Availability Schedule

Overview

Your Booking hours define recurring weekly time slots when students can book lessons with you. Configured directly on your teaching calendar, your booking hours:

• Appear as teal background shading on your calendar (controlled by the Show booking hours toggle)
• Display on your public profile so prospective and enrolled students can see when you are free
• Power catalog bookings, direct-message inquiries, and reschedule requests — students can book open group class meetings, inquire about one-to-one hours, or pick preferred time windows when requesting a reschedule

Setting Up Your Booking Hours

Access the Editor

1. Go to Schedule (/platform/schedule) in the sidebar.
2. Click the "Booking hours" button on the calendar toolbar.

Painting Free Time on the Schedule

Clicking Booking hours turns the weekly calendar into an interactive paint surface:

• Dimmed background lessons: Any existing lessons dim into the background so you can clearly see available slots without visual distraction.
• Top guidance banner: A banner across the top reminds you: "Students can book a lesson with you in the marked hours. Drag across the calendar to mark the hours for every week." along with Cancel and Save buttons.

Click and Drag to Paint or Erase

• Painting hours: Click on any empty 30-minute cell (00:00–24:00) and drag across hours or days. The cells turn teal to mark your open booking windows.
• Erasing hours: Click and hold starting on an already-marked teal cell, then drag across the blocks you want to clear. The cells revert to unshaded.
• Single click: Click any cell to toggle it between open and closed.

Keyboard Navigation

You can adjust your booking windows using keyboard controls:

• Use the arrow keys (Up, Down, Left, Right) to move focus between days and 30-minute increments.
• Press Space or Enter to toggle the focused cell between open and cleared.

Automatic Daily Summary

As you mark or erase cells, the editor combines continuous blocks into clean time windows and lists them below the grid:

• For example: Monday: 09:00–12:00, 14:00–18:00 or Wednesday: 10:00–15:00.
• Windows that extend to midnight end at 23:59 to maintain accurate calendar boundaries.

Saving or Cancelling Changes

• Save: Click Save to confirm your weekly booking windows in the calendar's time zone. This saves your changes and automatically turns on availability shading.
• Cancel: Click Cancel to discard unsaved edits and return the calendar to normal view.
• Untouched days remain intact: Any day you do not modify retains its previously saved hours.

Viewing Booking Hours on Your Calendar

The Schedule toolbar includes a "Show booking hours" toggle.

Toolbar Controls & Empty State Hint

• Toggle ON: Teal semi-transparent shading appears behind your calendar grid, showing your open booking windows.
• Toggle OFF: Booking window shading is hidden, showing only scheduled lessons and placeholders.
• Saved preference: Your toggle choice is remembered in your browser across sessions.
• Empty state reminder: If you have not configured any booking hours yet, the toolbar shows: "Students cannot book a lesson with you because you have not marked your booking hours." along with a direct Mark hours link that enters paint mode immediately.

Calendar Shading Appearance

Booking hours appear as soft teal background shading behind your lessons. Hour grid lines and lesson cards remain fully readable on top of the shading.

Bands repeat across every future week according to your weekly pattern.

Availability on Your Public Profile

Students browsing your public profile see an interactive Available times and class lessons section:

• Horizontal 21-Day Rail: A horizontal Choose a day rail displays 3 full weeks (21 days) of upcoming schedule dates.
• Time-of-Day Segments: Time slots are organized into clear segments: Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.
• Clear Time Windows: Shows whole availability windows (such as "09:00 – 12:00") rather than sliced hours, making your schedule easy to understand at a glance.
• One-to-One Inquiries via "Write about this time": Visitors clicking an open one-to-one slot (One-to-one lesson, 60 minutes) see "Write about this time". This opens Messages (/platform/messages) with a pre-filled direct message in the student's local timezone (for example: "Hello! I would like to study with you. Tuesday, 14:00–15:00 (60 minutes) works for me.").
• Interactive Class Booking Cards in Messages: When prospective students book upcoming catalog group class meetings, their booking requests arrive directly in Messages (/platform/messages) as interactive cards with Accept and Decline options.
• Retirement of Old Join Requests Queue: The former separate /platform/teacher/join-requests queue has been retired; visiting that address automatically redirects to Messages (/platform/messages).
• Dual Timezone Display: Automatically converts your slots into the visitor's local timezone while showing your teacher timezone for reference.

Google Calendar Sync

You can connect your personal Google Calendar to keep your teaching schedule coordinated across devices. Google Calendar settings are managed directly on the Schedule page:

Access Google Calendar Settings

1. Go to Schedule (/platform/schedule) in the sidebar.
2. Click the gear icon (Schedule settings) on the calendar toolbar. When Google Calendar integration is available, the gear icon displays a Google G badge.
3. The Schedule settings popover opens with all Google Calendar sync controls.

Connecting Your Account

1. In the Schedule settings popover, click "Connect" (or "Reconnect" if updating permissions).
2. Complete the Google sign-in consent prompt.
3. Once connected, the settings popover displays a green status dot alongside your connected Google account email.

Sync Settings Controls

The Schedule settings popover provides several sync controls:

• Target Calendar Picker: Choose which Google calendar receives your Locuto lessons.
• "Add my Locuto lessons to Google": Export toggle that automatically pushes your scheduled Locuto lessons to your chosen Google calendar.
• "Block slots when I am busy in Google": Busy import toggle. Busy events on your Google Calendar import into Locuto as background shading so students cannot book those slots, while your existing lesson cards remain undisturbed.
• "All-day events block the whole day": When enabled, all-day events on your Google Calendar block your entire day in Locuto.
• "Disconnect": Disconnects your Google account. A confirmation dialog offers an optional checkbox: "Remove Locuto lessons from Google Calendar" so you can choose whether to keep or remove previously exported events.

Privacy & Protection

• Your privacy is protected: Locuto checks only whether you are busy or free. Your Google event titles, descriptions, locations, and attendee lists are never read or stored.
• Student information remains private: Exported Google events do not contain student contact details or email invitations.
• Locuto remains the authority: Locuto is the primary record for your classes. Rescheduling or deleting an exported event in Google Calendar does not alter your lesson in Locuto.

Time Zones

All booking hours are stored in your configured timezone (displayed on the calendar). When students view your availability:

• Times are converted to their local timezone automatically
• The teacher's timezone is displayed for reference
• Daylight saving time transitions are applied automatically

Best Practices

• Mark genuine availability: Mark only the windows when you are ready to teach, leaving room for preparation and breaks.
• Review background shading: Keep Show booking hours enabled periodically to make sure your weekly slots line up with your intended teaching routine.
• Use Google Calendar busy import: Enable "Block slots when I am busy in Google" so personal appointments automatically prevent student bookings without having to re-paint your weekly hours.

Troubleshooting

Booking Hours Not Showing on Calendar

1. Verify that the "Show booking hours" toggle is turned ON in the calendar toolbar.
2. Check that you have clicked "Booking hours", painted your hours, and clicked Save.
3. Navigate to the current or a future week — booking hours appear on active and upcoming dates.

Students Cannot See My Booking Hours

1. Ensure your profile is visible in the directory (configured in Profile settings under Public catalog).
2. Check that your profile status is set to "Available".
3. Verify that you have saved booking hours on the Schedule page.

Wrong Times Displayed

1. Check your timezone setting in Profile settings.
2. Verify that the student is viewing the schedule in their correct local timezone.

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Next Steps

• Live Sessions -- Schedule and conduct live teaching sessions
• Managing Enrollments -- Manage student access to your courses
• Classes -- Organize students into classes and cohorts