changes.

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: