Distribution method: Pooled availability

Pooled availability combines the availability of multiple Team members and displays this to Customers as a single booking calendar. When a Customer selects a time, the booking is automatically assigned to the Team member with the longest idle time, meaning the Team member who has not received a booking in the longest time.

Pooled availability is a Customer-focused distribution method that should be used if your top priority is providing Customers with the maximum number of time slots. Pooled availability can be used in multi-user scenarios, single-user scenarios, resource scheduling, and location scheduling. You can set up Pooled availability in a Rule-based assignment Master page using Static rules

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How are bookings assigned with Pooled availability? 

When a Customer selects a time on your Master page, OnceHub first checks which Team members are available at the time selected by the Customer. Then, the booking is assigned to the Team member with the longest idle time.

Using Pooled availability in Master pages with Static rules

  1. Create a Booking page for each member, resource, or any other entity that you would like to automatically assign. Don't configure any Booking page settings yet.
  2. To use Pooled availability, you must use at least one Event type. You can use multiple Event types to represent different types of meetings, or a single Event type if you provide only one type of meeting type.
    If you use only one Event type, the system will automatically select it for the Customer. 

    NoteAll Event types used in Pooled availability must use Automatic booking mode. Pooled availability is not possible in Booking with approval mode.

  3. Associate your Event types with your Booking pages in the Event types section of the Booking page (Figure 1).  If you've created just one Event type, all the Booking pages that are used with Pooled availability should be linked to this Event type.
    Figure 1: Event types section 
  4. You can now configure the rest of the settings on the Booking pages and the Event types.

    NoteIf you have Booking pages with different time zones, the Time zone conversion setting for displaying time slots in your Customer's local time must be enabled in the Time slots section.

  5. Go back to Booking pages and create a new Master page.
  6. Select Rule-based assignment as the Master page scenario.
  7. In your newly created Master page, go to the Assignment section and follow these steps:
    • In the Rule types section, select Static.
    • In the Distribution method section, select Pooled availability.  
    • Finally, in the Included Booking pages section, select the Booking pages whose availability you would like to combine into one single booking calendar. You can add or remove Booking pages from here at any time.
  8. Next, go to the Labels and instructions section and define the Public labels that your Customers will see. Here, you can also define selection instructions for your Customers.

You're all set! You can test the page by clicking the Customer link in the Share & Publish section of the the Master page's Overview section.

Note

You can also use Pooled availability with Resource pools. Learn more about Resource pools with Pooled availability distribution

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