To leave a gap or buffer between appointments, padding can be added to the Appointment Type by clicking "Block off extra time before or after..."
For example, to leave a 20 minute space between appointments for travel, clean up, prep for next appointment, or a snack/bathroom break, you'll enter 20 minutes after the appointment:
The Client's Scheduling Page will only show the duration of the appointment to the client, but will block off the duration plus the padding on your calendar. In this example, the appointment would show as a 45-minute appointment, but the total duration of the appointment (including the 20 minutes of padding) is 65 minutes. There must be enough availability for the duration plus padding, otherwise availability will not show on the scheduling page.
Keep in mind:
- Each block of padding is separate. So, if you have 30 minutes of padding after Appointment A, and 30 minutes of padding before Appointment B, Acuity will put 60 minutes of padding between the two.
- When you add padding and also sync to an external calendar (Google calendar, Outlook, or iCloud), padding is not included in the synced appointment! We only sync the duration field over, not the padding field.
- If turning an appointment type that has padding into a group class, the padding will be lost.
- Before padding is not considered for the first time in the availability timeslot. So, if your availability is set for 9am-11am, then 12pm-3pm, before padding would not apply to appointments booked at 9am or 12pm.